Rep. Ro Khanna has a theory about California's billionaires: tax them as hard as you like, and they'll stay put.

Spencer Pratt has a list.

"Elon Musk already fled with Tesla, SpaceX, In N Out, Oracle, Chevron, CBRE...you have to be vegetable level dumb to look at all the companies fleeing for Texas and say 'eh, nobody's going anywhere!'" Pratt wrote.

That's vegetable level dumb, delivered from the guy best known for playing the villain on "The Hills" to a sitting member of Congress. It was also correct.

Pratt picked up his economics education the hard way. The January 2025 Palisades fire burned down his home, and he watched Karen Bass's City Hall handle the aftermath. He got so fed up that he ran for mayor himself. He finished third in June with nearly 218,000 votes, a lot of people for a reality TV star whose platform was basically "this is a disaster."

He's not on the November ballot, but Ro Khanna's billionaire tax is.

Proposition 40 would hit every California billionaire with a one-time 5% tax on their entire net worth. That's 5% of everything they own, measured on December 31, 2026, and due in 2027. Supporters say it'll raise about $100 billion from somewhere between 200 and 250 people. Khanna calls it "a pretty clear moral issue."

"It's a matter of values," he said. "We believe billionaires can pay a modest wealth tax so working-class Californians have Medicaid."

Ninety percent of the money goes to health care. The measure's chief sponsor is a health care workers' union. Draw your own conclusions.

Then there's Khanna's claim that nobody is going anywhere.

Google co-founder Larry Page moved his family office and his flu research fund out of California in December, before the residency cutoff on January 1. His flying-car company now lists its main address in Florida. Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin and Uber founder Travis Kalanick have reportedly gone too. On New Year's Day, investor Chamath Palihapitiya said several billionaire friends worth a combined $500 billion had "scrambled and left California for good yesterday."

The tax doesn't even exist yet, and the moving trucks already left.

You know Khanna has a problem when Gavin Newsom is the fiscal hawk in the conversation. Newsom opposes the tax, and he explained why: "Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes."

That's Spencer Pratt's argument, in Gavin Newsom's mouth.

The corporate list Pratt rattled off is a matter of record. Tesla moved its headquarters to Austin in 2021, and SpaceX moved to Texas in 2024. Oracle went to Austin, CBRE went to Dallas, and Chevron packed up for Houston after more than a century in California. Even In-N-Out's owner, Lynsi Snyder, has moved her family to Tennessee.

These are real companies that left, with real payrolls and real tax bills that California doesn't collect anymore.

Here's why that should scare every Californian who will never be a billionaire. According to the state's own Legislative Analyst, the top 1% of earners pay roughly half of California's income taxes. California's budget runs on a few thousand very rich people, and Khanna wants to see how hard he can push them before they leave.

When they leave, the bill doesn't go away. It moves to everyone else. Sales tax already tops 10% in parts of Los Angeles County. California gas taxes are the highest in the nation, and a gallon now runs about $6.40. Khanna's billionaire tax gets paid at the pump in Bakersfield and the checkout line in Fresno.

Sacramento's spending isn't slowing down to match. The high-speed rail project has burned through more than $100 billion in projected costs without carrying a single passenger. The state is building a nearly $100 million bridge so mountain lions can cross the 101.

Somewhere in Florida, Larry Page's flying-car company is filing its paperwork under its new address.

California votes on Proposition 40 on November 3.