• A proposed California ballot initiative seeks a one-time 5% tax on individuals with more than $1 billion net worth, aiming to raise $100 billion.

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They are airing their grievances in an active Signal chat called, “Save California.” The chat includes dozens of tech elite, including Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, Trump administration crypto czar David Sacks, and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, a big Kamala Harris donor. The participants have sounded off against the tax, suggested alternatives and, in some cases, shared about their efforts to weaken their ties to California.

Messages in the online cocoon have lambasted the proposal as “Communism” and “poorly defined” because it would lead to tech founders and their companies exiting California and a weakened Silicon Valley. Others have focused on their love for California and on how the state can create economic growth and jobs or, in the words of one message to the group chat, be “pro-prosperity for all.”

Participants have said California should first focus on rooting out fraud and waste before searching for new sources of funds. Some have pointed to social-media posts by Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge-fund manager based in New York, suggesting the closure of a tax loophole the ultrawealthy sometimes use as a better alternative for raising revenue.

Some Golden State billionaires have already taken steps to create more distance. Peter Thiel’s private investment firm Thiel Capital, which has been largely based in Los Angeles, said it signed a lease for office space in Miami.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin—two of the world’s richest people, each with an estimated fortune of more than $250 billion—have been shopping for new Florida homes. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Page spent $173.4 million on two waterfront estates in Miami, and that Brin was in discussions to buy a Miami home.

Garry Tan, chief executive of startup incubator Y Combinator, in late December posted on X, “We would have to consider Austin or Cambridge programs if this [wealth tax] were to pass the ballot.”

The proposed ballot initiative that has kicked off billionaire agita was introduced by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West in October. It calls for a one-time 5% tax on the assets of individuals with a net worth of more than $1 billion.

The proposal would tax an individual’s holdings around the world, including stock in public and private companies and assets like artwork. It would exclude the value of certain retirement accounts and real estate. 

The SEIU-UHW expects the tax would raise some $100 billion from about 200 individuals and would offset looming healthcare cuts in the GOP tax bill signed into law last year by President Trump. The union’s revenue estimate accounts for some degree of evasion by billionaires.

In a statement, Debru Carthan, an executive committee member of the union, said, “We’re simply trying to keep emergency rooms open and save patient lives…the few who left have shown the world just how outrageously greedy they truly are.”

The proposal needs about 875,000 signatures to get on the November ballot, where it would need a simple majority to pass. It would retroactively apply to billionaires who were residents of the state on Jan. 1, 2026.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who lives in the Bay Area and now has a roughly $150 billion nest egg, has said he was fine with the tax.

The billionaires on the Save California chat—which also includes venture capitalist John Hering, a prominent backer of Elon Musk’s ventures—are less sanguine.

Some members messaged that they didn’t want to move from California because they are settled with their families, but felt frustrated with Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.), whose district covers Silicon Valley and has been an outspoken proponent of the proposed levy. The New York Times earlier reported that some billionaires had privately communicated on a long-shot effort to unseat Khanna.

Khanna said in an interview that the wealth tax should be structured in a way that isn’t a tax on illiquid stakes or voting shares. “There has to be some provisions in addressing that,” he said. “I’m working to bring together tech leaders and labor leaders to have those conversations.”

One co-drafter of the tax proposal, David Gamage, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, said individuals wouldn’t be forced to liquidate shares, noting that options such as borrowing against assets and deferring payments are available.

Some ideas floated by billionaires and conveyed to labor leaders include: giving the government illiquid stock for around 10 years as a no- or low-interest loan; taxing the loans on assets; or applying the tax to stock that is already public, people familiar with the discussions said.

Phone calls are slated for next week to explore a possible consensus, though there are also calls slated to explore how the billionaires could defeat the tax proposal. 

On the Signal chat, some participants have raised the idea that economic growth, as measured by GDP, slowed in some countries that have enacted wealth taxes. 

Discussion also has touched on the effect Silicon Valley enjoys from the clustering of tech founders, companies, investors and universities. Some feared an exodus of entrepreneurs would dampen that effect. 

Supporters of the tax cite the growth of many California-based companies, including the run-up in artificial intelligence, and say the state’s billionaires would remain among the world’s richest people after the tax.

Advisers working with the union to get the proposal on the ballot have said the 5% tax rate was modest because billionaires’ wealth has been growing an average 7.5% a year, controlling for inflation.

Some wealthy California residents with long memories worry the one-time tax could become permanent. In 2012, California voters passed Proposition 30, which introduced a temporary tax increase for top earners, said Jared Walczak of the conservative Tax Foundation. Another proposition later extended those income tax changes until 2030. 

A teachers union is making an effort to introduce an initiative on the November ballot making the higher rates permanent, Walczak said. California has one of the highest top income-tax rates in the nation, at 13.3%, not counting a significant state payroll tax.

San Francisco accountant Richard Pon, whose clients include ultrahigh net-worth individuals, said he generally is opposed to higher taxes and identifies as Republican because of that stance. But he supports the healthcare union’s proposal.

“I’m not going to be a billionaire,” Pon said. “It’s never going to impact me.”