Tech billionaires in California are furious. A new proposal for a wealth tax on the super rich has them packing their bags and threatening to leave the Golden State for good. (Again.)
Oligarchs regularly make such threats and fail to follow through, so we must take such antics with a grain of salt. But the possibility of a new tax on super wealth shows that backlash against the fat cat class is coming, and the billionaires’ threats to flee show just how much they fear fairness and accountability.
The Service Employees International Union-United Health Workers union is pushing a ballot measure to impose a one-time 5% tax on California billionaires. If approved by voters, it would apply retroactively to anyone living in the state on January 1, 2026.
Billionaires including Peter Thiel, the tech venture capitalist, and Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, are considering cutting or reducing their ties to California by the end of the year because of a proposed ballot measure that could tax the state’s wealthiest residents, according to five people familiar with their thinking.
Page (net worth: $258 billion) would owe $12 billion, reports the NYT, while Thiel would owe $1.2 billion. About 200 billionaires total would contribute roughly $100 billion to offset the federal budget cuts their preferred political project is about to unleash on the country, according to the union.
Billionaires regularly threaten to abandon California. It’s a go-to move any time they don't like a law or policy. The right-wing media, like Chicken Little, has spent decades crying that the sky is falling in California. “Everyone leaving California” is one of their favorite storylines.
If the billionaires are this scared, we can assume that polls show strong support for the tax. A recent poll by the Economist/YouGov found that 60% of Americans think billionaires don't pay enough in taxes and 80% think rich people have too much power. Those numbers will likely be much higher in California.
Even Ro Khanna, Silicon Valley’s congressman, has jumped on the bandwagon. “I echo what FDR said with sarcasm of economic royalists when they threatened to leave, ‘I will miss them very much,’” Khanna, who is cozy with some of the worst billionaires in tech, wrote on X.
This drew howls of protest from several tech zillionaires, who are now threatening to fund a primary challenge against him. These billionaires have openly supported Trump’s authoritarian regime because they can’t fathom the idea of being held accountable for their actions. But the future is coming fast, and with it a tremendous backlash against the evils and excesses of Silicon Valley.
If I have one criticism of this proposal, it’s that the tax doesn't go far enough. It’s quite modest compared to the scale of wealth extraction we’re witnessing and the existential threat these billionaires pose to democratic governance. But it’s a start.