General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe entire list of 214 California billionaires potentially subject to California's proposed wealth tax on billionaires..
California has a lot of billionaires, more than any other state and more than most countries. So a proposed wealth tax on its billionaires could be a windfall, if they stick around. Under the Billionaire Tax Act, California residents worth over $1 billion would face a one-time tax totaling 5% of their assets. If the tax plan receives enough signatures, it will appear on the ballot in November and, if passed, would apply retroactively to billionaires living in the state as of January 1. The tax would be due in 2027, with the option to spread the payment out over five years, with interest.
https://www.businessinsider.com/california-billionaires-list-wealth-tax-2026-1
Of particular note to Democrats, one of the Democratic candidates for California Governor - Tom Steyer - himself a billionaire, has indicated that he is favor of the proposed wealth tax, that he will vote for the tax and that he will pay it.
https://fortune.com/2026/01/26/billionaire-tom-steyer-says-he-would-vote-for-california-wealth-tax/
If every one of the California's billionaires paid the proposed wealth tax, in excess of $109 million would be raised to backfill federal funding cuts for Medi-Cal, healthcare services, and social safety nets. However, several of California's billionaires have preemptively left the state to avoid the proposed wealth tax. They include the following:
Larry Page Google $261,809,000,000
Sergey Brin Google $241,572,000,000
Mark Zuckerberg Facebook $226,702,000,000
Peter Thiel Facebook, investments $25,819,000,000
Don Hankey Auto loans $8,152,000,000
Steven Spielberg Movies $7,056,000,000
Rodney Sacks Energy drinks $4,326,000,000
Travis Kalanick Uber $3,562,000,000
The entire list of 214 billionaires (both current California residents and those who recently left the state), how they made their money and their most current net worth:
Larry Page Google $261,809,000,000
Larry Ellison Oracle $247,373,000,000
Sergey Brin Google $241,572,000,000
Mark Zuckerberg Facebook $226,702,000,000
Jensen Huang Semiconductors $166,509,000,000
Eric Schmidt Google $36,235,000,000
Henry Samueli Semiconductors $32,780,000,000
Peter Thiel Facebook, investments $25,819,000,000
Robert Pera Wireless networking $25,757,000,000
Adam Foroughi marketing software, mobile games $23,387,000,000
Henry Nicholas III Semiconductors $22,379,000,000
John Doerr Venture capital $20,382,000,000
Donald Bren Real estate $19,212,000,000
Eric Smidt Hardware stores $17,923,000,000
John Tu Computer hardware $17,139,000,000
Jan Koum WhatsApp $17,139,000,000
David Sun Computer hardware $17,116,000,000
George Roberts Private equity $15,873,000,000
Laurene Powell (Steve) Jobs Apple, Disney $14,141,000,000
Jack Dangermond Mapping software $13,585,000,000
Charles Schwab Discount brokerage $13,482,000,000
Antony Ressler Finance $12,890,000,000
Vinod Khosla Sun Microsystems, venture capital $12,742,000,000
Riley Bechtel Engineering, construction $11,371,000,000
Dustin Moskovitz Facebook $11,206,000,000
Douglas Leone Venture capital $10,844,000,000
Chris Larsen Cryptocurrency $10,201,000,000
Tom Gores Private equity $10,056,000,000
Brian Armstrong Cryptocurrency $10,048,000,000
Marijke Mars Candy, pet food $10,024,000,000
Brian Chesky Airbnb $9,438,000,000
Andrew Karam Advertising technology $9,267,000,000
David Geffen Movies, record labels $9,265,000,000
Marc Benioff Business software $9,208,000,000
Nathan Blecharczyk Airbnb $8,943,000,000
Lynsi Snyder In-N-Out Burger $8,666,000,000
Steven Rales Manufacturing, investments $8,632,000,000
Don Hankey Auto loans $8,152,000,000
