MIAMI and PALM BEACH, Fla. — Last December, a large coterie of Silicon Valley billionaires descended upon Miami to attend Art Basel, the ritzy, contemporary art fair that marks the end of the moneyed set’s yearly social calendar.
Much of the buzz surrounded the spectacle of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, among the world’s richest men, docking his 466-foot, $450-million yacht, the Dragonfly, in Biscayne Bay while he stepped ashore to view the art installations.
But the chatter pivoted quickly among a contingent of a dozen California billionaires.
Weeks earlier a new ballot measure — backed by the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West — was floated that would impose a one-time, 5% taxon the wealth of the state’s billionaires to shore up the Trump administration’s federal healthcare funding cuts.
“One said, ‘Listen I don’t know what’s going to happen, it may or may not get passed,’” said Julian Johnston, a broker with the Corcoran Group in Miami, recalling a conversation with a California tech leader who said he was ready to move quickly if the measure passed. “‘I’ll spend $100 million to $300 million,’” he said.
All along Florida’s Gold Coast from Palm Beach to Miami, luxury real estate brokers began fielding a torrent of urgent calls from tech chieftains and their associates wanting to see houses that they could buy before the end of year to establish domiciles in an effort to preserve their wealth.
Florida, with its high concentration of wealth — it has about 115 billionaires, ranking third behind California and New York — no state income tax, pro-business policies and balmy weather, has drawn an unusually large number of the disaffected California tech moguls.
In December, Google’s other co-founder, Larry Page, snapped up a pair of waterfront Miami estatesin the exclusive Coconut Grove neighborhood on Biscayne Bay for $173.4 million. Two months later, Brin reportedly bought an oceanfront compound for $50 million in Miami’s gated Allison Island.
Even before the wealth tax was first announced last October, several prominent California billionaires — among them PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, venture capitalist Keith Rabois, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Oracle’s Larry Ellison — had begun buying massive properties out of the state.
Many others are threatening to do the same.
Slamming the wealth bill on X, Andy Fang, a co-founder of DoorDash wrote: “stupid wealth tax proposals like this make it irresponsible for me not to plan leaving the state.”
Just last week, Meta chairman Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, paid $170 million for a two-acre estate on Miami’s ultra-exclusive Indian Creek, also known as the Billionaire Bunker, setting a new Miami-Dade County real estate record.
The exodus has not been limited to individuals. Wells Fargo, announced it was relocating its wealth management division from San Francisco to West Palm Beach by year’s end, while Palantir, the A.I. and software analytics giant, last month disclosed its move to Miami — six years after the company transferred its headquarters from Palo Alto to Denver.
This extraordinary wealth migration is reshaping south Florida: spurring development, tripling real estate prices for trophy properties (even as single-family home prices in the state have stagnated here) and amplifying demand for nannies, private chefs, exclusive golf club memberships and private schools.
Back in California, this massive transfer of Silicon Valley wealth is raising questions about the potential impact here on entrepreneurial innovation, the economy and its ability to attract and maintain talent.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has called the proposed billionaire tax “really damaging to the state,” saying it will “drive away affluent residents,” and has promised to work to defeat it.
The ballot measure comes amid contentious debate around a growing income divide and simmering criticisms that California is stifled by high taxes, regulatory burdens, skyrocketing costs and homelessness.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office said in a December letter that the state would probably collect tens of billions of dollars from the wealth tax, but it could also lose other tax revenue. The conservative-leaning Hoover Institution has estimated the wealth tax could cost the state $25 billion in lost income tax revenue.
The bill still requires nearly 875,000 signatures to qualify for the November ballot.
Supporters have said the measure would raise about $100 billion in much needed-funding for healthcare and other social needs in the state.
But some powerful forces are aligned against it, chiefly many of the billionaires that it has targeted.
“They’re trying to kill and eat the golden goose of technology startups in California,” wrote Garry Tan, the CEO of the start-up incubator Y Combinator, on X.
A haven for the wealthy
Ever since 19th century railroad and Standard Oil magnate Henry Flagler developed Palm Beach as a winter escape for the affluent, Florida has been a haven for the wealthy.
