Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick dodges $180M California tax by moving to Texas

Travis Kalanick, the billionaire cofounder of Uber, is now a Texan, and he may have just saved himself $180 million. The entrepreneur told TBPN that he moved to Austin on Dec. 18, 2025, roughly two weeks before California's Proposition 40 would have applied its new wealth tax to anyone whose primary residence was in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. With an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion, Kalanick would have faced a one-time 5% tax on that wealth, a $180 million hit. "Just to be clear, on December 18, I moved to Texas. I don't know what's so specific about December 18, but let's just say it's prior to January," he said, hinting at the cutoff. "Yeah, so I'm a primary resident of Texas."

Kalanick is hardly alone. Proposition 40, which goes before California voters next Tuesday, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the state's billionaires, calculated on worldwide net worth but excluding directly owned real estate and most retirement accounts. The measure's Jan. 1, 2026 residency cutoff has triggered a quiet exodus. A working paper by Stanford economists Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh, published this month, counts publicly confirmed departures of several billionaires between the measure's filing in October 2025 and the deadline. Together, they took about $540 billion, or nearly 30% of the wealth the tax could have reached, out of California.

Kalanick's move wasn't abrupt. He told TBPN he had owned a home on Lake Austin, about 20 minutes outside the city, for roughly five years, drawn by the lake and his love of waterskiing. He's embraced the lake life since: In June, he posted a video on X of what he called his "5-minute jet ski commute" across Lake Austin to the office of Atoms, the robotics company he now runs, formerly known as CloudKitchens. Craft Ventures cofounder David Sacks also relocated to Austin in December 2025, joining a growing Texas tech scene.

Other billionaires have chosen different escapes. Google cofounder Larry Page spent $173.4 million on two Miami estates, while Jeff Bezos left Seattle for Miami before Washington passed a millionaires tax. Kalanick, for his part, joked about the Florida pull: "I get a little bit [of] FOMO on like, these people going to Florida. I'm like, dude! Why so much Florida action? Come on, homies." Miami developer Robert Rivani previously told Fortune, "All the big guys [are] moving down here."

The tax's fate is uncertain, even if it passes. Supporters say Prop 40 would raise about $100 billion for public health care services, including Medi-Cal, which would receive 90% of the revenue. But Jaros and Rauh's simulations, accounting for billionaire departures, put the figure closer to $30 billion. Factor in the income taxes California stops collecting from those who left, and the state could lose an average of $38.9 billion. Two competing ballot measures could also undo the tax: Proposition 41 would cancel any new state tax enacted after Jan. 1 whose revenue is exempt from California's spending limit, and Proposition 42 would ban new state taxes on owning personal property other than real estate, plus certain retroactive taxes. If either outpolls Prop 40, courts could rule it cancels the wealth tax. Polling suggests all three could pass: In a September survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, 52% of likely voters said yes on Prop 40, 51% on Prop 41, and 54% on Prop 42.

The politics are unusual. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, opposes the measure, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) are among its most prominent champions. A win next Tuesday would likely mean a trip to court: The measure gives opponents 60 days after approval to challenge it, and the backward-looking Jan. 1 residency date is an obvious target. California wouldn't be the first to test whether taxing the ultrawealthy drives them away. Britain scrapped its non-dom tax status last year, and billionaires have been leaving since, including property mogul David Reuben, who moved to Monaco this summer.

For Kalanick, the immediate risk is less about the ballot and more about audit. Because he says he left before Jan. 1, his exposure hinges on whether California's tax authorities agree he truly made Texas his home. The measure gives them broad power to audit billionaires they believe should have paid. For other founders and executives watching, the episode is a live case study in how state tax policy can reshape where the ultrawealthy choose to live, and how much revenue those policies actually capture.