Tench Coxe Venture capital $7,993,000,000
Michael Moritz Venture capital $7,749,000,000
Edward Roski Jr Real estate $7,539,000,000
Michael Milken Investments $7,472,000,000
Steven Spielberg Movies $7,056,000,000
Edythe (Eli) Broad Homebuilding, insurance $6,998,000,000
Scott Cook Software $6,790,000,000
Baiju Bhatt Stock trading app $6,496,000,000
John A. Sobrato Real estate $6,346,000,000
Vlad Tenev Stock trading app $6,279,000,000
Stephen Cohen Software $6,081,000,000
Rick Caruso Real estate $5,918,000,000
Jayshree Ullal Computer networking $5,752,000,000
Archie Aldis Emmerson Timberland, lumber mills $5,618,000,000
Ken Xie Cybersecurity $5,540,000,000
Romesh T. Wadhwani Software $5,521,000,000
Neal Blue Defense $5,498,000,000
Gordon Getty Getty Oil $5,488,000,000
Patrick Soon-Shiong Pharmaceuticals $5,429,000,000
Jean Pritzker Hotels, investments $5,403,000,000
Lynda Resnick Agriculture $5,394,000,000
Stewart Resnick Agriculture $5,394,000,000
George Lucas Star Wars $5,293,000,000
Reed Hastings Netflix $5,136,000,000
Jim Coulter Private equity $5,083,000,000
Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer Cargill $5,041,000,000
Eric Yuan Zoom Video Communications $5,038,000,000
Eduardo Vivas marketing software, mobile games $5,009,000,000
Scott Crabill Private equity $4,893,000,000
Holden Spaht Private equity $4,888,000,000
David Baszucki Online games $4,871,000,000
Seth Boro Private equity $4,865,000,000
Jack Dorsey Twitter, Square $4,849,000,000
Dagmar Dolby Dolby Laboratories $4,763,000,000
Michael Xie Cybersecurity $4,685,000,000
David Filo Yahoo $4,559,000,000
Anthony Pritzker Hotels, investments $4,426,000,000
Rupert Johnson Jr Franklin Templeton $4,418,000,000
Donald Sterling Real estate $4,368,000,000
Rodney Sacks Energy drinks $4,326,000,000
Sanjit Biswas Sensor systems $4,086,000,000
Thomas Siebel Business software $4,050,000,000
John Bicket Sensor systems $3,957,000,000
Meg Whitman EBay $3,878,000,000
Jose E. Feliciano Private equity $3,877,000,000
Behdad Eghbali Private equity $3,856,000,000
Peter Gassner Software $3,828,000,000
Danny Harris Alo Yoga $3,729,000,000
John Fisher Gap $3,703,000,000
Daniela Amodei Artificial intelligence $3,700,000,000
Dario Amodei Artifical intelligence $3,700,000,000
Jack Clark Artificial intelligence $3,700,000,000
Jared Kaplan Artificial intelligence $3,700,000,000
Sam McCandlish Artificial intelligence $3,700,000,000
Tom Brown Artificial intelligence $3,700,000,000
Kavitark Ram Shriram Google, venture capital $3,699,000,000
Marco DeGeorge Alo Yoga $3,692,000,000
Hemant Taneja Venture capital $3,632,000,000
Brian Acton WhatsApp $3,581,000,000
Travis Kalanick Uber $3,562,000,000
Richard Peery Real estate $3,561,000,000
Palmer Luckey Virtual reality, defense technology $3,556,000,000
Parker Conrad Software $3,400,000,000
Frank Slootman Software $3,373,000,000
Jay Paul Real estate $3,267,000,000
George Argyros Real estate, investments $3,262,000,000
Haim Saban TV network, investments $3,250,000,000
Alexandr Wang artificial intelligence $3,215,000,000
Jeff Rothschild Facebook $3,213,000,000
William Chisholm Private equity $3,179,000,000
Jerry Yang Yahoo $3,073,000,000
Vasily Shikin marketing software, mobile games $3,068,000,000
Sean Parker Facebook $3,045,000,000
Nicolas Berggruen Real estate, investments $2,935,000,000
Tim Draper cryptocurrency $2,879,000,000
Daniel Pritzker Hotels, investments $2,874,000,000
Jed McCaleb Cryptocurrency $2,850,000,000
Aneel Bhusri Business software $2,824,000,000
Fred Ehrsam cryptocurrency exchange $2,784,000,000
Tony Xu food delivery service $2,730,000,000
John Pritzker Hotels, investments $2,699,000,000
George Joseph Insurance $2,660,000,000
Tim Cook Apple $2,625,000,000
Jeff T. Green Digital advertising $2,608,000,000
