Newly released data from the IRS indicates that New York City has about 2,000 more millionaires today than it did last year.
Thank the rising market, probably, and the fact they they don’t really want to leave, no matter what a few grumblers say.
10 Likes
That and home ownership. A change of 2K isn’t much. As you noted, the stock market is up some 15% in the last year. Here is a map of NYC showing that in a majority of the neighborhoods the 90th percentile level for net wealth is over $1,000,000. And that is based on 2020 data. The S&P has more than doubled since then, and inflation has increased numbers by over 25%.
DB2
4 Likes
Well, I’ve only moved when we needed more space as the kids grew, and left the nest. Same home since '74, a court, so no traffic, know everyone, some aged out, used to be a couple rentals, but those faded away, so all owners…
I can’t imagine moving on a whim, in fact I turned down management offers to avoid having to move. Nope, and anyway, way too much ‘stuff’ I’d have to decide to toss or donate, actually that is a project I should get rolling, clear the decks a bit… Maybe tomorrow.. 
Rethinking, one inlaw did move out of CA, to NV, trying to dodge taxes as he liquidated a multitude of properties in yet another State, and more room for toys, but he grew up over there… So far so good..
1 Like
California has the same number of Billionaires as Texas & Florida combined.
8 Likes
Florida adds 15,000 millionaires per year on average. California has lost 6 billionaires since announcing its proposed wealth tax. In total, nearly $1.8 trillion in wealth has left the state. The larger concern is the departure of larger businesses. Both New York and California are seeing an out migration of the middle class. In turns, it impacts public schools, services, and upward mobility.
First they came for the billionaires
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a billionaire
Then they came for the oligarchs
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an oligigarch
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
1 Like
No, the wealth may have stayed. Income for a billionaire to spend and their wealth are two different things.
Yes, Tesla still builds cars in California at its Fremont Factory, though production has scaled back following the recent end of the Model S and Model X lines. [1, 2]
Musk made a pissss poor health choice for his family moving to Texas.
Elon Musk’s primary legal residence is a modest $50,000 ranch house in Boca Chica, Texas , located on the southernmost tip of the state near Brownsville. He rents the house directly from SpaceX. The surrounding area has been heavily developed by his aerospace company and was officially incorporated into a municipality called Starbase, Texas . [1, 2, 3]
While Musk also spends time in Austin—where he owns multiple multi-million dollar residential properties to house his family and children —Boca Chica/Starbase remains his official home base. [2, 3, 4, 5]
Regarding pollution, the area is not considered “highly polluted” in the traditional sense of a smog-choked industrial city, but it faces severe and highly controversial localized environmental damage. [6]
The environmental impacts on the Boca Chica ecosystem include:
Water Pollution & Industrial Runoff
- Unpermitted Discharges: Environmental regulators, including the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the EPA, have cited SpaceX for repeatedly releasing industrial wastewater into the surrounding delicate wetlands without proper permits.
- Deluge System Pollutants: The massive water deluge system used to cool the launchpad during rocket ignitions has discharged runoff containing trace amounts of heavy metals like aluminum, arsenic, zinc, and chromium into nearby waters. [8, 9]
Habitat & Wildlife Destruction
- Explosion Debris: The area is surrounded by a pristine national wildlife refuge and state parklands. Major rocket test explosions (such as the high-profile Starship test in April 2023) have rained pulverized concrete, rebar, and debris over miles of sensitive animal habitats, destroying bird nesting sites.
- Wildfires: Rocket launches have occasionally triggered localized wildfires, scorching dozens of acres of coastal wildlife habitat. [6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]
Noise and Light Pollution
- Local residents and environmental advocacy groups frequently complain about extreme noise, sonic booms, intense vibrations that rattle homes, and 24/7 light pollution from the industrial buildout of the Starbase facility . [6, 10]
Would you like to know more about his other property holdings near Austin, or the ongoing legal battles between environmental groups and SpaceX over the Boca Chica launch site?
AI responses may include mistakes.
[3] https://robbreport.com/shelter/celebrity-homes/lists/elon-musk-property-portfolio-1238629156/
[4] https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/elon-musk-compound-austin-children/
[7] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/12/spacex-repeatedly-polluted-waters-in-texas-tceq-epa-found.html
[8] https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/spacex-polluted-waters-texas-regulators-rcna166283
[9] https://www.npr.org/2024/10/10/nx-s1-5145776/spacex-texas-wetlands
[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NKBQcPQTM0
[11] https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/spacex-polluted-waters-texas-regulators-rcna166283
[12] https://www.npr.org/2024/10/10/nx-s1-5145776/spacex-texas-wetlands
[13] https://www.eenews.net/articles/groups-take-aim-at-spacex-water-pollution/
[14] https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/02/texas-spacex-lawsuit-faa-environmental-pollution/
When I moved from CA, we threw out over 100 trash bag… that is we counted up to 100, at that point my son, let us stop it here, I asked why because of 100? He said no, because all the trash can in the apartment complex are full and we have kep bags outside… 
But within few years we have accumulated all the things we threw away… 
American consumers keep US and Chinese economy going…
If you deduct the transplants, you may find there are not many OG billionaires…
Ahhh but theses are tools, from teensy tech tools to table saws, wood and metal lathes, drill presses, bandsaws, planers, jointers, corded saws, drills, sanders, air tools, welders, compressors, battery tools, yard tools, hedge trimmers, pressure washers, many from estates. many from flea markets, etc… A tad overwhelming in weight alone! Metal and wood footlockers, a 2x3 Knack box, tool boxes, one really old Snap-On, a really old Skil saw… I used to know a tool seller, if he was still around, I would call him… Then there’s all these old Apple computers, and other Apple collectables… Then all the old telephones we don’t use any more… Test meters, tracers, VOMs, analog, digital… Aghhhhh!