But the Sunshine State’s reputation as a seasonal playground shifted dramatically after 2020, when a number of individuals and families, mostly from the Northeast and Midwest, migrated here during the pandemic.
The wave of new residents was followed by a slate of financial firms that set up shop, largely in Palm Beach, such as BlackRock and RedBird Capital Partners, creating what is now referred to as “Wall Street South.”
“Miami is a vibrant, growing metropolis that embodies the American Dream…,” Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, told staffers after he moved his hedge fund from Chicago to Miami in 2022.
Brett Harris, a founding portfolio manager of Bespoke Real Estate in Miami is standing on the sea wall overlooking Biscayne Bay. Confident with a quiet luxury vibe, he looks like he was plucked straight out of Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing” series.
Behind him bulldozers are cutting across the 2.3 acre property on 5940 N. Bay Road, building a $300-million mansion. Next door, tech executive Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg are building their waterfront estate.
Known as “Billionaire’s Row,” this most sought-after four-mile stretch is one of Miami’s priciest areas, where residents include David and Victoria Beckham.
“The California guys, all billionaires, are running away from the wealth tax,” said Harris, who represented Zuckerberg in the Indian Creek deal. “I have three things under contract north of $600 million.”
His clients all want prestige properties, privacy and high-end amenities such as padel courts, wellness spas with cold plunge pools and saunas, chefs kitchens, in-home theaters, golf simulators, multi-car garages, and walk-in closets that resemble small retail stores.
Chase Berger, a partner with the law firm Ghidotti Berger, who handles high end real estate transactions across Florida, said he’s seen an uptick in what he calls “stealth ownership,” creating Florida land trusts for wealthy clients who prefer to mask their association with a purchase.
“I used to do a handful of these a year,” he said but amid the recent migration, “now it’s dozens” adding, “It’s a residency war with California that they’re fighting.”
Due to limited availability of prime properties, California buyers typically offer 30% to 40% above market rate and pay in cash.
Danny Hertzberg, a founding partner at the Jills Zeder Group Realty, who represented the sellers in the Larry Page and Zuckerberg sales, said that he and his team have had to get creative to induce owners to part with their properties. For instance, they’re putting clauses into contracts that are contingent on the seller finding a new home within 60 days.
”It’s not ideal,” he said. “It’s a way to try to convince somebody to sell, that wouldn’t sell otherwise.”
When the California billionaires can’t find what they want, they are typically dropping $50 million to $75 million on a “starter home” to establish residency.
Those unable to find a starter home have had to look beyond Miami and Palm Beach, transforming other coastal enclaves.
The ‘Ellison effect’
Perhaps nowhere is that more in play than in Manalapan, a 2.4-square-mile, barrier island 10 miles south of Palm Beach, straddling the Atlantic on one side and the Intracoastal Waterway on the other.
Tiny, affluent Manalapan is home to just 410 residents and its own police force. Residents live in ultra-exclusive estates. Many have private tunnels from their homes under South Ocean Boulevard that give them exclusive beach access.
One of its most distinguished residents is Larry Ellison, who in 2022 purchased “Gemini,” a 15-acre ocean-to-intracoastal compoundon S. Ocean Blvd. from Netscape co-founder Jim Clark for $173 million, making it the largest residential sale in Florida history. The estate includes a 62,000-square-foot main house and a portion of Bird Island on the Intracoastal Waterway.
Two years later Ellison — who is backing Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery — spent $277.39 million to buy the famous five-star Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa on the island, home to the exclusive La Coquille Club , where Manalapan residents enjoy free memberships. (Last November, he added to his Florida portfolio, purchasing the 600-acre Lion Country Safariin Loxahatchee for $30 million.)
The “Ellison effect,” as it has come to be known, has magnified Manalapan’s profile considerably, while helping to push home prices into the stratosphere.
In the fall of 2024, Fox News host Sean Hannity bought a 13,000-square-foot oceanfront Manalapan mansion on less than 2 acres for $23.5 million. In February, he listed the property for nearly $45 million.
