Mark Cuban said 'only idiot' founders would stay in California under a wealth tax. We asked 3 founders if they'd leave.

Mark Cuban said startup founders would time off nether a proposed wealthiness tax. The founders themselves are split.

California will ballot connected its statewide "billionaire tax" successful November. In an X consequence to Rep. Ro Khanna, Cuban said the taxation would adversely impact founders, who whitethorn beryllium billionaires successful banal but deficiency the rate to salary it. "If this passes, only idiot startup founders stay," he wrote.

In an email to Business Insider, Cuban clarified that "not each laminitis will look the tax." There are "a batch of incentives to spell elsewhere," he wrote.

"Cali isn't the only spot pinch a bully climate," Cuban wrote.

Business Insider put Cuban's mentation to the test. We asked 3 startup founders: If the taxation passed, would you leave? The results were mixed.

The founders fresh to run

Jesse Tinsley said the billionaires will fly California if it passes.

Tinsley founded Mainstreet.com, a holding institution that houses Employer.com, Bench, and others. He wrote to Business Insider that he'd personally time off the authorities if the taxation passed.

"It's not conscionable me," Tinsley wrote. "It's each CEO aliases laminitis complete a cardinal dollars successful nett worthy minus a handful."

Tinsley said that billionaires don't want to speak retired publically because they don't want "the nationalist backlash." He besides cited the Laffer curve, the economical mentation that taxation gross will revert to zero arsenic the taxation complaint increases past a maximized point.

Where would he go? Tinsley said he'd caput to Florida. "If I was moving location permanently, I would get a location successful Miami/Palm Beach area," he wrote.

The authorities — and Miami specifically — has grown progressively celebrated pinch a people of tech leaders.

Others were little committal but expressed frustration. Jaspar Carmichael-Jack said that he'd "seriously see leaving California successful the mean term" if the taxation passed.

Carmichael-Jack cofounded Artisan, the AI startup down those viral "Stop Hiring Humans" billboards. He grew up successful the United Kingdom, but moved to San Francisco to build his company.

"It's a nonstop deed to illiquid founders building companies, and it makes it harder to warrant staying erstwhile different states are actively competing for startups," Carmichael-Jack wrote.

The founders intent connected staying

Not everyone is rushing for the exit.

Jensen Huang said he was "perfectly fine" pinch the tax. "We chose to unrecorded successful Silicon Valley, and immoderate taxes they would for illustration to apply, truthful beryllium it," Huang said successful January.

There are perks to being physically successful Silicon Valley: the startup scene, ample investors, accelerators, and hacker houses. San Francisco has grown more prized successful the AI era arsenic opportunities and money move in. Why leave?

HiJenny laminitis Michal Cieplinski wrote to Business Insider that founders "are not going anywhere" while the Bay Area remains cardinal to the AI roar and engineering talent.

"The wealthiness taxation mostly affects founders of nationalist aliases ample backstage companies and they, connected their own, tin move," Cieplinski wrote.

"The companies and astir of their labor will remain."