Earlier this week I described how Rep. Ro Khanna had embraced a wealth tax on billionaires being promoted by California unions. That led to quite a backlash from some of Khanna's own constituents in Silicon Valley. That backlash has continued to build with some very well-known names calling for a primary opponent to run against Rep. Khanna.
Ro has done a speed run alienating every moderate I know who has supported him. Including myself.
— martin_casado (@martin_casado) December 28, 2025
Beyond being totally out of touch with that faction of his base, he’s devolved into an obnoxious jerk.
At least that makes voting him the fuck out all the more gratifying. https://t.co/CHaFWg9AcT
Count me in. Happy to be involved at any level.
— martin_casado (@martin_casado) December 28, 2025
Reddit's co-founder also came out against the idea. In response he got a bunch of death threats.
I'm disappointed by all the death threats I'm getting for highlighting a tax idea (taxing unrealized gains) that is objectively broken. I didn't/don't oppose taxation -- I'm warning Dems that proposing things that make the party look financially illiterate is a bad idea.
— Alexis Ohanian 🗽 (@alexisohanian) December 31, 2025
Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril (which is based in Costa Mesa, CA) also attacked Rep. Khanna's plan.
But you don't actually oppose capital gains on unrealized income. You support this initiative. It is completely disingenuous to claim one position while campaigning for the opposite.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) December 28, 2025
You are fighting to force founders like me to sell huge chunks of our companies to pay for…
You are fighting to force founders like me to sell huge chunks of our companies to pay for fraud, waste, and political favors for the organizations pushing this ballot initiative. I made my money from my first company, paid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes on it, used the remainder to start a second company that employs six thousand people, and now me and my cofounders have to somehow come up with billions of dollars in cash.
And if we can't, the state is going to seize my home and garnish my wages for the rest of my life. One market correction, nationalization event, or prohibition of divestiture (not at all uncommon during wartime) and I am screwed for life. But hey, at least you oppose that in some purely abstract and hypothetical way that doesn't influence what you are actually doing.
Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems, also attacked Khanna's proposal, arguing that people would definitely leave the state.
You are so wrong Ro. Top prospects for generating wealth in the state will almost certainly leave the state. Every advisor would advise every enterprise that gets big momentum to have key people relocate to another state. Even people who don’t expect this initiative to pass are… https://t.co/yWE58amojL
— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) December 29, 2025
You are so wrong Ro. Top prospects for generating wealth in the state will almost certainly leave the state. Every advisor would advise every enterprise that gets big momentum to have key people relocate to another state. Even people who don’t expect this initiative to pass are still planning to leave because there will be another one is the argument. And California will lose its most important tax payers and net off much worse. Long term damage unless legislature bans wealth taxes. Easier to equalize taxes on work income and capital gains at the national level.
Rep. Khanna has responded to these criticism by putting out fundraising emails claiming that billionaires were threatening to primary him. One of the people who appeared in one of those emails, Martin Casado, pointed out that he was no a billionaire.
Sorry @RoKhanna. I'm not a billionaire.
— martin_casado (@martin_casado) December 30, 2025
Not sure why you feel the need to lie about that.
Your new tactics are pretty awful, vilifying people with false information.
We all deserve much better from our political leadership. pic.twitter.com/XCzjnpKzZN
Khanna responded by trying to change the subject.
.@martin_casado I am interested in solutions. What do you think of this bipartisan proposal to go after fraud and abuse in Sacramento? And what do you think of Romney's idea to eliminate step up in basis or Ackman's idea to make tax loans on stocks that are above basis? https://t.co/ZRkwbszWcY
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) December 30, 2025
Khanna's proposal to root out waste, fraud and abuse was his reaction to criticism that any money expropriated from billionaires would simply disappear in Sacramento.
Over the weekend, Khanna came under fire from some donors and allies in the tech industry after he endorsed a wealth tax. Labor groups in California are trying to add a proposal for a statewide tax on billionaires to the November ballot, prompting some wealthy Californians to warn they will leave the state if it passes and support a primary challenger to Khanna in next year’s elections.
