A billionaire has revealed he still flies in coach despite his vast wealth, as he warned that a proposed billionaires’ tax in California could spell the end for his Silicon Valley-based company.
Palmer Luckey, the founder of defense startup Anduril, explained that he was still choosing the cheaper travel option to set an example for his company’s workers.
‘If I’m going to ask my employees to do it. I need to do it too, even when it’s my own money, even when it’s my own cost,’ Luckey, 33, told the My First Million podcast.
He added: ‘Yes, I have a lot of money, but if I don’t also do it, it feels like I’m out of touch or I don’t know what it’s like.’
Luckey is valued at $3.5billion, according to Forbes.
He recently lashed out at the proposed billionaires’ tax in California that would target residents of the west coast state worth more than $1billion.
‘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,’ he wrote on X.
‘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,’ he said. ‘And now me and my cofounders have to somehow come up with billions of dollars in cash.’
Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, who is valued at $3.5billion, revealed that he still flies coach despite his massive riches
Luckey explained that he still preferred to fly coach, even in his personal travel, to set an example for his company’s employees
Luckey’s comments were originally made in October 2022 but resurfaced after he spoke out against the suggested new tax.
The Anduril founder explained that his unlikely decision to fly coach, as opposed to the more luxurious options available to him, was a ‘reasoned thing.’
‘It’s only a few hours,’ he said. ‘It is a very bad use of company money for us to be buying business or first class for people.’
Luckey added: ‘Because we have so much travel at the company, we could easily spend a very serious fraction of our resources on just people traveling in slightly better seats.’
He said this logic extended to his own personal travels – even despite his billions.
He added: ‘For me, a lot of it is setting an example.’
When asked about possible safety concerns, Luckey said that his travel routine depended ‘on the trip, where the trip is and what I’m doing.’
He clarified that he made sure to stay safe, although he did not get into the specifics of what that looked like.
Luckey recently raised concerns that a proposed billionaires’ tax in California could mean the end of his Silicon Valley-based company
Google cofounders Sergey Brin (right) and Larry Page (left) are among the billionaires who have taken steps away from California in wake of the proposed billionaires’ tax
‘There’s people out there who are not fans of me,’ Luckey said.
That included ‘Mexican cartels’ and ‘all the people who have been foiled in attacks on US military forces’ because of Anduril’s products, he claimed.
The billionaire said that it was higher-risk for him to eat in public than get on a flight with others.
‘In general, if someone’s going to come to kill me, it’s probably going to be a place where they know I’m going to be,’ Luckey said.
Luckey’s X profile said he was based out of Irvine, while his company Anduril is headquartered in Costa Mesa – about 40 miles south of Los Angeles.
Last month, he railed against a proposal that would hit billionaires in California with a one-time tax worth five percent of their net worth.
The measure would apply to assets such as stocks, bonds, artwork and intellectual property, instead of income.
Billionaires in California would have five years to pay, but the proposal has not been signed into law yet.
The proposed billionaires’ tax would apply to assets such as stocks, bonds, artwork and intellectual property (Photo of Silicon Valley at night)
The measure first has to gain enough signatures to land on the November ballot and then win voter approval. If so, the new tax would retroactively apply as of January 1, 2026.
Luckey raised fears about what that could mean for billionaires like himself if they could not make the payment.
‘If we can’t, the state is going to seize my home and garnish my wages for the rest of my life,’ he wrote on X.
‘One market correction, nationalization event, or prohibition of divestiture (not at all uncommon during wartime) and I am screwed for life,’ he added. ‘But hey, at least you oppose that in some purely abstract and hypothetical way that doesn’t influence what you are actually doing.’
Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page moved most of their businesses out of the state before the start of the new year.
Peter Thiel, valued at around $25.9billion, announced on December 31 that his private investment firm had opened a Miami office to ‘complement [its] existing operations’ in Los Angeles.
Tech investor David Sacks also relocated his office to Austin, Texas, in a move announced that same day
Silicon Valley venture capital investor Chamath Palihapitiya, worth about $1.2billion, posted on X that he had given ‘serious consideration’ to moving to Texas if the billionaires’ tax pushes through.
