Ohio millionaire Emil Barr reveals why he suddenly shelved plans to move to San Francisco

A 23-year-old millionaire entrepreneur who was preparing to move to San Francisco has scrapped his plans over California’s proposed wealth tax.Emil Barr warned the state’s political climate could drive away young business founders and cost residents job opportunities.Barr, who immigrated to the US from Russia when he was just three, is the founder of Flashpass, a Columbus, Ohio-based company that helps laid-off workers develop new skills and find jobs faster. He had already signed a personal lease in San Francisco and planned to relocate first, settle into the city and potentially bring his business to California afterward.But Barr changed his mind after learning about Proposition 40, a proposed wealth tax targeting the state’s richest residents on this year’s Nov.3 ballot, which he fears could eventually expand to millionaires like himself.“I just didn’t feel welcomed as an entrepreneur,” Barr told The California Post.

“Obviously, I’m a little bit more sensitive to this because I work with government, but I said, why would I move to a state where the government is basically, first of all, villainizing entrepreneurs and saying that, for some reason, if you built a successful chip manufacturing company, the fact that the healthcare system isn’t working is your fault?”Proposition 40 would levy a one-time 5% tax on billionaires who were living in California as of Jan.1, 2026.Unlike income taxes, the measure would target their total accumulated wealth, with the bulk of the money raised going toward the state’s healthcare.Barr is not the only prominent critic of the proposal.

California Gov.Gavin Newsom has also come out against the measure, while Google cofounder Sergey Brin has contributed money to efforts to defeat it.But supporters, including Debru Carthan, vice president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the union spearheading the initiative, have pushed back against warnings that the tax would send wealthy Californians and investor...