What business leaders are saying — and doing — about California’s proposed billionaire tax

California is full of founders who are “cash poor, stock rich,” Mark Cuban wrote on X.

“Do you really think each of multiple founders, who started an amazing company in Cali and is now a billionaire, can each just pull out $250m per billion of net worth from their raise?” he asked on Saturday. “You know they can’t.”

The wealth tax wouldn’t affect Cuban, who lives in Dallas. But he wrote in his post that, if he were investing in a startup, he’d ask them to move from California.

If the tax proposal passes, only “idiot startup founders” will stay in California, Cuban wrote.

Rep. Khanna responded with his own solution: Illiquid founders could pledge shares to the government as collateral for a loan to pay the tax. In a “long but not infinite” period, such as 10 years, the founders could either repay the loan or forfeit the shares, he wrote.

Commenters on X didn’t like the proposal. Luckey responded that founders would have to “speedrun” their way to a pile of cash or “surrender their company to the government if they can’t do it fast enough.”