A number of billionaires in the Golden State are fired up over a possible one-time 5% tax on their wealth. The proposal, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West and first put forth in October, still has to get 875,000 valid voter signatures by June to even make it onto next year’s ballot. It then would face legal challenges not to mention an uphill battle in the voting booths.

That hasn’t stopped California’s richest people from sounding the alarms. On Monday, Rippling’s billionaire CEO Parker Conrad posted “Leave California before the series B.” Uber founder Travis Kalanick resurfaced a 2009 blog post he wrote on California’s high taxes, adding that “California has been the most wasteful and most corrupt of all the 50 states for a lonnnnggg time.” Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has taken to X daily, denouncing the proposed tax as an asset seizure and posting economic data showing rising spending. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” he tweeted on Tuesday, calling it an “absolutely horrible idea” that will ruin California’s tech economy.

Some longtime residents are already packing up. Oracle’s Larry Ellison—who switched his voter registration to Florida in 2023 —has more than $1 billion in personal real estate, including a Hawaiian island and waterfront complex in Manalapan, Florida; he sold his Pacific Heights home in December for $45 million, a move that could have been tied to the January 1, 2026 deadline for determining residency for the potential billionaire tax.

Google cofounder Larry Page meanwhile spent $173.5 million on two Miami properties in December, just under the wire for moving, according to some. More than 45 companies associated with Page have filed documents to terminate or move out of the state in recent weeks, according to a New York Times analysis. Peter Thiel’s investment firm, Thiel Capital, announced on New Year’s Eve that it had opened a Miami office while Thiel, who settled in California nearly 50 years ago, gave $3 million in December to the California Business Roundtable, a state business lobby that will be pushing back on the tax. Even several democrats have panned it. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman called the proposed tax “badly designed in so many ways that a simple social post cannot cover all of the massive flaws.”

Meanwhile, Democratic governor Gavin Newsom told the New York Times on Monday that he would fight it to protect the state. Only one billionaire has publicly taken it in stride. “We chose to live in Silicon Valley and whatever taxes I guess they would like to apply, so be it,” Nvidia’s Jensen Huang said on Bloomberg TV. “I’m perfectly fine with it.”

This battle over taxes is not new. California already has the highest state income tax rate in the nation, at 13.3%, including a 1% surcharge on income over $1 million that was passed by voter referendum in 2004. Some billionaires left the state long ago.

“Everyone's going to go........

© Forbes