Free Republic

As the clock ticks on California’s billionaires facing a proposed wealth tax, some of America’s top business leaders are making strategic moves to leave the Golden State. Google co-founder Larry Page appears to be distancing himself from California, as public filings reviewed by Fox News Digital from the California Secretary of State’s office show several business entities linked to Page were moved out of the state in December, ahead of the Jan. 1, 2026, residency date tied to the proposed tax. Those filings indicate his family office, Koop LLC, and his influenza research fund, Flu Lab LLC, no longer list...

Billionaires including Peter Thiel, the tech venture capitalist, and Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, are considering cutting or reducing their ties to California by the end of the year because of a proposed ballot measure that could tax the state’s wealthiest residents, according to five people familiar with their thinking. Mr. Thiel, 58, who owns a home in the Hollywood Hills and operates a personal investment firm from Los Angeles, has explored opening an office for that firm, Thiel Capital, in another state, and spending more time outside of California, three of the people said. Other billionaires who appear...

California’s richest residents could be slapped with a one-time 5% tax on their net worth if a new law makes it onto the ballot next year. The measure – called the “2026 Billionaire Tax Act” – seeks to counter $30 billion in potential federal funding cuts to California’s Medicaid program. Cash from the new tax could also pay for the Golden State’s struggling public education system, according to supporters of the act, which include the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). If passed and signed off by Gov. Gavin Newsom, California’s tech bosses like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO...

Inside a closed Los Angeles courtroom, something wasn’t right. Clerks working for family court Judge Amy Pellman were reviewing routine surrogacy petitions when they spotted an unusual pattern: the same name, again and again. A Chinese billionaire was seeking parental rights to at least four unborn children, and the court’s additional research showed that he had already fathered or was in the process of fathering at least eight more—all through surrogates. When Pellman called Xu Bo in for a confidential hearing in the summer of 2023, he never entered the courtroom, according to people who attended the hearing. The maker...

Inside a closed Los Angeles courtroom, something wasn’t right. *** A Chinese billionaire was seeking parental rights to at least four unborn children, and the court’s additional research showed that he had already fathered or was in the process of fathering at least eight more—all through surrogates. When Pellman called Xu Bo in for a confidential hearing in the summer of 2023, he never entered the courtroom, according to people who attended the hearing. The maker of fantasy videogames lived in China and appeared via video, speaking through an interpreter. He said he hoped to have 20 or so U.S.-born...

Chiefest among these converts is billionaire hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman, who famously contributed nearly $2 million of his own money to efforts to kill Mamdani’s candidacy…I read the Pershing Square Capital boss’s tweet on Tuesday night at-ing Mamdani: “Congrats on the win. Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.” Elsewhere in the world of high finance, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who previously called Mamdani “more a Marxist than a socialist” and slammed him as pushing “ideological mush that means nothing in the real world,” is also...

If wealth were altogether bad, why would we give it to the poor? That would only make their situation worse, right? The very fact that God wants us to give wealth to those who do not have it proves it is intrinsically good. So we must affirm the “good of affluence,” as John Schneider has put it, even as we also reckon with its dangers. We can be “godly materialists” (again, Schneider) but must always remember that our godliness should drive and control our pursuit of and use of material things. It is possible to have holy ambition that is...

Part of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign centers around the belief that billionaires shouldn’t exist. Now, those ultra-wealthy earners are aiming to stop the mayoral candidate, in part, by boosting the profile of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani’s opponent for this cycle. Part of Mamdani’s bid has been to tax the ultra-rich and wealthy corporations, which include an additional 2% tax on New Yorkers earning more than $1 million a year. Despite these multi-million dollar oppositions, Mamdani is maintaining a lead in the mayoral race. Some of the groups opposing Mamdani include “Fix the City” (pro-Cuomo committee) and “Defend NYC”...

For years, Gov. Gavin Newsom has staunchly opposed increasing taxes on wealthy Californians even when the issue repeatedly reared its head during recent tough budget years. But faced with deep federal cuts to social services programs, labor and health care groups are asking voters to circumvent the governor – to tax a very small number of people. Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and St. John’s Community Health in Los Angeles want voters statewide to approve a “billionaires tax” to help prop up the state’s health care and education systems. The proposed ballot initiative would levy a one-time, 5%...

