Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Becomes the Latest Billionaire To Flee California Over Wealth Tax—as He Announces Move to Texas

Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick has confirmed that he has quit California and relocated his personal business interests to Texas after the Golden State threatened to impose a one-time wealth tax on its billionaire residents.

Kalanick, 49, who has an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion, according to Forbes, announced in a new interview with TPBN that he officially moved to the Lone Star State on Dec. 18, emphasizing his decision to leave California "prior to January."

While the technology mogul—who co-founded the ride-share service Uber in 2009—did not specifically reference the state's proposed billionaire tax, the timing of his move to Austin, TX, is significant, coming exactly 14 days before the Jan. 1, 2026, cutoff date for California's ballot measure targeting its richest residents.

"Just to be clear, on December 18, I moved to Texas. I don’t know what’s so specific about December 18, but let’s just say it’s prior to January," Kalanick explained.

He went on to note that he has owned a property on Lake Austin for around five years, but stated that he has now become a "primary resident of Texas," suggesting that the home is serving as his full time base.

California has yet to qualify the proposal for the November 2026 ballot, however that has not stopped many of the state's richest—and most high-profile—residents from fleeing the threat of the one-time wealth tax of 5%.

In Kalanick's case, this tax would have required him to pay around $180 million, based on his current estimated net worth.

Many of those residents, including Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg—have chosen to relocate to Florida, snapping up enormous mansions in and around Miami.

Speaking to TPBN, Kalanick joked that he had formed a "fear of missing out" on the mass exodus out of California, explaining: "I get a little bit [of] FOMO on like, these people going to Florida."

However, he hinted that the Sunshine State never held the same allure for him that it does for his fellow billionaires, adding: "I'm like, dude! Why so much Florida action? Come on, homies."

Though Kalanick eschewed Florida in favor of Texas, he will have plenty of billionaire company in the Lone Star State, which has long served as the base for Elon Musk's Tesla and SpaceX. Much like those living in Florida, he will also benefit from his new home state's lack of income tax.

Venture capitalist David Sacks' company, Craft Ventures, also announced in December that it has opened a new satellite office in Austin. At the time, the company said that Sacks' co-founder, Bill Lee, had lived in Austin since 2022, and noted that Sacks had “relocated to the area” earlier in the month.

Sacks had long lived in the Pacific Heights section of San Francisco, an area known as "Billionaires' Row."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has come out strongly against the proposed wealth tax, revealing in January that he had been tirelessly working to kill the measure because he believed it would trigger an exodus of billionaires from the state.

The controversial proposal, which is being championed by the health care union Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, calls for California’s wealthiest residents with a net worth of $1 billion and more to pay a one-time tax equivalent of 5% of their assets.

California is home to some 200 billionaires—the most of any state— and supporters of the measure say it could generate roughly $100 billion in revenue, with 90% earmarked for health care services. 

But opponents of the initiative, led by longtime wealth-tax critic Newsom, argue that the likely drawbacks outweigh the benefits. 

In an interview with The New York Times, the Democratic governor—and likely 2028 presidential candidate—said if the proposed billionaires' tax ends up on the ballot in November, he will do all he can to "protect" California from it.  

"This will be defeated, there's no question in my mind," Newsom said. 

Kalanick, who resigned from the board at Uber in 2019, two years after stepping down as CEO, is a native Californian, having been born and raised in Los Angeles—where he purchased a sprawling Bel-Air estate for $43.3 million in 2020.

The property, known as the Bellagio Estate, was built in 1931 but underwent an extensive three-year renovation before Kalanick purchased it. The former Uber CEO managed to score quite the discount on the sprawling home, which was originally put on the market for $75 million.

"Setting a new level of quality unparalleled in Los Angeles, Bellagio Estate is the culmination of three years in construction," the listing read. "Completed in 2019 and designed by Don Ziebell, it is a masterwork combining subtle finishes and exquisite details."

The year that he stepped down from the Uber board, he also sold around 90% of his shares in the company for a reported $2.5 billion—and used at least some of those funds to snap up a staggering $36.5 million penthouse apartment in New York's SoHo neighborhood.

Records show that the investor still owns both of these properties, as well as a dwelling in San Francisco, where Uber has been based since it was founded.

The announcement about his move came on the same day that he launched his latest startup, Atoms, which describes its "mission" as "physical automation to transform industry and move the world."

"At Atoms we make gainfully employed robots—specialized robots with productive jobs that bring abundance to their owners and society at large," Kalanick wrote on the company's website.