Rich People Flee California With $1 Trillion Before Left's Wealth Confiscation Plans Take Hold

That was fast. A Silicon Valley who’s who have left the state to keep the communist left’s hand off their private property.

The rule is simple: If you want less of something, you tax it. California apparently wants fewer rich people, so leftist union members are proposing a billionaire tax be put on the ballot. And voila! Mission accomplished: The state has lost a reported ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in wealth from Silicon Valley tech billionaires since an SEIU leader proposed this private property confiscation scheme dressed up as a "billionaire tax."

If this retroactive confiscation scheme makes the ballot, it would be the equivalent of two wolves and one lamb voting on what's for dinner. And it wouldn't stop with billionaires. The income tax started out as a scheme to tax rich people. It didn't stay that way and neither will this. Indeed, it's worse than an income tax. It allows the government to come into your home and office and assess a value on nearly everything you own. Indeed, you wouldn't "own" anything after this. 

The tax has been embraced by the guy who was once considered to be the last reasonable Democrat in the state, Congressman Ro Khanna (☭, Silicon Valley), and, naturally, the millionaire who owns three homes, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

On December 8, I wrote about this wealth tax in "California's Last Stand." Gov. Gavin Newsom, while he claims not to support this government confiscation scheme, has not made a robust case against it because he needs the commies to vote for him for president in 2028. 

There comes a point at which the velocity of stupid outpaces, and then laps, the rigors of reason. California is about to get lapped.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and his leftist legislative supermajority and their union buddies have finally run out of other people's money. The left's fix for this is to chase away all the rest of the billionaires who still call California home by pushing a ballot initiative demanding a 5% retroactive wealth tax on the net worth of billionaires. 

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As a result of the left's never ending envy of people who do big things and make big money, everything from paintings, investments, patents, trade marks, stock and stock options, intellectual property — real and unrealized gains — of over a billion dollars would be plundered to backfill the left's latest disastrous overspending on "free" health care for illegal aliens. 

Google co-founder Larry Page moved to Miami and reportedly re-domiciled his businesses in Delaware in December. Sergey Brin, Google's other co-founder, is also moving to Miami.

In December, David Sacks moved to Austin. He has said the Miami and Austin will replace New York City and San Francisco as the centers of the tech and financial universe. The co-owner of the venture capital firm Craft Ventures, who also became part of the PayPal mafia with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, is currently the crypto and AI czar for the Trump administration. Sacks re-domiciled — moved — to Austin, Texas, from San Francisco. He joins another one of his All-In podcast buddies, Jason Calacanis, who had already moved to Austin because of state's buffoonish COVID policies. Sacks's partner at Craft, Bill Lee, moved to Austin in 2022. 

🔥 David Sacks Has Officially Left California for Texas, and Chamath May Be Right Behind Him

“Shout out to our boy Ro Khanna, for driving everybody out of the state.” pic.twitter.com/XaeR7FBe2i

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 10, 2026

Thiel announced in December that he's re-domiciled in Florida. Musk led the way by fleeing Silicon Valley in 2020 and making Teslas in Texas. Newsom previously crowed about Musk plussing up his Tesla engineering in Silicon Valley, but it's not much of a success story. Newsom discussed Musk moving that engineering cadre to what used to be the HP facility. HP, one of the founding companies of Silicon Valley, moved out of California during Newsom's term in 2022.  

Another one of their members of the All-In podcast, Chamath Palihapitiya, says he's considering moving and has begun looking for a home in Texas. 

He's also done the math and believes the fleeing wealth is now up to $1 trillion. 

Unfortunate update as of today:

More calls from friends. The total wealth that has left California is now $1T.

We had $2T of billionaire wealth just a few weeks ago. Now, 50% of that wealth has left - taking their income tax revenue, sales tax revenue, real estate tax revenue… https://t.co/IQZFieRgL7

— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) January 11, 2026

This greedy tax to strip-mine private property of its worth is the latest obsession of the left. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson thinks this wealth confiscation is such a great idea that he's proposing one for his state's tech billionaires too. 

As Palihapitiya points out, the math doesn't math if this remains only a billionaire tax. 

California is disguising a proposed asset seizure tax as a "Billionaire Tax," but the math doesn't add up.

They wanted $100B from 200 Californian billionaires but $500B in wealth has already fled the state, leaving a $25B hole in their plan.

And it’s still only a proposal.… https://t.co/Ygy3mX7Tys

— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) January 6, 2026

Financier Grant Cardone agrees that this tax will levy a tax based on the value of things from everyone, not just ultra rich people. 

Ca Billionaire Tax is new tax system to apply a tax on ALL property owned, not just real estate but stocks, bonds, furniture, autos, cash, gold, silver - everything.

And don’t believe it’s about billionaire $8T, they want to tax their entire $170T property owned by middle class.… pic.twitter.com/4H6qZuzosn

— Grant Cardone (@GrantCardone) January 11, 2026

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman calls this proposed idea "an expropriation of private property."