From Rock to Tech, Talent Flees Taxes
22nd January 2026
California Democrats should listen to The Rolling Stones.
Or the Beatles—The Taxman lays it out directly.
The band famously fled England in the 1970s, heading into tax exile in the south of France.
Mick Jagger and his mates weren’t alone—a generation of rock royalty abandoned the U.K. because of its steep taxes: David Bowie opted for Switzerland; Rod Stewart went to California.
“We left England because we’d be paying 98 cents on the dollar. We left, and they lost out. No taxes at all,” Stones guitarist Keith Richards recalled to Fortune.
Progressives are now transforming California into what Britain was before Margaret Thatcher—and it’s not celebrities who are leaving, but the billionaires who drive Silicon Valley’s economy, and therefore the state’s.
The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act ballot measure is a recipe for reverse alchemy, turning the Golden State into lead.