Mark Zuckerberg threatened to leave California over wealth tax

Zuckerberg has agreed to remain in California for eight years as part of a board-approved plan to create new shares he can sell to pay a proposed wealth tax. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg threatened to move out of California if residents of the state approve a first-of-its-kind billionaire wealth tax when voters head to the polls on Nov. 3, the company said in a new regulatory filing. Because of his concerns over the wealth tax, Zuckerberg told Meta that he was "evaluating relocating his primary residence outside California and that steps toward any such relocation, including any listing of his residential real estate in California on the market, would be public and inevitably noted and commented upon by company employees and, accordingly, raise questions for management of the company going forward," the filing states.

Meta said that because Zuckerberg's presence near the company's Menlo Park, California, headquarters is "critically important" to its success, the company took an unusual step: Its board approved a new class of nonvoting common stock that he can sell to raise cash to pay the wealth tax, if voters approve it. Without that change, Zuckerberg faced the prospect of having to sell voting shares to raise funds to pay the tax, which would have reduced his control of Meta. As a result of that decision to