California just lost Google's co-founder to a state that doesn't tax its citizens a single penny of their income.
DeSantis and Abbott stood together in Miami this week to announce something Democrats don't want you to hear.
Eleven states just became a $9 trillion economic powerhouse – and the billionaires California is desperately trying to trap are the ones funding it.
The California Wealth Tax That Sent Billionaires Running
California's political class saw the exodus coming and did what leftists always do – they tried to make leaving illegal.
The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act proposed a one-time 5% hit on every California resident worth more than $1 billion as of January 1, 2026.
The goal was simple: get out now, and they'd still come after you.
It didn't work.
Larry Page dropped $173 million on a Miami mansion and moved his family office out of the state entirely.
Sergey Brin left for Miami. Peter Thiel left. Travis Kalanick – the man who built Uber – packed up and moved to Texas in December and called it exactly what it was.
David Sacks, who spent 30 years in California, relocated his company Craft Ventures to Austin and was blunt about the proposal: it was an asset seizure.
Just six departures from California's roster of 214 billionaires took $27 billion in potential tax revenue out of the state's reach.
Bill Ackman didn't mince words either, warning California is "on a path to self-destruction."
Chamath Palihapitiya estimated that more than $700 billion has already left the state, with as much as $1 trillion potentially gone before the year is out.
DeSantis and Abbott Just Declared the South the New Financial Capital of America
DeSantis and Abbott held their event at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami – not New York, not Chicago, not San Francisco.
https://twitter.com/OcrazioCornPop/status/2041166807310987773?s=20
That choice was the message.
The "Boom Belt" – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas – now generates $9 trillion in annual GDP.
That's more than every other country on earth except the United States and China.
The region absorbed 70% of all U.S. population growth over the last five years, according to the governors.
The numbers back them up. Census data shows Texas added 391,243 new residents in a single year. Florida added nearly 197,000. North Carolina added 145,907. Nine of the ten fastest-growing metros in the country are in the South.
Meanwhile, California lost population outright.
New York kept hemorrhaging residents. Illinois watched yet more people pack up and leave.
DeSantis didn't hide his strategy.
"I often tell people, as Governor of Florida, my job is to closely follow California, Illinois, New York, so I can do precisely the opposite of what they do," he said at the event.
Abbott went further on Texas specifically, pointing out that the state has made income taxes, wealth taxes, death taxes and transactions taxes all unconstitutional.
https://twitter.com/FoxBusiness/status/2041894053889851697?s=20
Not just politically difficult to pass.
Unconstitutional.
Ken Griffin Left Chicago for Miami and Now the Tower Has His Name Taken Off
Citadel's old Chicago tower – the one that once bore Ken Griffin's name – is now for sale.
Griffin left for Miami in 2022 after publicly hammering Chicago's crime and high taxes. The firm once employed 1,100 people in Illinois. Today it has about 200 left.
Illinois finance employment has dropped 2.7% since Griffin walked out.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins appeared at the event and made the case for returning public markets to first principles.
TXSE CEO Jim Lee put the problem plainly: the U.S. has lost half of its public companies over the last 30 years because going public became "complicated, expensive and legally treacherous."
Citadel Securities President Jim Esposito – who helped lead the firm's move from Chicago to Miami – was direct about what red-state governance actually delivers.
"Across Florida, Texas and other high-growth states, government officials have created environments where businesses can operate, invest, and importantly, grow with confidence," he said.
That confidence is now worth $9 trillion a year.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2041539757797208158?s=20
The Bush Institute's analysis of Census data found that 14 of the 15 metros with the highest net domestic in-migration rates in America are in the Southeast.
Meanwhile, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco all rank in the top 15 for people leaving.
Gavin Newsom is currently running around telling anyone who will listen that he opposes the billionaire tax.
That's the tell.
California Democrats spent years building the political infrastructure to pass exactly this kind of legislation – and now their own governor is publicly distancing himself from it because he watched Larry Page drop $170 million on a Miami estate and do the math.
The exits happening right now were decided in law offices 18 months ago, and the exits that haven't happened yet are being decided right now.
DeSantis and Abbott understand something California and Illinois still refuse to accept: capital doesn't negotiate with governments that treat it like a criminal. It just leaves. And it takes the jobs, the tax base, the philanthropic dollars and the next generation of companies with it.
Ken Griffin gave Chicago $600 million before he left.
The city that remains got a tower with his name taken off it.
Sources:
- Kristen Altus, "A new economic iron curtain is falling across America as trillions in wealth flee to the 'Boom Belt,'" Fox Business, April 8, 2026.
- "Blue states plot exit taxes to trap fleeing millionaires as tax revolt spreads," Fox News, April 7, 2026.
- "California wealth tax proposal sparks Silicon Valley exodus warnings," Fox Business, December 28, 2025.
- "Tech insider warns California tax hikes will trigger mass billionaire exit," Fox News, January 9, 2026.
- "Citadel leaves Chicago tower as city alarmed by 'job killer' tax," GM Today, December 16, 2025.
- "People and businesses are still moving to America's most growth-friendly metro areas," Bush Institute–SMU, July 2025.
- "Where Americans Are Moving in 2026," Offerpad, March 2026.