“Manalapan is the jewel of Florida,” said its mayor, John Deese, who extolled its charms and low profile. “Larry Ellison brought a lot more notoriety.”
Developer Stewart Satter, an entrepreneur and businessman, came here in 2005. He bought four vacant lots for $20 million and built spec homes on three and one for himself. “If I had known what was going to go on with the values, I would have bought the whole town,” he said.
He’s currently building a 50,000-square-foot estate on the lot adjacent to Ellison’s mansion with a $285-million price tag. Excited by the prospect of at the influx of wealthy Californians, he says, “It’s going to be like Indian Creek, this little haven of billionaires.”
Building a rival to Silicon Valley
The dream of turning south Florida into a major tech hub took root several years ago.
Stephen M. Ross, the billionaire real estate developer behind Hudson Yards in New York and a majority owner of the Miami Dolphins, in 2023 asked Compass real estate broker Michael Costello what property he had available in West Palm Beach.
“I said, ‘What do you want?’ And he said, ‘Everything,’” recalled Costello.
In 2021, Ross, the CEO and chairman of Related Ross, had relocated from New York to his 11,000-square-foot Palm Beach oceanfront mansion, known as the Reef.
“Florida was such a great business state, but it never really did business,” said Ross, 85. “It attracted back offices, there was tourism and agriculture, but not major corporations.”
“I thought to myself, what doesn’t it have that would allow the growth, and focused on doing all those things.”
Since then Ross has been investing $10 billion to transform West Palm Beach into the an ecosystem of business, education, technology and talent to compete with Silicon Valley.
He’s built Class A office space and hotels and he was instrumental in the efforts to bring Wells Fargo’s wealth management division here.
Ross has been actively involved in delivering new private schools to the area, as well as resources to public facilities. He committed $50 million to establish Vanderbilt University’s new graduate campus that will focus on finance, technology, engineering and AI. It is set to open in West Palm Beach in 2029.
To alleviate growing congestion, Ross has even joined forces with San José-based Archer Aviation to build a network of launchpads and charging stations to power a fleet of air taxis.
Ross and fellow billionaire transplant Ken Griffin recently unveiled “Ambitious Accelerated,” a campaign to incentivize more businesses to move to what they’ve dubbed Florida’s “Tech Gold Coast.” Ross and Griffin have donated $5 million each to the campaign.
The efforts have paid off.
Last September, ServiceNow, a Santa Clara-based enterprise software company announced it was opening a regional hub in West Palm Beach, while D-Wave Quantum Inc. announced it was relocating its Palo Alto headquarters to Boca Raton.
“Florida is the new California,” said Maria Sachs, a Palm Beach County Commissioner and a former state senator who who grew up in La Puente. “It reminds me of the California of the ‘50s and ‘60s, where people flocked for jobs and to raise families and there was great weather.”
Others say the California dream is far from over and note that the state currently ranks among the world’s largest economies.
“There has been a net movement of populations inside or outside of California that has fluctuated over the past 20-30 years,” tied to economic cycles, said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science and the co-director of the Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research at UC San Diego.
“California remains the capital for investment and high tech job growth. If you look at venture capital, California often gets as much as the rest of the nation combined. At the same time, California is a constellation of a highly educated workforce, world leading universities and many companies and natural resources that attract many people who can afford to live here.”
Many of those billionaires that have hit the exits have not entirely severed ties with the place where they made their fortunes.
Several tech leaders have funded a new group called Building a Better California, aimed at tackling housing affordability and introducing other ballot measures that could help undercut the wealth tax. Brin has contributed $20 million to the effort.
Thiel, who relocated his private investment firm Thiel Capital and his Founders Fund to Miami, donated $3 million to the California Business Roundtable’s political action committee that opposes the billionaire tax.
To be sure, many of California’s tech titans are staying.
“We chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes I guess they would like to apply, so be it,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg. “I’m perfectly fine with it.”
The post Inside the exodus of California tech billionaires to Florida appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
