Sean

friendship means little when it’s convenient

[Sean @Sean_Opie]

@elonmusk Atlanta please

[Steven Fiorillo @stevenfiorillo]

California’s proposed one-time 5% billionaire tax is being sold the way every wealth tax is sold: as a surgically precise levy on a couple of hundred people. But if American history teaches us anything it’s that a tax built for the top never stays there.

In 1913, Americans were told the brand-new federal income tax would only impact the rich. This was pitched as the ultimate tool to make the robber barons pay and started at a modest 1% on income over $3,000. It topped out at 7% on earnings over $500,000 (roughly $16 million in today's dollars).

Yet by 1944, the top rate had skyrocketed to 94%. During that same era, wartime legislation quietly introduced paycheck withholding. In just a few decades, a tax designed for a few thousand tycoons morphed into the machine that funds the entire federal government straight out of our paychecks. Rates eventually came down after the war, but the baseline ratcheted up forever. Today, the tax that was supposed to only touch the Carnegies and Vanderbilts takes a slice out of a barista’s paycheck.

Keep that history in mind this November, as Californians vote on a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s billionaires. Once again, we are hearing the same soothing promise: Don't worry, it only touches a few hundred people at the very top.

Let me be clear about what I am defending and what I am not. I am not a billionaire, nor am I carrying water for the billionaire class. I am defending entrepreneurship. I am defending the simple radical idea that any American with a good idea and a relentless work ethic can build something enormous out of nothing. That drive is the engine of our economy and a tax on net worth is a direct penalty for building that engine.

Here is what the measure actually does: it levies a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of any California resident worth more than $1 billion. It is due with 2026 tax returns and payable over five years, with a surcharge if you choose to spread it out. It targets roughly 200 to 250 individuals and is projected to raise around $100 billion, primarily earmarked for state healthcare. To make this legal, it requires amending the California Constitution, which currently caps the tax rate on this kind of intangible property.

To be fair the proposed tax excludes directly held real estate, pensions, and ordinary 401(k) accounts. In addition to cash and brokerage accounts, it could target art, collectibles, vehicles, and private business stakes above a $5 million floor. That is where the practical nightmare begins.

Who decides what a private unsold business is worth? Or a classic car? Or a private art collection? The measure would need to rely on hired appraisers and a tax-specific formula that uses book value and earnings multipliers. It sounds tidy on paper until you realize you are taxing people 5% on a number pulled out of a theoretical model with no sale, no buyer, and no actual cash changing hands.

Here is why this should matter to people who will never come within a mile of a billion dollars. For most billionaires, net worth isn't cash sitting in a checking account. It is tied up in the stock of the companies they founded. When you force a founder to raise massive amounts of real cash against an illiquid fortune, the cleanest way to do it is to sell shares. This forced selling of the mega-cap companies that anchor every index fund doesn't just politely shrink a billionaire's brokerage statement. It actively depresses the value of the exact same stocks sitting in your retirement account and your pension.

When a tax becomes too punitive, the targets simply leave. France ran this exact experiment with an annual wealth tax. As the threshold drifted down to around 1.3 million euros, tens of thousands of millionaires fled the country. In 2017, President Emmanuel Macron was forced to gut it, narrowing it to a real estate tax after watching the nation's capital walk out the door.

You don’t even have to look across the Atlantic; it is already happening here, before the tax has even passed. Billionaires like Peter Thiel @peterthiel , Larry Page, and Sergey Brin have reportedly relocated ahead of the residency cutoff. That doesn’t even include the long list of individuals and companies who left California over the past several years, including Oracle, Tesla, and Chevron.

The most damning indictment of the tax, however, comes from Governor Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom. Despite calling for a national billionaire tax, Newsom admitted he will personally vote "no" on California's version. His reasoning is exactly what I just laid out: “Capital flows and moves. When the governor pushing for wealth taxes won't sign off on his own state's version because he knows the targets will just leave, it tells you everything you need to know about how this works in practice.

Watch how fast the goalposts are already shifting. California's measure is pitched as a "one-time" 5% tax. Yet the national bill proposed by Ro Khanna @RoKhanna and Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders is an annual 5% wealth tax. Governor Newsom's national plan drops the threshold to $100 million. One-time becomes annual. Billionaires become nine-figure millionaires. Does anyone seriously believe it stops at $100 million? Or $10 million? No tax in American history has ever stayed where it started, and the people writing these proposals are telling you out loud that they intend to keep going.

