Tech luminaries, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, began frantically moving out of the state to skirt the proposal’s definition of permanent residency, which is retroactive from Jan. 1. David Sacks, the White House’s artificial intelligence and crypto czar, darkly proclaimed, “This is not a tax, this is asset seizure,” in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and wondered why the state even needed more revenue, apparently oblivious to the Trump administration’s looming health-care cuts. Local business leaders, including some of the very billionaires leaving town, have funneled money into super PACs to try to defeat the initiative before it has even reached the almost 900,000 or so required signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot. And Gavin Newsom, California’s governor and a likely presidential candidate in 2028, has been forced into the awkward position of opposing a proposal many of his voters support while advocating for more progressive taxation in general.