In just a couple of weeks, Californians will vote on ballot measure Prop 40—a highly debated measure that would require a one-time 5% tax on the state’s billionaires who lived there as of Jan. 1, 2026.
While some billionaires like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang are “perfectly fine” with the measure, others left the state ahead of the cutoff. One was Larry Page, the 53-year-old Google cofounder who had ties to California for decades and began severing them after the wealth tax proposal. He’s currently worth $292 billion, so he would have owed nearly $15 billion had he stayed.
In late December, Koop, Page’s family office, was converted out of California and incorporated in Delaware, Fortune’s Sasha Rogelberg previously reported. Other organizations linked to Page, including Flu Lab LLC, One Aero, and Oceankind, were also incorporated in Delaware that month, after previously being in California, Rogelberg’s analysis of state filings found. Meanwhile, he spent big on homes on the other side of the country.
Page bought two Miami estates for a combined $173.4 million, The Wall Street Journal reported early this year, citing people familiar with the matter. One was a $101.5 million, 11,855-square-foot property in the Coconut Grove neighborhood, according to the WSJ. Redfin reported this was the most expensive U.S. home sale of December and the fourth most expensive sale of 2025. Page also purchased a nearby property for $71.9 million, Miami-Dade property records show.
Page isn’t the only tech billionaire to trade the West Coast for Miami as states move to tax the rich. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos left Seattle for Miami in late 2023, later selling his Hunts Point mansion for a record $63 million. He now lives in a $237 million Miami compound with his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos. Washington has since passed a 9.9% tax on household income above $1 million. Voters there decide Nov. 3 whether to repeal it.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz followed a similar path. He announced his move from Seattle to Miami in March, around the time Washington lawmakers were advancing the millionaires tax. He reportedly paid $44 million for a Miami penthouse. To be sure, Bezos said he moved to be closer to his parents, and Schultz wrote the couple was “enjoying the sunshine of South Florida and its allure to our kids on the East Coast.”
Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who moved to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe and also bought a Miami home, and venture capitalist Peter Thiel also left California for Miami ahead of the Prop 40 cutoff. Florida has no income, capital gains, or wealth tax. While a one-time levy may prompt the move, the lack of income taxes also appeals to the ultrawealthy: It’s “a huge boon for us,” Miami developer Robert Rivani, who moved from Los Angeles, told Fortune.
Some brokers say the ultrawealthy are leaving California reluctantly.
“They want to stay in the state of California, because they love where they’re at, and they never thought of moving,” Compass agent Michael Martirena told Fortune’s Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez. “But they work very hard for their money, and they said they like their pocketbook much more.”
Still, the departures have already cut into what Prop 40 could raise. Page, Brin, Thiel, and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick alone would have owed about $29 billion, according to a recent Fortune estimate. That’s more than a fourth of the measure’s projected $100 billion.
Opponents have spent more than $187 million fighting the measure, compared with about $32 million from supporters. Two billionaire-backed countermeasures, Props 41 and 42, would nullify Prop 40 if either draws more votes. Even if it passes, the Jan. 1 residency date is likely to be challenged in court, according to the California Budget & Policy Center. California weighs factors like time spent in the state and business ties when deciding who counts as a resident.