Elizabeth Dwoskin and Caroline O’Donovan, “Rich people are leaving California, inspired by tech founders’ online campaign” (Jan. 19, 2026):

In late December, White House official and tech investor David Sacks made a cryptic post on X: “Message received,” he wrote, above a photo of anti-billionaire demonstrators gathered in front of his San Francisco mansion.

The post made public what Sacks and other billionaires had been planning privately: They were plotting to leave California in protest of a proposed wealth tax that would impact the state’s richest residents.

Anger at the proposal, which would levy a one-time five percent tax on the assets of California residents worth more than a billion, had simmered in group chats and at holiday parties since the provision was announced in November. “It was all anyone was talking about,” said Mike Solana, chief marketing officer of billionaire Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, who has written about the tax on his right-leaning news platform, Pirate Wires.