In an interview with CNBC, Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, said he’s launching a bipartisan effort from his post on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to root out state-level fraud to ensure the new tax windfall doesn’t go to waste. The effort, he said, will make sure that funds go toward health care and other essential services.
“If you want, as I do, to advocate for Medicare for all, to advocate for higher taxes, you have to have the public trust,” Khanna said. “People need to have a receipt for what their money is going toward. You can’t have corruption in the government and waste in the government and then expect people to support the progressive ideals that I have.”
Sure there's lot of waste and fraud normally but Rep. Khanna is going to totally nip that in the bud now that we're taxing unrealized gains from billionaires. That's his pitch.
Anyway, Martin Casado said he'd prefer if, instead of changing the subject, Khanna would just stop lying about him.
I have defended you on this app from the horrific personal attacks. I have no idea what your wealth is nor do I care. Every detail of my finances have been public record since I was w candidate in 2014.
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) December 30, 2025
The email is about the wealthy post citizen united using Super PACs and…
Casado tried again and this time Khanna agreed to say something to his team about not mentioning Casado again.
Ill tell my digital team not to mention you going forward out of good faith. The email was making a broader point --not about your specific net worth.
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) December 30, 2025
But Khanna refused to issue a correction.
We respectfully disagree. Ill leave it there as it doesnt seem you want to have a real dialogue. Best to you.
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) December 30, 2025
Just something to keep in mind when socialists start whining about "billionaires" the people they use as examples may not be actual billionaires. And that's fine with Ro Khanna. It's close enough for government work.
It's public record and people can judge the email for themselves. Almost anyone will say it was making a broader point about billionaires influence on democracy and the specific was just a screenshot of your tweet.
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) December 30, 2025
At this point, things got even more interesting when Palmer Luckey (of Anduril) pointed out that the fundraising email specifically asked people to donate to a PAC. This led to a response from Khanna's chief strategist saying the email wasn't sent by Ro Khanna at all.
As a factual matter, if an email links to a PAC, it didn’t come from us. Sharing a screenshot of our FEC report which shows no donations from the party, other candidates, or PACs (the $500 is a small pac called Courage to Act we returned after it hit our online link)
— Cooper Teboe (@TeboeCooper) December 31, 2025
So why defend an email that wasn't yours?
Our camp sent similar. Language was different. Common practice among PACs of scouring emails on both sides & sending out those they deem best to raise $ for themselves w/o seeking approval. I couldn't even tell you what this PAC is. But they sent it because the message resonated
— Cooper Teboe (@TeboeCooper) December 31, 2025
As I said- our campaign sent a similar email. We did not send anything that has to do with a PAC. Ro founded the No PACs Caucus. I’m clarifying as a factual point. If the recipient tells me the sender’s email, I could tell you exactly who sent it. But we factually did not
— Cooper Teboe (@TeboeCooper) December 31, 2025
This is apparently normal, so normal that Khanna's team didn't think to object to it.
As I said above, we wrote a similar email. A campaign seemed to copy it and rewrite parts- including asking for $ for a PAC. Just look at the sender’s email address on this email. If it was from us it will be from [email protected]
— Cooper Teboe (@TeboeCooper) December 31, 2025
So, to sum up, Ro Khanna sent out an email fundraising off the fact that "billionaires" (who aren't billionaires) want to primary him. And then he refused to correct the record by sending out another email to donors. Then his chief strategist stepped in to say he hadn't sent the email at all, only a similar one. And even though Rep. Khanna refuses all PAC money, he didn't notice this particular email written in his voice came from a PAC and didn't promise to do anything about it because that's just how the system works.
This is the guy who is going to end waste, fraud and abuse at the state level because he's such a beacon of purity? Good luck with that.
In all the backlash so far, I don't see anyone challenging Rep. Khanna on the biggest lie of all, the one about this being a one time tax. According to the actual text of this proposal the $100 billion or so raised from the one-time 5% tax would be spent over 4 years. What happens when the money is spent? Where does the state plug the funding gap next time around?
It's worth asking because it puts the lie to the claim being made by the unions behind this that it is just a one-time tax. Ro Khanna knows that's a lie which is why he's being careful not to repeat it.
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