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California\u2019s proposed billionaire tax has sent some ultra-rich residents flocking to other states\u2014but tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey is opting to stay put. While the 34-year-old cofounder of Oculus VR and Anduril opposes the bill, he still believes it\u2019s worth it to stay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that this tax act, if you can call it a tax, is going to cause a lot of problems,\u201d Luckey said during a press conference last week, reported by TechCrunch. \u201cIt\u2019s causing a lot of people to run who I don\u2019t want to be running. It\u2019s going to cause companies that I work with to leave the state, which is a problem for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of right now, though, I\u2019m not running. I am staying,\u201d he continued. \u201cI think California is something special. I want to fight for California.\u201d<\/p>\n
The entrepreneur raised in Long Beach has nurtured all of his biggest career wins in the Golden State.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He founded his first company Oculus in Irvine, California back in 2012, joining the billionaire club just two years later when Facebook bought the virtual reality business in a deal estimated to be worth $2 billion. And one of his newer ventures, defense tech firm Anduril headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, was valued at $90 billion earlier this month following an employee tender offer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, Luckey has a net worth of around $5.9 billion, according to Forbes\u2014but he isn\u2019t fleeing his home state to protect his fortune. Luckey said that he doesn\u2019t mind the idea of paying more in taxes, but takes issue with the bill\u2019s sponsor, a union under United Healthcare Workers, wanting to leverage the tax money \u201cfor their uses,\u201d and questions how the bill would assess what is owed. Prop 40\u2019s sponsors have stated that the money will be used to improve California\u2019s \u201chealth care, education, and food assistance.\u201d He is also concerned about illiquid and unsold assets being grouped into his fortune, likening it to a \u201cseizure of future wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tax hike, Proposition 40, has caused quite a stir; while many successful peers like Google cofounder Sergey Brin and former CEO Eric Schmidt have flocked to tax-friendly states, others like Luckey still believe that staying in California is worth the hit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been a point of friction between me and some of my other billionaire friends,\u201d the millennial founder said. \u201cThey\u2019ve said things like \u2018Palmer, you have to have solidarity for us. You can\u2019t enable these really bad policies. If you stay and if you don\u2019t leave, it\u2019s going to show them that there\u2019s no consequences.\u2019 I empathize with that argument, but it\u2019s not one that I\u2019m going to participate in right now because I still believe that we can fix things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fortune reached out to Anduril for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
California\u2019s Prop 40 has some billionaires fleeing the state<\/p>\n
Notable business figures in California have been waging war over Proposition 40: a one-time 5% tax on residents with assets over $1 billion. The coastal state hopes this will increase temporary revenue by tens of billions spread over several years to fund health care and education\u2014and California is home to the highest number of billionaires in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fate of Proposition 40 will be decided by voters tomorrow during America\u2019s midterm elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And some of California\u2019s ultrarich have spent sizable fortunes to strike it down. Tech billionaires have raised more than $340 million and spent more than $1 million daily in a campaign to defeat Prop 40, according to The Guardian; Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel, ex Google CEO Eric Schmidt, DoorDash leader Tony Xu, Stripe chief exec Patrick Collison all put money towards the opposition campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before Prop 40\u2019s January 1 2026 residency cutoff, a slew of billionaires also fled the state. Google cofounders Larry Page and Brin moved their business entities to Florida and Nevada, and Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber, also changed addresses to Austin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Others like Palantir\u2019s Peter Thiel and Meta\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg have already relocated from California to more tax-friendly areas.<\/p>\n
Jensen Huang is also choosing to stay: \u2018I\u2019m not afraid of paying taxes\u2019<\/p>\n
While Prop 40 has emboldened some to leave, there\u2019s a vocal cohort of billionaires like Luckey choosing to stay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jensen Huang, the world\u2019s ninth-richest person with an eye-watering $180 billion net worth, recently said that \u201cthe more you make, the more taxes you pay. And I\u2019m okay with that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The leader of the world\u2019s largest chip company reasoned that he\u2019s the \u201cAmerican Dream,\u201d and success wouldn\u2019t have been possible without the opportunities the U.S. afforded him. He was able to pursue a high-level education, create a company, pursue his dreams, and meet the people that \u201cmade Nvidia possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that I can afford to pay $8 billion in taxes over five years is a privilege,\u201d Huang told CBS Sunday Morning last month. \u201cI\u2019m not afraid of paying taxes. I\u2019m just afraid of being poor.\u201d<\/p>\n
#Sergey #Brin #Larry #Page #flee #California #34yearold #tech #billionaire #running<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
California\u2019s proposed billionaire tax has sent some ultra-rich residents flocking to other states\u2014but tech entrepreneur…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[14737,352,1406,402,1418,599,579,928,2409,580,881,1812,498,813,224,335,24013,3772,1893,355,2692,3538,2147,1417,3703,405,317,722,24014,81],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}