This one totally surprised me… We had a box full of old cordless phones, corded phones, mobiles, 5 blackberries!!!, first ipod, ipod mini, etc. Those went to e-waste… still amazing to see how much trash we kept…
1 Like
No, the wealth is leaving as well. Otherwise, it can’t avoid the wealth tax. France experienced the same outcome and ended losing tax revenues. As a result, it was repealed. But, California needs to learn this lesson firsthand, if not ultimately struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.
The only issue is a wealth tax that I do not support because it does not incentivize reinvestment.
Some have, but the scale is small relative to the headlines. Henley & Partners projected France would lose a net 800 millionaires in 2025 — the first time they’d forecast a net outflow from France — while UBS counts roughly 2.4 million dollar-millionaires in France and estimates the country added about 34,600 in 2025, the largest increase in the EU. So the net drain is a rounding error against the total.
The historical precedent is bigger. The old ISF wealth tax (1989–2017) drove a documented outflow — capital flight that undermined the ISF — which is why Macron replaced it with a real-estate-only tax in 2018.
The current movement is driven by anticipation, not enacted law. Nobody is fleeing a wealth tax that exists; they’re moving ahead of taxes that might. The Zucman proposal, a 2% tax on wealth above €100 million, passed the National Assembly in February 2025 but was rejected in the Senate and again in the 2026 budget votes. What replaced it is narrow: a 20% levy on luxury assets (yachts, aircraft, collector vehicles, racehorses, jewelry) held inside passive family holdings worth at least €5 million. The 2027 budget reaches the Assembly on 30 September, with the government seeking €30–50 billion in savings and a presidential election in April 2027 — that uncertainty is the main push factor.
Destinations: Switzerland leads on proximity, language, and lump-sum taxation, followed by Belgium, Portugal, Italy, and the UAE.
Note that Thomas Piketty has argued the risks of capital flight are often overstated, and France’s exit tax on unrealized gains makes leaving costly for anyone holding large equity positions.
1 Like
Not verified, and it’s likely an inflated version of a contested number. I couldn’t find $1.8 trillion in any source; the figures in circulation are lower and mostly trace to one person.
The origin: venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya posted on X that billionaire wealth leaving California in a single month exceeded $700 billion, and that the $2T the state expected to tax was down to $1.3T. He later raised his estimate — he claimed half of $2T in billionaire wealth had left, i.e. $1 trillion. Fox, the NY Post, Heritage and CBN all repeated that figure, but it’s his estimate, not a measured statistic. A later analysis put it around $1.1 trillion effectively removed from California’s prospective tax base, and a Hoover Institution analysis found nearly 30% of the tax base departed before the initiative qualified, cutting projected revenue from $100B to roughly $40B.
The counted departures are few but large: six of California’s 214 billionaires have been widely reported to have left in time to avoid the tax, and that small group alone would have generated about $27 billion in revenue, roughly a quarter of the initiative’s projected $100 billion. Page, Brin and Thiel went to Miami, Hankey to Las Vegas, Kalanick to Texas. Since Page’s net worth alone is $260 billion, a handful of people can move a trillion-dollar total, which is why the number sounds huge relative to headcount.
Caveats worth noting: “wealth left the state” mostly means a person changed domicile. Their Alphabet stock didn’t move — it was never a California asset in the sense the phrase implies. The tax is a one-time 5% levy on global net worth over $1 billion with a January 1, 2026 residency snapshot, and voters decide in November 2026, so much of the movement is anticipatory, same pattern as France. And Jensen Huang stayed despite facing roughly an $8B liability.
Bottom line: $1.8T is above any figure I can find. $1T–$1.1T is the commonly cited estimate, and it’s largely one VC’s back-of-envelope tally, not an official measurement.
The actual estimated number matters little to me. One of the founding principles of this nation is the right to private property. It’s a fundamental notion and goes to the heart of individual rights and the minority of one.
Beyond the required invasion of privacy to implement such a tax, a wealth tax is effectively a seizure of private property by the govt. It’s morally wrong in my opinion, violates the 5th amendment, and sets a terrible precedent. For the most part, taxes have been limited to what is viewed as transactional and for good reason. If those seeking to increase tax revenues want to do so, I would focus there and pursue spending cuts as aggressively as they do tax revenues.
1 Like
Except it was based on false premises to begin with. It is closer to zero.
You have the nerve to ask for proof at every turn. We do that, we offer proof. You never have offered any proof backing any of your statements.
The slaveholders got reparations. What more do you want? Talking of individual rights.
I have no idea what point you are trying to make. Slavery ended with the 13th amendment. The civil rights Act of 1866 legally secured the right of blacks to own property. Every major revision to our constitution as centered on further expanding the rights of private property to all individuals, regardless of race, color, creed, gender etc.
"The Founders understood this. John Adams wrote in 1790 that “property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.” They saw property rights as essential to personal liberty, economic independence and individual autonomy. That principle drew from a long legal tradition stretching back to the Magna Carta and was carried by James Madison into the Fifth Amendment, where property protections stand alongside some of the Constitution’s most important safeguards for individual rights. "
2 Likes
That is on you. The point was made. Your individual property rights are not clean-cut.
The government has the power to levy taxes.
I do not support a wealth tax because I want taxes to be more productive in the US economy than a wealth tax would be.
By that argument, all taxes would be violations of the 5th Amendment.
The 5th Amendment aimed to protect physical, tangible assets like land, homes, and personal belongings.
3 Likes