A senior fellow at the California Policy Center argues that California's upcoming billionaire wealth tax ballot measure, set for November 2026, represents a fundamental shift from progressive taxation to what he calls "predation" against success. Mark Moses, writing in an article published June 15, 2026 by the Foundation for Economic Education, contends that high-profile corporate relocations—including Tesla and X to Texas, and Palantir to Colorado—aren't just cost-cutting moves but efforts to escape states that have "decidedly turned against them." The analysis frames recent tax policy changes in California and New York as attacks on productive citizens rather than revenue measures.

Moses points to several specific policy changes as evidence of this shift. California has made a previously temporary high-income tax tier permanent and allowed public sector union activists to bypass the legislative process to place the wealth tax directly on the ballot. New York City's mayor is pursuing similar measures through proposed levies on second homes. Moses also describes aggressive exit audits by California's Franchise Tax Board and New York's Department of Taxation and Finance, which he says track departing residents' cell phone pings, credit card transactions, and even veterinary bills to prove residency and extract taxes before they leave.

According to Moses, these policies stem from "a government that lacks institutional discipline." He writes that public agencies now claim responsibility for everything from social engineering to ensuring equitable outcomes, causing expenses to outpace revenue collections. The analysis contends that public sector unions use their influence to protect entrenched staffing and resist modernization, leaving government leaders with "limited room to maneuver" except to extract more from productive taxpayers. Moses argues that agencies are "no longer taxing to fund services; they are extracting wealth from their most productive taxpayers to sustain a bureaucratic machine that refuses to evolve."

Moses explains the issue through what he calls the "concession trap"—when wealthy individuals and CEOs cite their existing contributions as justification for fair treatment, they're actually validating the premise that their wealth is a public resource rather than the product of their effort. He singles out Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who has publicly stated he's happy to pay his "fair share," as an example of someone "negotiating the terms of their own surrender." The central argument is that state governments have inverted their historical role from protecting property rights to viewing successful citizens as "harvestable assets." Until producers stop negotiating and start advocating for clearly defined limits on government, Moses warns, "the predator-state will simply ensure there is nowhere left to hide."

The article concludes that corporate relocations to lower-tax states are "a necessary retreat, but an insufficient defense" because they don't challenge the underlying doctrine that frames success as a public resource. Moses argues that as long as California and New York are permitted to normalize this approach without principled opposition, they're creating a playbook for every state facing budget shortfalls. The bottom line: moving buys time, but without systemic pushback on the scope of government, aggressive taxation of success will follow productive individuals and companies wherever they go.