Evan Spiegel Snapchat $2,603,000,000
Anthony Wood Roku $2,551,000,000
Barbara Banke Wine $2,543,000,000
Jeff Tangney Healthcare IT $2,469,000,000
Reid Hoffman LinkedIn $2,462,000,000
Bruce Karsh Private equity $2,386,000,000
Sheryl Sandberg Facebook $2,354,000,000
Bennett Rosenthal Finance $2,350,000,000
Herald Chen Marketing software, mobile games $2,347,000,000
Kevin Systrom Instagram $2,346,000,000
Joe Lacob Golden State Warriors $2,344,000,000
Kenneth Hao Private equity $2,314,000,000
Egon Durban Private equity $2,275,000,000
Tom Ford Fashion $2,248,000,000
David Kaplan Finance $2,247,000,000
Max Levchin fintech $2,232,000,000
Irving Grousbeck Telecommunication, sports $2,229,000,000
James Scapa Software $2,208,000,000
Adarsh Hiremath AI Software $2,200,000,000
Brendan Foody AI Software $2,200,000,000
Surya Midha AI Software $2,200,000,000
Jon Winkelried Private equity, banking $2,177,000,000
Sarah MacMillan Cargill $2,164,000,000
Richard Saghian Fast fashion $2,149,000,000
Alec Gores Private equity $2,121,000,000
Walter Wang Manufacturing $2,082,000,000
Bobby Murphy Snapchat $2,070,000,000
Drew Houston Cloud storage service $2,050,000,000
Tom Werner Sports teams $2,036,000,000
Thomas Steyer Hedge funds $2,030,000,000
Patrick Hanrahan Software $2,013,000,000
Sam Altman Investments $1,985,000,000
Dylan Field Software $1,964,000,000
Geoffrey Palmer Real estate $1,952,000,000
Evan Williams Twitter $1,952,000,000
Riaz Valani E-cigarettes $1,925,000,000
Marc Andreessen Venture capital investing $1,913,000,000
Kim Kardashian Shapewear, skincare $1,885,000,000
Mark Attanasio Finance $1,855,000,000
Gary Michelson Medical patents $1,764,000,000
Andy Fang food delivery app $1,764,000,000
Robert Fisher Gap $1,752,000,000
Paul Sciarra Pinterest $1,730,000,000
William Fisher Gap $1,689,000,000
Art Levinson Genentech, Apple $1,681,000,000
Nicholas Pritzker Hotels, investments $1,676,000,000
Edward Glazer Manchester United, Tampa Bay Buccaneers $1,671,000,000
Kevin Marchetti Diversified $1,670,000,000
Bill Gross Investments $1,668,000,000
Charles Liang Computer hardware $1,662,000,000
Michael Cagney Blockchain technology $1,644,000,000
Jeffrey Gundlach Investments $1,644,000,000
Sue Gross Investments $1,634,000,000
Benoit Dageville Software $1,606,000,000
Steven Tisch Loews, New York Giants $1,592,000,000
Doris Fisher Gap $1,587,000,000
Ben Silbermann Social media $1,575,000,000
Sundar Pichai Alphabet $1,543,000,000
Peter Guber Sports teams, movies $1,543,000,000
Joe Lau Blockchain technology $1,534,000,000
Nikil Viswanathan Blockchain technology $1,534,000,000
Mike Speiser Software $1,522,000,000
Michael Teel supermarkets $1,507,000,000
Magic Johnson Basketball, investments $1,495,000,000
Sanjay Gajendra Semiconductors $1,472,000,000
George Marcus Real estate $1,468,000,000
Jitendra Mohan Semiconductors $1,466,000,000
Mark Pincus Online games $1,455,000,000
Lucy Guo Artificial intelligence $1,447,000,000
Brett Adcock Robots $1,443,000,000
Nikesh Arora Cybersecurity, SoftBank, Google $1,409,000,000
Thierry Cruanes software $1,361,000,000
Frederic Luddy Software $1,350,000,000
Marissa Mayer Google, Yahoo $1,333,000,000
Richard Kayne Investments $1,315,000,000
LeBron James Basketball $1,303,000,000
Aman Sanger AI software $1,300,000,000
Michael Truell AI software $1,300,000,000
JoeBen Bevirt Electric aviation $1,287,000,000
Steve Huffman Reddit $1,282,000,000
Shyam Sankar Palantir $1,259,000,000
Donald Friese Manufacturing $1,223,000,000
Stanley Tang food delivery app $1,207,000,000
Jean-Marc Chapus Finance $1,207,000,000
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies, investments $1,184,000,000
Dick Wolf Law & Order $1,176,000,000
Theresia Gouw Venture capital $1,176,000,000
Chi Fung Cheng Semiconductors $1,171,000,000
