Peter Thiel is threatening to leave California. Quick, everyone: act surprised.
The New York Times is breathlessly reporting that billionaires like Thiel and Google co-founder Larry Page are “considering” leaving California because of a proposed ballot measure that would tax residents worth over $1 billion at 5% of their assets.
The measure, backed by healthcare workers’ union SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, could raise up to $100 billion from about 200 billionaires to offset federal budget cuts to healthcare.
OF COURSE: The Times frames this as a dire warning about the consequences of taxing the ultra-wealthy—quoting investor Chamath Palihapitiya predicting “an exodus of the state’s most talented entrepreneurs” and a real estate agent claiming five billionaires have already called him about Florida homes.
Governor Gavin Newsom, ever the friend of Silicon Valley’s ruling class, is raising money to oppose the measure, with venture capitalist Ron Conway already chipping in $100,000.
BUT BUT BUT: Here’s what the Times conveniently buries: research consistently shows that wealthy people don’t actually leave when taxes go up.
Cornell sociologist Cristobal Young analyzed tax return data from every million-dollar earner in America from 1999-2011 and found that only about 2.4% of millionaires change their state of residence—lower than the national average and far lower than middle-class migration rates.
Studies of California specifically found that after the 2004 tax increase, the rate of top earners leaving the state actually declined slightly.
And, The Tax Justice Network recently revealed that a widely-reported “millionaire exodus” from the UK in 2024 simply did not occur—the whole narrative was based on a flawed industry report.
THE DETAILS: The currently proposed wealth tax would apply retroactively to anyone living in California as of January 1, 2026.
For Page, worth an estimated $258 billion, that’s a potential $12 billion bill. For Thiel—who already has citizenship in New Zealand, is exploring Maltese citizenship, and threw a Christmas party with a Revolutionary War tax-protest theme (subtle!)—it’s about $1.2 billion.
WHY IT MATTERS: About one in ten people earning more than £1 million a year pay the same tax rate (11%) as someone earning £15,000. The income share held by the top 10% of families is around 69%, while the bottom 50% holds just 3%.
When healthcare workers ask the 200 richest people in the state to chip in, the response is threats and a PR campaign in the paper of record.
The Times is doing exactly what billionaires pay for: treating their “I’ll leave!” tantrum as news rather than the empty threat the research shows it to be.
BOTTOM LINE: If Peter Thiel wants to move to Florida to save $1.2 billion, he’s welcome to it. But let’s stop pretending this is anything other than a ruling-class temper tantrum dressed up as economic analysis.