We once fought a war over this principle. The slogan "no taxation without representation" didn't come from nowhere. The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first direct internal tax Britain tried to impose on the colonies. The colonists objection wasn't merely the rate on paper and playing cards, it was the principal. They declared that no tax could be imposed on free people without their consent. That fight rolled forward to the Boston Tea Party, and from there to a revolution.

Here is the bottom line. The people this tax targets played inside the lines of a tax code they did not write. If those lines are too generous, rewrite the tax code in the open where voters can see it. A net worth tax is unlikely to remain as a tax on the wealthiest Americans.

We need to stop treating the people who risked everything to build something as the villains of the American story. They created jobs and built the companies sitting in your index funds. The lesson we should pass to the next generation isn't that once success crosses an arbitrary line it should be clawed back. The lesson must remain that if you outwork everyone and never give up that anything is still possible in this country. That is the engine worth protecting.

I would love to continue this conversation because it's worth discussing. Why do so many people want to penalize success instead of celebrate it?

@PBDsPodcast @Jason @friedberg @DavidSacks @bgurley @BillAckman @chamath @GavinSBaker @Scaramucci @elonmusk

[Gatefan #SaveStargate @Gatefan1661]

A new Stargate show has the potential to answer questions fans have had for over 15 years.

It has the potential to ask new questions and bring in new audiences.

An audience already exists and is waiting for you to make the right call, @AmazonMGMStudio

#SaveStargate

[Mazlum Altun @MazlumAltun]

Daniel Jack says: #SaveStargate
@AmazonMGMStudio

[G Roberts @Geek_Roberts]

We want our Gate Builders back!!! We want more Stargate made by @martingero @bradtravelers and @BaronDestructo!!!

#SaveStargate

[Rachel Luttrell @rachel_luttrell]

I missed the tweet storm but I haven’t missed the fight.

This fandom has never stopped showing up. Your passion, your creativity and your refusal to let Stargate fade quietly into the gate room archives is something special.

So let’s keep going.

Post the photos. Tell the stories. Share the memories. Make some noise.

I’ll be doing my part and getting a little extra loud this week.

I’m with you.

#SaveStargate 💙
Sign the petition✍️ https://t.co/gwlR0bvNrI

[Stargate Now Europe #SaveStargate @StargateNow_EU]

You greenlit Stargate for a reason. Please remember that reason. @AmazonMGMStudio @PrimeVideo #SaveStargate

[Stargate Now Europe #SaveStargate @StargateNow_EU]

We’re ready for the next adventure.
Martin Gero’s Stargate deserves a future.
#SaveStargate
@AmazonMGMStudio @primevideo

[Gatefan #SaveStargate @Gatefan1661]

It's not too late @AmazonMGMStudio

#SaveStargate

[LorenHollᐰnder ᐰᐰBRINGBACKSTARGATE @lorenbhollander]

#SaveStargate
@MichaelShanks

[Stargate Now Europe #SaveStargate @StargateNow_EU]

With Martin Gero’s Stargate project no longer moving forward, many of us have paused our Prime subscriptions.
Reconsider Stargate - we’d gladly reconsider Prime in return.

@AmazonMGMStudio
@primevideo
#SaveStargate

[Zagros Ozkan @Reason_Will_Win]

We're not done yet.

Thanks to @BlazeISAF 's Gofundme, we'll have plane banners flying over Amazon HQs and Digital Billboard Trucks parking and driving around Amazon / Prime / MGM HQs to #SaveStargate !

You will hear us @AmazonMGMStudio @PrimeVideo !

https://t.co/xFBUxT2Gl7

[GateBuilder (#SaveStargate) @SGAGateBuilder]

#SaveStargate Please bring back Stargate with Martin Gero. Finish what you started, give it a season !! @AmazonMGMStudio @MichaelShanks #savestargate

[Stargate Now Europe #SaveStargate @StargateNow_EU]

Two years of development.
One greenlight.
One disappointing decision.

Please reconsider Martin Gero's Stargate project.

@AmazonMGMStudio @PrimeVideo

#SaveStargate

[Sean @Sean_Opie]

@elonmusk @blueorigin @StephenClark1 Maybe both teams should work together

[Sean @Sean_Opie]

@Barchart He’s got to pay back that massive short on Tesla.

[Sean @Sean_Opie]

@amitisinvesting Some jackass was in the lobby with a gun.