Khanna Tells Thiel He Can Leave CA, Ramps Up Push For Billionaire Tax

India-West News Desk

SAN JOSE, CA – Rep. Ro Khanna has bluntly stated California will survive just fine without Peter Thiel. The Silicon Valley congressman brushed aside warnings that a temporary billionaire wealth tax would scare off innovators, arguing that a small levy on extreme wealth is a fair price to protect healthcare and keep the American dream alive. “If we pass a 1 percent tax on billionaires for five years to pay for healthcare for the working class facing steep Medicaid cuts,” Khanna posted, the state should not blink.

Thiel, a tech billionaire and one of President Trump’s most prominent Silicon Valley backers, has said he would leave California if such a tax is enacted. He was one of the few major technology executives to publicly support Trump in 2016, and later donating millions to Trump aligned causes. Thiel has also funded and mentored a network of right wing and populist figures.

Khanna (D-CA) responded to Thiel’s threat with open mockery, reaching back to the New Deal era for emphasis. “I echo what FDR said with sarcasm of economic royalists when they threatened to leave,” he wrote. “‘I will miss them very much.’” The message was clear. In Khanna’s view, democracy should not be negotiated under pressure from billionaires.

The public clash stems from the proposed 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, a ballot initiative filed with California’s attorney general in October 2025 and amended the following month. If supporters gather close to 900,000 signatures, voters will decide its fate in November 2026.

Khanna has leaned into it. “My district is 18 trillion dollars,” he wrote, noting that nearly a third of the U.S. stock market sits within a 50 mile radius of his district. “We have five companies with a market cap over a trillion dollars.” If a lawmaker from the heart of the tech economy can back a billionaire tax, he argued, others should find the position defensible.

Khanna has been especially dismissive of claims that the tax would prevent the next tech giant from being born in California. “Those saying that we wouldn’t have a future NVIDIA in the Bay if this tax goes into effect are glossing over Silicon Valley history,” he said. He pointed to NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang, who left established Bay Area firms to start his company amid dense networks of talent and capital.

“Jensen started NVIDIA in my district because of the semiconductor talent, Stanford, innovation networks, and venture funding,” Khanna wrote. “He built here because the talent is here.” The idea that Huang would have walked away over a hypothetical future tax struck Khanna as absurd. “Jensen wasn’t thinking I won’t start this company because I may have to one day pay a 1 percent tax on my billions.”

Khanna also tied Silicon Valley’s success directly to public investment. He credited NSF, DARPA, Stanford, UC Berkeley, San Jose State, Santa Clara University, and the broader University of California system as the scaffolding behind America’s technology dominance. That publicly funded ecosystem, he argued, is what allowed U.S. innovation to flourish long before today’s billionaire class emerged.

Ultimately, Khanna framed the billionaire tax as a response to a deeper national fracture. “We cannot have a nation with extreme concentration of wealth in a few places,” he warned, “where 70 percent of Americans believe the American dream is dead and healthcare, childcare, housing, education is unaffordable.”

 “America’s central challenge is to make sure the AI revolution works for all of us,” he wrote, “not just tech billionaires.” That is why, he argued, “a billionaire tax is good for American innovation,” because innovation, “depends on a strong and thriving American democracy.”