Tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey has said that the California’s proposed billionaire tax for its ultra-rich residents has caused friction between him and his friends. “This has been a point of friction between me and some of my other billionaire friends,” the 34-year-old cofounder of Oculus VR and Anduril said. “They’ve said things like ‘Palmer, you have to have solidarity for us. You can’t enable these really bad policies. If you stay and if you don’t leave, it’s going to show them that there’s no consequences.’ I empathize with that argument, but it’s not one that I’m going to participate in right now because I still believe that we can fix things.” For those unaware, California proposed a wealth tax bill earlier this year. It seeks to impose a one-time, 5% net-worth tax on California residents with a fortune exceeding $1 billion.
Palmer Luckey says he is not leaving CaliforniaPalmer Luckey said that while he opposes the bill, he is not leaving California unlike other tech entrepreneurs who have already left the state. Explaining why he thinks it is worth staying, he said during a press conference last week:
“I think that this tax act, if you can call it a tax, is going to cause a lot of problems. It’s causing a lot of people to run who I don’t want to be running. It’s going to cause companies that I work with to leave the state, which is a problem for me.”
“As of right now, though, I’m not running. I am staying,” he continued. “I think California is something special. I want to fight for California.”
What is California’s Proposition 40Proposition 40 will be on the ballot in November. It would impose a one-time 5% tax on California’s 200 billionaires. Ninety percent of the revenue would go to the state’s health care program. The remaining 10% would go to education, food assistance and administration. The bill has been opposed by several tech leaders including Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel.
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