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Jamie Dimon warns high taxes could push people out of New York  — but Wall Street isn’t leaving yet

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Jamie Dimon warned that companies could leave high-tax cities like New York — but so far, they aren’t.

In his annual letter to shareholders, the JPMorgan CEO said New York City has “much going for it,” but it also has high corporate and individual income taxes that are inhospitable to some businesses.

Dimon, the man behind JPMorgan’s new $3 billion building in Manhattan, said some individuals might move, noting that the wealthy are already fleeing a few states with high taxes and costs of living. A proposed wealth tax in California, the state with the most billionaires, has drawn sharp criticism from some lawmakers and business leaders. Some big names are already leaving, like Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who moved entities linked to them out of the state ahead of a deadline tied to the proposal.

In his letter, Dimon didn’t name New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who supports increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations, and has proposed raising residents’ property taxes to address the city’s $5.4 billion budget deficit.

“Companies need to remain competitive in this very tough, fast-moving world,” he wrote. “And higher taxes mean lower returns on capital and less competitiveness by their nature.”

For now, though, the shift Dimon is warning about isn’t showing up in the office market.

Commercial real estate firm JLL found that in the first quarter of 2026, companies are continuing to sign leases for high-quality office spaces in Manhattan, and vacancies are down 2.2% compared to a year ago. AI companies are driving some of the demand for office space, JLL reported, as they anticipate near-term hiring. Rents were up 3.5% year-over-year.

In its report, JLL mentioned two financial firms’ recent commitments to New York City: Bank of America’s plans to expand its Midtown office space, and American Express’ commitment to open a new headquarters building in the Financial District.

Dimon, however, highlighted in his letter that some financial firms and their employees are migrating south.

“Sometimes you see companies leaving states, but migration also shows up in shifts of employees out of certain states,” he wrote.

JPMorgan’s head count in New York City dropped from 30,000 to 24,000 over the past decade, Dimon said, while its head count in Texas has gone from 26,000 in 2015 to 32,000 today.

“This trend will likely continue,” he said.

JPMorgan, which employs more than 12,000 people at its campus in the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, isn’t alone in building up its presence in the Lone Star State, dubbed “Y’all Street” by some. Both Goldman Sachs and Bank of America have announced plans to build new campuses in Dallas, and Apollo recently said it is searching for a second headquarters in Texas or Florida.




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Vinod Khosla suggests scrapping taxes for most Americans in response to AI job losses

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If artificial intelligence eliminates millions of jobs, it might make sense to scrap income taxes for the vast majority of Americans and target capital instead, Vinod Khosla says.

“AI will transform economies and need a rethink of capitalism & equity,” the billionaire venture capitalist wrote in an X post on Monday. “Labor portion of economy (vs capital) will decline sharply. Should we eliminate preferential treatment of capital gains tax and equalize to ordinary income?”

Khosla — who cofounded Sun Microsystems and made the first VC investment in OpenAI — was making the point that AI replacing labor on a grand scale might warrant greater taxes on assets such as stocks and real estate.

The veteran financier, who founded Khosla Ventures after leaving Kleiner Perkins, attached a video highlighting some of the jobs that could be taken by AI, from accountants and therapists to truck drivers and chip designers.

Khosla said in a follow-up post that ramping up taxes on capital would generate so much revenue that the government could scrap taxes for most of the roughly 150 million US taxpayers.

“Could easily eliminate bottom 125 million taxpayers from the tax rolls and be revenue neutral at the same time with a capital gains tax equal to ordinary income and a few other tweaks,” he wrote.

He added that tax breaks such as carrying over tax losses and tax-free borrowing against unrealized gains — which he called a “true abuse!” — are “special interest goodies inserted by lobbyists and campaign contributions, not true capitalism.”

Khosla didn’t address common critiques of higher taxes, including that they can discourage entrepreneurship and investment, that collecting them can be tricky, and that wealthy people may leave the country to avoid them.

Khosla has previously underscored that the advent of AI may require sweeping policy changes. He estimated in late 2024 that in 25 years’ time, AI could be doing 80% of the work in 80% of all jobs, and universal basic income might be needed to compensate for job destruction.

“As AI reduces the need for human labor, UBI could become crucial, with governments playing a key role in regulating AI’s impact and ensuring equitable wealth distribution,” he wrote on his firm’s website.

Khosla isn’t alone in predicting AI will change the fabric of society. Elon Musk suggested late last year that work could become “optional” and money might become “irrelevant” if advances in AI and robotics generate abundant resources for all.

Moreover, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO recently said that retirement savings may not be needed in 10 or 20 years, as everyone might have “whatever stuff they want.”

However, skeptics such as Michael Burry of “The Big Short” fame have cautioned the AI boom is a speculative bubble, tech companies are overinvesting in microchips and data centers that will quickly become obsolete, and true AI is further away than many think.




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I’m a millionaire living in California. I’m happy to pay higher taxes since I have more wealth — it just makes sense.

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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Scott Ellis, a 55-year-old millionaire who lives in Silicon Valley, about California’s proposed 5% billionaire wealth tax. Ellis is a member of Patriotic Millionaires, a collection of wealthy Americans who advocate for a fair tax system, a livable wage, and equal access to political power. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I never thought I’d live in California. I grew up in Colorado, went to college in Boston, and lived in Texas. I came out here for business school because I wanted to be at Stanford, and because you could play golf during the winter.

Now I love it here. It has nothing to do with taxes; taxes have never been anywhere on our list of criteria for deciding where to live. I want to live where my family is and love the weather, the jobs, and the dynamism.

