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As Margaret Thatcher famously said, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other peoples’ money. As California’s socialist voters are finding out, though: the bigger problem is that you have to get your claws on other peoples’ money first. And the very rich are nothing if not adept at not parting with their money if they can help it.
Even, for all their right-on socialist posturing, the mega-wealthy lefties of California.
California lost a mind-boggling nearly $1 trillion in wealth in the past month alone thanks to fears over its proposed “Billionaire Tax,’’ according to one of the state’s wealthiest residents.
The under-fire measure, which even lefty Gov Gavin Newsom opposes, would slap a onetime five per cent tax on residents worth more than $1 billion as of Jan 1, 2026.
“Collectively, the amount of billionaire wealth that has left California in the last month (!) is now in excess of $700B,” fumed venture capitalist and former Facebook exec Chamath Palihapitiya on X on Friday.
“That means the $2T of California wealth they expected to tax is now down to $1.3T and falling quickly.
Billionaires are many things, but completely stupid is rarely one of them. Even the stump-dumbest heir can easily afford very smart financial advisors, add to that the wherewithal to live wherever they damn well please. California is finding out exactly what Britain’s 1970s’ socialist governments did: the wealthy just up and go where the taxes are lowest.
The mere fear of the possibility of the measure – which could go to the polls in November 2026, making its potential start date retroactive – has reportedly left a slew of California’s roughly 215 billionaires to scoop up homes in states such as Florida and Tennessee and relocate at least some of their company offices out of state, too.
For example, while California had previously been the promised land for tech titans, more than 45 LLCs in the state tied to Google co-founder Larry Page have recently filed to go inactive or relocate out of state – as a trust linked to him snapped up a $71.9 million mansion in Miami’s Coconut Grove.
Last month, an entity linked to his Google partner Sergey Brin also either dissolved or relocated 15 California LLCs overseeing his business interests and investments to Reno, Nev.
In-N-Out heiress Lynsi Snyder meanwhile relocated to Tennessee and established a second corporate office there.
Failing that, there’s always the option of becoming an on-paper resident of tax haven Puerto Rico. For a paltry (for a billionaire) $50,000, a passport from St Kitts and Nevis is also a passport to tax-free living.
None of which California’s socialist powerbrokers seem to remotely understand.
But the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West labor union, which is leading the push for the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, said the money would help restore healthcare funds lost to federal cuts and support public schools in California.
Except that, as we see, exactly the opposite is happening. With billionaires fleeing the state, revenue is falling. So healthcare funds and public schools will end up with even less money.
Wise up: you can’t spend other peoples’ money if they take it somewhere else.
