Palmer Luckey: Billionaire, Founder, and California Defender
Palmer Luckey has been a California billionaire since age 21, when he sold his virtual reality headset company Oculus VR to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014. Today, his defense tech firm Anduril is headquartered in Costa Mesa, California—not far from Long Beach, where Luckey grew up—and was last valued at $61 billion.
Despite his clear opposition to the proposed California billionaire wealth tax—a ballot measure that would tax the net worth of the state's richest residents—Luckey says he is not leaving California over it.
"I Am Staying"
Speaking at an invite-only press conference on Monday, Luckey explained his position:
"I think that this tax act, if you can call it a tax, is going to cause a lot of problems. It's causing a lot of people to run who I don't want to be running. It's going to cause companies that I work with to leave the state, which is a problem for me. As of right now, though, I'm not running. I am staying. I think California is something special. I want to fight for California."
Luckey also revealed he has faced pressure from other billionaires to declare his intention to leave.
"This has been a point of friction between me and some of my other billionaire friends," he said. "They've said things like 'Palmer, you have to have solidarity for us. You can't enable these really bad policies. If you stay and if you don't leave, it's going to show them that there's no consequences.' I empathize with that argument, but it's not one that I'm going to participate in right now because I still believe that we can fix things."
The Problem with the Tax, According to Luckey
Luckey clarified that his objection is not to paying taxes per se. Rather, he takes issue with the measure's sponsorship by a specific union—a unit of the United Healthcare Workers—which he claims wants to use the tax revenue "for their uses." The measure's sponsors say the money will fund "health care, education, and food assistance" programs in the state, specifically naming Medi-Cal, California's health coverage program for low-income residents.
Another concern is how the proposal would assess the tax owed and the penalties involved. It would tax "wealth" including unrealized assets that haven't been sold and illiquid assets that are hard to convert to cash, with penalties as high as 40%.
"It's almost like a seizure of future wealth in that way. That's not even the real problem. The biggest problem is the tax on control of your own company," Luckey said.
According to the Tax Foundation, a tax policy think tank, the proposal would treat someone with voting control as owning at least that same share of the company. This would affect founders with super-voting shares—which carry extra votes per share—because they may own only a minority of the company. A founder with 40% of the votes but 10% of the ownership, for example, could be taxed as if they owned at least 40%, and selling all their shares might not cover the bill. (The measure's drafters dispute this interpretation, arguing that super-voting shares are publicly traded assets and are valued differently.)
The Founder's Dilemma
Luckey explained his personal situation with Anduril:
"I'm a founder who's raised a bunch of money, I've diluted myself a lot. I've given equity to my employees. My employees have more equity in Anduril than me. I've given a lot of equity out to people, but what I have done is I've preserved the voting rights so that as those employees sell their shares to pay off their home loans or whatever, that the voting control doesn't go to other people outside the company."
He also noted that if he were ever to leave, "I lose all those voting rights. My voting rights only stick as long as I'm an American citizen living in America, running Anduril." This condition makes sense given that Anduril is primarily a defense contractor selling equipment to the U.S. military.
2026 Context
As California's proposed wealth tax continues to generate debate, Luckey's stance highlights a growing tension between the state's business climate and its progressive tax policies. With other billionaires reportedly fleeing or threatening to leave, Luckey's decision to stay and "fight for California" positions him as an outlier among his peers—and a potential bellwether for how tech founders with defense contracts may navigate the evolving regulatory landscape in 2026.