California’s proposed billionaire tax has sent some ultra-rich residents flocking to other states—but 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’s worth it to stay.
“I think that this tax act, if you can call it a tax, is going to cause a lot of problems,” Luckey said during a press conference last week, reported by TechCrunch. “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.”
The entrepreneur raised in Long Beach has nurtured all of his biggest career wins in the Golden State.
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.
Now, Luckey has a net worth of around $5.9 billion, according to Forbes—but he isn’t fleeing his home state to protect his fortune. Luckey said that he doesn’t mind the idea of paying more in taxes, but takes issue with the bill’s sponsor, a union under United Healthcare Workers, wanting to leverage the tax money “for their uses,” and questions how the bill would assess what is owed. Prop 40’s sponsors have stated that the money will be used to improve California’s “health care, education, and food assistance.” He is also concerned about illiquid and unsold assets being grouped into his fortune, likening it to a “seizure of future wealth.”
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.
“This has been a point of friction between me and some of my other billionaire friends,” the millennial founder 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.”
Fortune reached out to Anduril for comment.
California’s Prop 40 has some billionaires fleeing the state
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—and California is home to the highest number of billionaires in the U.S.
The fate of Proposition 40 will be decided by voters tomorrow during America’s midterm elections.
And some of California’s 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.
Before Prop 40’s 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.
Others like Palantir’s Peter Thiel and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have already relocated from California to more tax-friendly areas.
Jensen Huang is also choosing to stay: ‘I’m not afraid of paying taxes’
While Prop 40 has emboldened some to leave, there’s a vocal cohort of billionaires like Luckey choosing to stay.
Jensen Huang, the world’s ninth-richest person with an eye-watering $180 billion net worth, recently said that “the more you make, the more taxes you pay. And I’m okay with that.”
The leader of the world’s largest chip company reasoned that he’s the “American Dream,” and success wouldn’t 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 “made Nvidia possible.”
“The fact that I can afford to pay $8 billion in taxes over five years is a privilege,” Huang told CBS Sunday Morning last month. “I’m not afraid of paying taxes. I’m just afraid of being poor.”
