An AI startup founder says he’s planning a ‘March for Billionaires’ to protest California’s wealth tax | TechCrunch

The war against California’s proposed “billionaires tax” is getting weird. This week, middle persistent resentment from tech elites about the much-maligned bill, it became clear that someone was planning a so-called “March for Billionaires” in San Francisco. A website The event was advertised online and provided little context other than a pithy slogan: “Defaming billionaires is popular. Losing them is expensive.”

The immediate reaction was disbelief, with most people assuming the site was some kind of bizarre hoax. “This is a joke/satire right??” one social media user wrote not long after the news spread. Now, however, the apparent organizer behind the event has revealed that the march is finalnot a joke, and that it will take place next Saturday.

The San Francisco Examiner first reported that the event organizer was revealed as Derik Kaufmann, the founder of AI startup RunRL, who previously participated in Y Combinator’s accelerator program. Kaufmann told the Examiner that the event was not funded or organized by any outside group, no associations or big-money companies, just him.

Speaking to 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 Actwas introduced last year and would require Californians worth more than $1 billion to pay a one-time 5% tax on their total wealth. The legislation, that is backed by the state health care union SEIU (Service Employees International Union) could pay for important public services and help the state offset recent federal budget cuts to some experts. Nevertheless, the policy has sparked loud protests from some of the tech industry’s most prominent figures, many of whom have 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 about the impact the bill could have on Silicon Valley’s startup economy. “This tax in particular is fatally flawed,” he said. “It affects startup founders whose wealth exists only on paper. They would be forced to liquidate shares on potentially unfavorable terms, forcing them to pay capital gains taxes and give up control. Not to mention the difficulty of valuing private companies.”

“Many founders would face wildly disproportionate tax bills,” Kaufmann continued. “Furthermore, there is no precedent for this kind of comprehensive wealth tax in the US. Sweden abolished it 20 years ago to prevent capital flight and promote entrepreneurship, and now has 50% more billionaires per capital than the US.”

Online conversations about Kaufmann’s planned event alternate between disbelief and ridicule. “I can’t imagine billionaires marching down the street,” says one said one social media userof the event.

That person would probably be right.

Kaufmann told TC that so far he is not aware of any actual billionaires planning to attend the march organized in their honor. Kaufmann said there will likely be “several dozen attendees” at the event, although he emphasized that he isn’t really clear on how many people will show up.

The continued outrage over the proposed tax is a bit funny, as it has been known for some time that the legislation has virtually no chance of passage. That’s because California Governor Gavin Newsom has already stated that he would do so if the bill were somehow passed to veto.