The war on California’s proposed ‘Billionaire’s Tax’ is getting weird. This week, amid ongoing rancor from tech elites over the much maligned bill, it became apparent that someone was planning a so-called “March for Billionaires” in San Francisco. A website advertising the event popped up online, providing little in the way of context other than a pithy tagline: “Vilifying billionaires is popular. Losing them is expensive.”
The immediate reaction was incredulity, and most people assumed the site was some sort of bizarre hoax. “this is a joke/satire right??” one social media user wrote not long after the news circulated. Now, however, the apparent organizer behind the event has revealed that the march is definitelynot a joke, and that it is scheduled to take place this coming Saturday.
The San Francisco Examiner first reported that the event’s organizer had been revealed as Derik Kaufmann, the founder of AI startup RunRL, which previously participated in Y Combinator’s accelerator program. Kaufmann told the Examiner that the event was not being funded or organized by any outside group, no big monied associations or companies—just him.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Kaufmann — who also told the Examiner that he was no longer involved with RunRL — confirmed that the impetus for the upcoming rally was California’s proposed wealth tax, which the tech founder said he believed would be “quite damaging to the tech economy.”
The policy in question, the Billionaire Tax Act, was introduced last year, and would require Californians worth over $1 billion to pay a one-time 5% tax on their total wealth. The legislation, which is backed by the state’s healthcare union SEIU (Service Employees International Union), could pay for important public services and help the state offset recent federal funding cuts, according to some experts. Nevertheless, the policy has led to loud protestations from some of the tech industry’s most prominent figures, many of whom have either threatened to leave California or have already left. It has also led to a monsoon of lobbying in the California legislature, in an effort to defeat the bill.
When asked why he opposed the legislation, Kaufmann expressed concern for how the bill could impact the startup economy in Silicon Valley. “This tax in particular is fatally flawed,” he said. “It hits startup founders whose wealth is only on paper. They would be forced to liquidate share …