Jeff Lawson software $1,160,000,000
Joe Kiani Medical devices $1,123,000,000
Tom Preston-Werner software $1,000,000,000
Trae Stephens Defense technology $1,000,000,000
lapfog_1
(31,931 posts)If only one or a few states impose the tax, they will simply move out of state. Worse, they might start moving their COMPANIES out of state. Say goodbye to the income tax that these highly paid engineers make. Thousands of them.
Second, lets say they agree to pay a 5 percent or 10 percent "wealth tax" on their net worth. Most of that net worth is in unrealized capital gain ( almost all of it ). To pay the state actual money, they would need to liquidate some of their stock holdings. Quite a bit actually. That much selling will depress the stock they own in their various companies... and, again, that drives down the actual tax base from restricted stock units ( RSUs ) that they pay their employees. Most of those employees do sell some or all of the quarterly stock grants as part of their compensation. Those RSUs are paid at the time the stock is transferred to the employee... at max tax rate ( whether they sell the remainder of the RSU or not ). Driving down the value of the stock by forcing the majority owner of that stock ( and what would be taken as a bell weather by the market ) will not only reduce the value of the RSU, it will also ( by the max tax amount possible ) reduce the state and federal share of the money generated through the RSU program.
For example, let's say an employee receives a 200 share a quarter stock RSU in a company currently selling shares at $100/share. That stock is worth $20K every quarter ( and if the stock remains at $100, $80K a year... a nice "bonus" ). At the time of the stock grant nearly 100 shares are sold immediately ( forced sale ) and the money is given to the Feds 36 percent, and California 11 percent ) and the employee gets the remainder 100 shares at the strike price of the stock on the day of the RSU. If the stock goes up in price from there, the employee will pay additional taxes either as regular income or capital gains on the value of the increase... but if the stock goes down ( AI bubble? ) then all they get is to offset other gains ( if any ) by declaring a loss on this transaction. Now, should a wealth tax force the majority share holder ( pick a billionaire ) to sell to raise, say $10 billion usd, and this sale causes the stock to decrease in value by 1o percent, then the employee that paid nearly 50 percent for the RSU is now holding stock work only $90 / share... and causing that employee to sell the RSU immediately rather than take a loss. That drives the stock price down even more... thus creating an ugly sell cycle ( bursting the bubble perhaps... but by use of a tax, not from market events like the failure of AI companies to generate enough earnings to justify their market cap. This is added risk to the company. Elon started moving employees out of California to no state income tax Texas just for this reason.
You want to tax billionaires, impose more luxury taxes... tax what they spend... and try to get all states to do that same. Or figure our some other way to get their money.
One thing I can tell you, don't bother to raise income tax or create new high income tax brackets for them... because, in general, they can do without any income. Anyone worth over say $50M usd does not need an income... they can simply go to a bank and borrow the money they want to spend... and no pay more than a few dollars of income tax. All completely legal and easy to do.
Callie1979
(1,365 posts)Selling a ton of stock to pay a big bill would most certainly affect all of us who OWN that stock
And look. at how the "mansion tax" affected real estate sales in CA; it was a disaster.