Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick said he moved to Texas in December, adding to the list of billionaires who have left California ahead of a proposed wealth tax.

In an interview on tech talk show TBPN, Kalanick said he moved to Texas on December 18. He didn’t explain the reasoning behind the move, but suggested he was motivated to do it before this year started.

“I don’t know what’s so specific about December 18, but let’s just say it’s prior to January,” he said in the interview on Friday. “So I’m a primary resident of Texas.”

He also outlined plans to rename City Storage Systems — the parent company of a Los Angeles-based ghost-kitchen operator — to Atoms, which focuses on robots.

Kalanick is among the billionaires who have been cutting back their ties to California as a debate about a proposed wealth tax heats up. Late last year, some of California’s mega-rich have opened new offices and purchased more real estate in other states, and said they are thinking about moving.

The California billionaire tax would apply to about 200 California billionaires who reside in the state as of Jan. 1.

Under the act, Californians worth more than $1 billion would pay a one-time 5% tax on their total wealth. The proposal would help fund healthcare, education and food assistance.

It still needs enough signatures to make it to the November ballot and get voter approval.

A website for the proposed tax says it would be difficult for billionaires to evade it.

“Their taxable wealth includes worldwide assets; therefore, they cannot avoid the tax by moving their assets outside of California,” the website says.

The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West is the union behind the act.

Supporters of the wealth tax face an uphill battle. Lawyers who work with billionaires have said they will challenge the act if it moves forward, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes the idea.

In recent months, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin converted several of their companies out of California.

Page and Meta co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg have reportedly been buying multi-million dollar properties in Florida. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who owns homes on the West Coast and East Coast, also moved to New York to be closer to family.

Kalanick’s net worth is roughly $3.6 billion, according to Forbes. In 2020, he spent $43.3 million on a Bel Air mansion in Los Angeles, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In the TBPN interview, Kalanick said he’s owned a place in Austin for five years. The property is right on Lake Austin. The entrepreneur describes himself as an “avid” “almost professional water skier.”

Kalanick, who resigned as Uber’s chief executive in 2017 amid investor pressure to step down, also unveiled his new startup, Atoms.

The company makes “specialized robots with productive jobs” and focuses on mining and transportation. Several companies, including ghost kitchen company, CloudKitchens are part of Atoms.

Atoms didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company is hiring, and the job locations are in the United States.

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