Travis Kalanick Moved to Texas Two Weeks Before California's Billionaire Tax Kicked In, Dodging a $180 Million Bill

Travis Kalanick, the Uber cofounder with an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion, moved his primary residence from California to Texas on December 18, 2025, roughly two weeks before the cutoff date for California's new billionaire tax. He now owns a home on Lake Austin and runs Atoms, a robotics company he built out of what used to be CloudKitchens.

The tax Kalanick avoided, created under California's Proposition 40, is a one-time 5% levy on the worldwide net worth of billionaires whose primary residence was in California as of January 1, 2026. The tax excludes directly owned real estate and most retirement accounts, and the revenue it raises is earmarked for public health care services.

By relocating before the January 1 deadline, Kalanick avoided what would have been an estimated $180 million tax bill, a sum large enough that the timing of his move, just over two weeks ahead of the threshold date, has drawn attention as a clear example of how the tax's design can be sidestepped simply by changing a legal address in time.

He was far from alone. Research from Stanford economists found that multiple billionaires left California between October 2025 and January 1, 2026, taking with them an estimated $540 billion, or nearly 30% of the state's taxable billionaire wealth, in that window alone. Other high-profile departures during the same stretch included Google cofounder Larry Page and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, both of whom relocated to Miami. A similar pattern played out in Britain after it tightened its own non-dom tax rules, prompting a comparable wave of wealthy residents to leave.

The exodus has complicated the math behind Proposition 40 itself. Supporters of the measure had projected it could raise as much as $100 billion, but economists now estimate the real figure is closer to $30 billion once the departures triggered by the tax's own announcement are factored in, a gap that captures the core problem facing any state trying to tax a population wealthy and mobile enough to simply leave before the deadline arrives.