David Siminoff

Why might the proposed “billionaire tax” kill startups in California? This is simple and extreme uncertainty that will cause people to leave the state before their startup becomes successful Many will choose not to start in California at all

I love California. Born and raised there But stupid wealth tax proposals like this make it irresponsible for me not to plan leaving the state. This Class B thing itself could wipe me out. Being founder-led is a big part of what makes DoorDash special. I will fight to keep it that way.

The law is so poorly written. While the lawyers who drafted it claim it doesn’t apply to publicly traded shares, they designed a legal trap where Class B voting shares would count as private shares and therefore considered ownership. It’s so dishonest.

Collectively, the amount of Billionaire wealth that has left California in the last month (!) is now in excess of $700B. That means the $2T of California wealth they expected to tax is now down to $1.3T and falling quickly. I would not be surprised if 2026 ended with less than $1T of billionaire wealth in California and decades and hundreds of lawsuits. A complete and total unforced error. Where was the Governor? Where are our leaders?? If they don’t kill this ballot initiative and entice those folks to come back, the California budget will be massively upside down. Only place to get the money is to cut waste, fraud and abuse or increase taxes on the middle class. The latter is much simpler than the former.

🚨 CalPERS, the California public employee, retirement system, has a $166 BILLION (not a typo!!) shortfall. So who do they bring onto to fix it? A DEI hire committed to bringing more DEI hires who invest based on “equity” & other DEI nonsense, not future gains. 💸💸💸💸💸💸💸💸

Larry and Sergey can’t stay in California since the wealth tax as written would confiscate 50% of their Alphabet shares. Each own ~3% of Alphabet's stock, worth about $120 billion each at today's ~$4 trillion market cap. But because their shares have 10x voting power, the SEIU-UHW California billionaire tax would treat them as owning 30% of Alphabet (3% × 10 = 30%). That means each founder's taxable wealth would be $1.2 trillion. A 5% wealth tax on $1.2 trillion = $60 billion tax bill, each. That's 50% of their actual Alphabet holdings—wiped out by a "5%" tax. Section 50303(c)(3)(C) of the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act states: "For any interests that confer voting or other direct control rights, the percentage of the business entity owned by the taxpayer shall be presumed to be not less than the taxpayer's percentage of the overall voting or other direct control rights." This means if a founder holds shares representing only 3% of economic interest but 30% of voting control (through Class B supervoting shares), the tax would presume their ownership stake is at least 30% for valuation purposes, not 3%. The wealth tax is poorly defined and designed to drive tech innovation out of California.