Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber, has made the switch from California to Texas, joining a rising number of billionaires who are leaving the state amid a proposal for a one-time wealth tax by left-wing lawmakers.
In a chat with hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hayes, Kalanick shared that he relocated to Austin on December 18 to discuss his robotics startup, Atoms.
A proposed Billionaire Tax Bill, likely to feature on California’s November 2026 ballot, aims to impose a 5% tax on estates exceeding $1 billion, applying to state residents from January 1, 2026.
Kalanick humorously expressed a bit of envy at the number of wealthy individuals migrating to Florida. “Why so much action in Florida?! Come on guys,” he remarked.
Notable tech billionaires who have also headed to Florida include Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, investor Peter Thiel, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Despite California housing the highest number of billionaires in the U.S., a growing number of people are choosing cities like Reno, Austin, and Miami as their new homes.
Kalanick took time to reflect on his 2017 departure from Uber, which followed various scandals and challenges regarding company culture and investor expectations. He was also coping with a tragic boating accident that claimed his mother’s life and seriously injured his father.
“I felt disconnected from the projects and causes I had invested my life into. Reality seemed to take a backseat to perception,” he noted on the Atoms website.
Atoms, formerly known as City Storage Systems, is an industrial robotics enterprise that employs AI robots, referred to as “for-hire,” to automate tasks across different industries, including food service and transportation.
“I bled but I didn’t die. I stood up and fought my way back into the arena, returning to my mission. I went back to the building,” Kalanick expressed.
