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It’s a political earthquake. The wealthiest Californians are fleeing the state and taking their capital, resources and companies with them.
The SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, a statewide union of service employees in California, introduced a ballot measure called the Billionaire Tax Act, to implement a one-time 5% tax on the net worth over $1 billion on any California resident. The tax is on total net worth, not income, and would snag rich people who have the bulk of their wealth in stock or property.
The idea has yet to be voted on, and supporters of the measure will need nearly a million signatures by late June to get it on the ballot for November 2026.
But wealthy Californians are already running for the door because the language in the draft of the measure sets the tax retroactively to January 1, 2026, and they know they can’t rely on their fellow Californians to vote down the absurd proposal.
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Suzanne Jimenez, a chief of staff for SEIU-UHW who introduced the measure, calls it “a very minor tax.”
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google, are the latest to bail on California. Garry Tan, president & CEO of Y Combinator and self-described “San Francisco Democrat” explained on X that the wealth tax wouldn’t actually end up being “5%” of a billionaire’s net worth.
“Larry and Sergey can’t stay in California since the wealth tax as written would confiscate 50% of their Alphabet shares. Each own ~3% of Alphabet’s stock, worth about $120 billion each at today’s ~$4 trillion market cap. But because their shares have 10x voting power, the SEIU-UHW California billionaire tax would treat them as owning 30% of Alphabet (3% × 10 = 30%). That means each founder’s taxable wealth would be $1.2 trillion. A 5% wealth tax on $1.2 trillion = $60 billion tax bill, each. That’s 50% of their actual Alphabet holdings—wiped out by a ‘5%’ tax.”
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This language isn’t an accident. Asset seizure is the ultimate plan of the socialists writing these proposals. Wealth isn’t to be permitted in the socialist utopia and must be redistributed.
Chamath Palihapitiya, a tech billionaire and one of the hosts of the “All-In” podcast, hasn’t left yet but is weighing his options. Palihapitiya puts the number of billionaire wealth that has left California in just the last month “in excess of $700B.” He explains that the amount of wealth the proposal hoped to tax has already significantly decreased.
“That means the $2T of California wealth they expected to tax is now down to $1.3T and falling quickly. I would not be surprised if 2026 ended with less than $1T of billionaire wealth in California and decades and hundreds of lawsuits. A complete and total unforced error. Where was the Governor? Where are our leaders??”
That’s a good question, and billionaires who specifically supported Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom and the rest of the Democratic political apparatus in California should be demanding an answer.
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Palihapitiya is hoping the measure is voted down and California will work to “entice those folks to come back” or, he warns, “the California budget will be massively upside down.” But why would they return? Billionaires are human and moving their entire lives, often uprooting their kids and moving them to new schools, isn’t so simple to undo. And anyway, a measure like this could be introduced again at any time and, in fact, Assemblymember Alex Lee, D-San José, has for years pushed a similar wealth tax albeit at only a modest 1.5% confiscation rate.
But wealthy Californians are already running for the door because the language in the draft of the measure sets the tax retroactively to January 1, 2026, and they know they can’t rely on their fellow Californians to vote down the absurd proposal.
When the billionaires don’t return, because they’ve set up their lives elsewhere and realized a whole world exists outside California, the politicians will have to make up the shortfall elsewhere. Non-billionaires are paying attention. Jesse Tinsley, CEO and founder of several companies including Mainstreet.com, announced on Sunday, Jan. 11, “Add me to the list…headed to Florida.” Tinsley, who openly supported President Donald Trump in the last presidential election, isn’t a billionaire but he sees the writing on the wall. If all the billionaires bail to avoid the potential tax, the class of wealthy below them will be targeted next.
Those who supported the terrible politicians and backward policies that led to this moment should have to stay and deal with the consequences of what they’ve done. Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn and a billionaire famous for supporting Democrats, is about to become the living embodiment of the internet joke, “I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” Hoffman considered leaving the United States after Trump was elected in 2024 so he can’t exactly bolt for a red state to help protect his assets from the very people he helped elect.
Bad ideas have consequences and California has played a game of chicken with the far left and it looks like the far left is winning. As the billionaire exodus continues, those exiting should internalize what went wrong in their home state and aim not to repeat it in their new locale. California has become synonymous with failure. Leave that failure at home.
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