Taxes are the price that we pay to live in a civil society. We have to do this together. There are examples all around the world of the power of effective government, and just like anything else, government needs to be funded. We should make it effective and efficient.

I’m proud to pay the taxes I pay. I should pay taxes that are higher than other people because I have more wealth than other people — that makes sense.

My wife and I achieved financial success in our careers

A lot of our financial success has been due to my wife’s success, as well as mine at the beginning of our careers.

I went to Harvard undergrad, worked at McKinsey for three years, and then went to Stanford. I then worked at Hewlett-Packard for almost eight years.

In 2007, my wife was a VP at Yahoo and we had two small kids. I looked at my boss’s job, and at the CEO’s job, and decided I didn’t ever want those roles. I thought, “Uh-oh, I’m on this ladder, and it’s not really where I want to go.”

Ultimately, my wife and I decided that I would step back and be the stay-at-home parent. My wife continued her career, and she’s been very successful in consumer internet at Yahoo, Google, and Pinterest.

I developed an interest in social issues in college

I studied poverty, urban America, housing, transportation, and sociology in college, and started thinking more about questions like: What does fairness look like? What does justice look like? What would it look like to build a great society?

I got busy pursuing my career, meeting my wife, and raising our kids, but as time passed and we progressed in our careers, I got back into thinking about how we help others around us. I did a bunch of volunteer work in different contexts, eventually becoming the COO and then the CSO of a nonprofit called New Teacher Center, which does intensive mentoring programs for new teachers.

Since 2012, I’ve started and run several nonprofits in the education space, and advised almost 200 individuals and organizations on things like strategy, finance, operations, and culture.

I’m also really focused on addressing excessive wealth and its impact on society and thinking about a future vision for American democracy, which is how I came to Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of wealthy Americans who advocate for higher taxes on wealthy people like ourselves, a higher minimum wage, and a broader distribution of political power across our society.

I’ve been struck by the massive accumulation of wealth

In recent years, I’ve been struck by the massive accumulation of wealth enabled by the consumer internet space, globalization, and the structure of the finance industry. It’s different from what it used to be in the ’80s and ’90s; this is a whole new ballgame.

More recently, I’ve been looking around Silicon Valley at all these people who are so incredibly wealthy, talented, and successful, and realizing how few of them are thinking about choosing to build a better society together.

They’re excited about starting new companies and raising new funds, but these are all people who have more money than they could ever spend, and their next goal is to generate even more money, mainly for people who already have more money than they could ever spend.

Meanwhile, 10% of our society is in poverty. It really feels unfair and wrong, and we can do better.

People don’t need more than $30 million

The proposed billionaire wealth tax in California doesn’t impact me and my family directly. People may think, “You’re happy to raise taxes on other people.”

But we need to start with a different conversation, about how much wealth is enough, how much wealth is too much, and what is financial success?

I believe that if you have $30 million in wealth, congratulations, you won capitalism. If you do the analysis of reasonable investment returns and inflation, you can buy a really nice first house, a nice second house, your kids’ college is paid for, your end-of-life expenses are covered, and you have a very, very luxurious ongoing existence.

So much of success in life is luck. Yes, people absolutely get educated and work hard. But it’s been found that the wealthier people are, the more they tend to attribute their wealth to how good they are and how hard they worked.

I look at single moms working three jobs, working the night shift — a heck of a lot of people who have less than $190,000 [the median household wealth] in wealth are working very hard.

Once you get beyond $30 million — and almost no one ever gets there — you get to a point where your life is so good, you really can’t materially improve your life anymore. We should implement a very aggressive annual 50% tax on all household wealth over $30 million. Excessive wealth turns into excessive power through huge campaign donations, which threatens and undermines democracy and capitalism.

The wealth tax is a step in the right direction — but not enough

I’m absolutely delighted that we’re moving in this direction, but I believe changes to wealth taxes need to happen at the federal level.

When wealthy folks bring up moving out of California, it’s a distraction. All of a sudden, instead of us talking about the fact that millions of people are going to be either losing healthcare or paying much more for healthcare, we’re worried about the 200 really rich people who might move.

People move all the time. Companies move all the time for all kinds of reasons — it’s just part of business. These conversations happen all the time — like, “Oh my gosh, there won’t be any more companies in Silicon Valley.” Well, 20 years later, look around. There are still some companies here; it’s just fine.

It’s 65 degrees and sunny here. The CEO of Nvidia recently said they’ll be staying in California because that’s where the talent is. We’ve got the Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood, Tahoe, the Redwoods, the beach, and great weather. I’m really not worried that people aren’t going to want to live in California.

I love it here. My wife and I are thinking about living in different cities for maybe a month at a time, but I have no plans to go anywhere else. Although I definitely love Colorado — I still have my Denver Broncos coasters and will be cheering for my Broncos — I’m from Silicon Valley now, and that’s where I’m going to stay.




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The 5 vacation destinations that will be more expensive to visit in 2026 because of tourist taxes

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Tourists love Kyoto for its ancient temples, pagodas, and its cherry blossoms. But from early next year, staying in the Japanese city will become more expensive.

After March 1, visitors in Kyoto will face higher overnight taxes on accommodation across the city.

The tax is tiered according to the nightly cost of accommodation: rooms under 6,000 yen, about $38, a night will remain taxed at 200 yen, or $1.28, while the tax on rooms priced between 6,000 and 20,000 yen a night will double to 400 yen.

The steepest increases will be applied to high-end accommodations. Rooms costing 50,000 to 100,000 yen a night will see the tax jump from 1,000 to 4,000 yen, and those over 100,000 yen will rise tenfold to 10,000 yen.

Kyoto’s government estimates the revised tax will generate 12.6 billion yen a year, about $81 million.




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