Mark Zuckerberg and the Reverse Gold Rush from – Latest News
The Jan. 24 anniversary of the California Gold Rush got here and handed this yr with little point out … for good purpose.
When James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill, hundreds of thousands traveled great distances to hunt their fortune in the “Golden State.”
Now, 178 years later, California has engineered an inverse Gold Rush, just about chasing wealth from the state.
Rather than lined wagons going West, there’s a line of U-Hauls going wherever different than California.
From boondoggle tasks to reparations, California politicians proceed to rack up new spending tasks regardless of a hovering deficit and shrinking tax base. Rather than train a modicum of fiscal restraint, Democrats are pushing by a tax that takes 5% of the wealth of any billionaires left in the state.
I’ve long criticized the “billionaire tax” as completely moronic for a state with the highest tax burden and one of the highest flight charges of prime taxpayers.
In my new ebook, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I focus on the reversal of fortunes in California and different blue states as politicians unleash new “eat the rich” campaigns earlier than the midterm elections.
The drawback, of course, is that billionaires are cell, as is their wealth. Liberals count on billionaires to remain put in a kind of voluntary canned hunt. They don’t. Billionaires are becoming a member of the growing exodus from the state, taking their corporations, investments, and jobs with them.
The newest billionaire to be chased off could also be Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who bought a large mansion in Miami. That led to hypothesis that he, too, could also be leaving California.
Mark Zuckerberg talking at the Meta Connect occasion. Bloomberg through Getty Images
By some estimates, California has already price more than $1 trillion in misplaced investments and business. That is no small achievement.
Here’s a thoughts teaser: How are you able to burn $1 trillion (which might create a stack some 67,866 miles high) with out taking years and destroying the setting?
California politicians have a answer: Have people take it out of the state in a reverse gold rush.
In addition to saying that they wish to grab 5% of the wealth of these billionaires, California Democrats are planning to base wealth calculations on the voting shares of company executives. Often, notably with start-ups, entrepreneurs have larger voting shares than precise possession. However, they are going to be taxed as if voting shares amounted to precise wealth.
In different phrases, California is shifting to nuke the entrepreneurs who created the Silicon Valley growth.
Emmanuel Saez, the UC Berkeley economist who helped design the tax, insists that they might not wish to keep, however they are going to nonetheless be tapped. They are planning to lure the rich fleeing the state retroactively: “The tax is based on residence as of Jan. 1, 2026, sharply limiting their ability to flee the state to avoid paying. Despite billionaires’ threats to leave, I think extremely few will have been able to change residence by Jan. 1, given the complexity of doing so.”
The effort to impose a tax retroactively is legally controversial and will face years of challenges. In my view, it’s unconstitutional, however admittedly it’s a murky space.
Regardless of the end result, a wealth tax will have an effect on a big selection of different rich taxpayers. If Democrats can get a retroactive wealth tax to be upheld, it’s uncertain that they are going to stop with billionaires.
Recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom boasted, “California isn’t just keeping pace with the world — we’re setting the pace.”
Gavin Newsom during an interview in San Francisco on Jan. 29, 2026. Bloomberg through Getty Images
That is undeniably true if the measure is the report quantity of U-Hauls fleeing the state — more than some other state. Indeed, the solely factor more durable to seek out than a rich taxpayer in California seems to be a U-Haul.
According to U-Haul’s knowledge, the state is again main blue states in the exodus. The Washington Post famous lately that “California came in last. Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey rounded out the bottom five. Of the bottom 10, seven voted blue in the last election.” Conversely, “nine of the top 10 growth states voted red in the last presidential election,” with Texas again main the growth states.
The Post put it succinctly, “People want to live in pro-growth, low-tax states, while the biggest losers tend to be places with big governments and high taxes.”
The drawback is that, whereas the economics are horrific, the politics stay irresistible.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents half of Silicon Valley, lately mocked billionaires dashing to flee the state. Laughing at his own constituents, Khanna quipped, “I will miss them very much.”
You is not going to be alone as California turns into often known as the La Brea Tar Pit of taxation. They are on the verge of changing the state motto from “Eureka” to “Welcome to Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling creator of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