Bernie Sanders said: “Billionaires should not exist.”Source:https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1176481898685710337Billionaires should not exist. https://t.co/hgR6CeFvLa— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 24, 2019Zohran Mamdani said:“I don’t think that we should have billionaires.”Source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VowT8L8Uu6kI have four questions for Sanders, Mamdani, and anyone else who believes that billionaires should not exist.But first, I’d like to present some background information before I ask those four questions.Aluminum used to be so expensive that it was considered a precious metal. When they built the Washington Monument, they put a 20 pound piece of aluminum at the top. At the time, it was the biggest piece of refined aluminum in the world.Since then,...

Mark Zuckerberg is said to have started work on Koolau Ranch, his sprawling 1,400-acre compound on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, as far back as 2014. It is set to include a shelter, complete with its own energy and food supplies, though the carpenters and electricians working on the site were banned from talking about it by non-disclosure agreements, according to a report by Wired magazine. A six-foot wall blocked the project from view of a nearby road. Asked last year if he was creating a doomsday bunker, the Facebook founder gave a flat "no". The underground space spanning some...

Protesters are targeting the Hamptons as part of a Labor Day weekend action against billionaires A small group of protesters walked into the iconic American Hotel's restaurant in Sag Harbor this weekend to convey a message they filmed for the world to see: "Tax the rich." Sag Harbor is a village in East Hampton that has long been a premier destination for the wealthy. Labor Day weekend is one of the busiest times of year for the otherwise sleepy enclave. "You're all here in the Hamptons enjoying $200 caviar as though your money isn't funding an actual fascist regime!" one...

Protesters hold signs along Duff Avenue during the Workers Over Billionaires protest rally against Trump adminstration on Labor Day at Bandshell Park, Sept. 1, 2025, in Ames, Iowa.

Labor Day 2025 Workers Over Billionaires Labor and community are planning more than a barbecue on Labor Day this year because we have to stop the billionaire takeover. Billionaires are stealing from working families, destroying our democracy, and building private armies to attack our towns and cities. Just like any bad boss, the way we stop the takeover is with collective action. We are May Day Strong, working people rising up to stop the billionaire takeover–not just through the ballot box or the courts, but through building a bigger and stronger movement. On September 1st we will continue the movement...

An 18-year-old man armed with a loaded shotgun allegedly rushed toward the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, prompting a swift interception by U.S. Capitol Police. U.S. Capitol Police Chief Michael Sullivan said that just before noon, the suspect got out of a Mercedes SUV and started running toward the capitol carrying a loaded shotgun and additional rounds. Officers intercepted the man, ordered him to drop the weapon, and took him into custody, according to Sullivan. The man, whose identity has not yet been released, was wearing a tactical vest, tactical gloves and had a Kevlar helmet and...

Mark Bray, a financier of international Antifa and the author of the Antifa Handbook, has announced he is fleeing to Europe (believed to be Spain). The announcement follows the U.S. government declaring Antifa domestic terrorists, and the intelligence community looking to establish the international links to declare international Antifa as a foreign terrorist organization. Without evidence, Bray says the reason is because of "death threats + doxing." Bray is one of the major financiers of the International Antifa Defence Fund, which also announced that it was shutting down to relocate its operations abroad in an attempt to escape U.S. prosecution....

If Lower Manhattan’s Financial District was the center of American capitalism in the 1920s, then the southeast corner of Wall and Broad Streets was its most important junction. It was dominated by the headquarters of J.P. Morgan and Co., a financial leviathan that had come out of World War I as the most influential banking institution on the globe. Across the street stood the U.S. Sub-Treasury and the Assay Office. The bustling New York Stock Exchange was located just down the road. Rain was in the forecast for September 16, 1920, but as the bells of nearby Trinity Church rang...

New York City socialist Zohran Mamdani continues to hold a commanding lead — 21 points — in the mayoral race, fueled partly by a growing black base, according to a new poll released Tuesday. The lefty Dem captured the support of 45% of the respondents, compared to 24% who said they back ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, 17% in the camp of Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and 9% going for incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, with 5% undecided, said the Marist University Institute for Public Opinion survey. While Cuomo carried most black precincts in the Democratic primary in June, nearly half, or 47%,...

How can it be that in 2025, some leftists are still pretending that Russian collusion is a theory that hasn't been disproven? That it's not "fully digested"? There's still hope, even if "clarity never came." Such was the case with Keith Gessen, contributing writer for New Yorker magazine, who was reviewing a book bout the CIA, "The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century," written by Tim Weiner (no relation to Carlos Danger aka Anthony Weiner). Waves of Trump derangement flowed from Gessen in his Wednesday screed, "What Will Become of the C.I.A.?." The subtitle gives us a hint of...