Tech titans leaving California for Florida over billionaire tax

For years, California’s tech elite talked about leaving. Few actually did.

That calculus appears to be changing — fast — as a proposed California ballot initiative targeting billionaires sends some of the world’s richest founders scrambling to establish new roots, with Miami emerging as their landing pad.

Sources tell The Post tech founders from major companies like Netflix, WhatsApp and the payment system Stripe are among the latest looking to flee the Golden State for Florida in recent months.

The measure, which voters will decide on in November, would impose a one-time 5% tax on fortunes exceeding $1 billion and would retroactively apply to anyone deemed a California resident. The retroactive provision, advisers say, has turned what might have been a theoretical threat into an urgent deadline.

Google co-founder Larry Page has already made his move. 

In December, Page, 52, quietly snapped up roughly $173 million worth of waterfront real estate in affluent Coconut Grove, purchasing one estate for just over $100 million and another nearby property for about $72 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

The acquisitions, according to people familiar with the situation, coincided with efforts to disentangle his assets from California ahead of the cutoff date.

Agents on the ground say Page is far from alone.

“In the last probably month or so, I’ve had multiple billionaires from California come to see several different listings that I have,” David Kay of Douglas Elliman told The Post. “So there’s definitely a huge wave of them, it appears that are either buying properties in Miami or in the market to buy properties, and will once they find something here shortly.”

WhatsApp founder Jan Koum has been quietly looking in Miami for some time, sources familiar with his search told The Post, along with Netflix founder Reed Hastings.

And Google co-founder Sergey Brin has also been in discussions around a Miami-area purchase, according to the Journal, though no deal has been finalized.

Kay said the shift goes beyond the pandemic-era influx that reshaped South Florida’s luxury market.

“I’ve been seeing a huge influx from California ever since COVID,” he said. “In the last three or four years, I’ve seen more buyers from California than I ever have in my entire career. But I would say the mega-billionaires or the very, very wealthy people from California — that is definitely more recent as of the last, maybe two or three months.”

At the extreme upper end, Kay said, the motivation is straightforward.

“At that level of wealth, the amount of tax that you’re talking about is nine figures a year or 10 figures a year,” he said. “I think it’s pretty obvious why these guys are doing what they’re doing in Miami.”

The spending, however, is already distorting prices in Miami’s most exclusive enclaves. Kay pointed to the ripple effects that follow when a handful of ultra-wealthy buyers reset the ceiling.

“As great as it is to have these guys spending these amounts of money on real estate in Miami, it almost makes the market more difficult,” he said. “You have a few of these guys come in and spend $50 million, $70 million, $100 million, whatever it is. Now, every other homeowner in these neighborhoods is going to drastically alter their expectations of value.”

“Unless you are one of these multi billionaires, you’re going to be completely priced out of the market,” Kay said.

Recent deals illustrate how quickly values have escalated.

“Even the property that Larry Page just bought in Coconut Grove for $72 million — when Roger Barnett bought that property just a handful of years ago, it was $40 or $45 million,” Kay said. “That was a mind-blowing price even at that time.”

“So these properties that are trading to these guys have literally multiplied in value in just a matter of years,” he added.

Compass agent Miltiadis Kastanis said what’s unfolding now differs from earlier migration waves that reshaped Miami.

“Miami wasn’t a connected market where they vacation with their family, like New Yorkers did,” Kastanis said of wealthy Californians.

Instead, he said, California money arrived gradually — until now.

“I feel like it’s a moment in time where the California wealthy are actually making the move to Miami,” he said, adding that the urgency is new.

“You are starting to see big move in the last couple months. Those are serious acquisitions. That’s a $100-plus million property,” he said. “This billionaires tax has given them the reason to say, ‘let’s do this.’”

Beyond taxes, Kastanis said Miami is actively reshaping itself to absorb the incoming wealth.

“Florida is an adaptive state. Miami is a very forward-thinking city,” he said. “Miami is working hard on accommodating a lifestyle for tech individuals that they’re used to from California.”

The shift is being closely watched by tax advisers who specialize in relocating the ultra-rich. Bloomberg News has reported that at least six billionaires have already severed California residency ties, with dozens more weighing similar moves.

Others remain undecided — or publicly resistant. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently said he has no plans to leave Silicon Valley and is “perfectly fine” paying the tax if it passes, while other prominent executives have said they expect the proposal to fail at the ballot box.

Even tech leaders who aren’t relocating are taking note. Stripe founder Patrick Collison, who has lived and run his company out of San Francisco for more than a decade, sounded surprised after a recent visit.

“Miami posting might be a phenomenon whose time has passed,” Collison wrote in a post on X, “but having just spent a few days visiting, it really does feel like a boomtown in a way that no other American city that I’ve spent time in over the past few years does.”