LeBron James is leaving the Lakers for Philadelphia this summer, and the timing has thrust the NBA’s first active billionaire into the middle of one of the most closely watched tax fights in the country: California’s Proposition 40, a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state’s roughly 200 billionaires headed for the November 2026 ballot.
A closer look at James’s situation illustrates just how complicated—and possibly futile—fleeing California has become for the ultrawealthy this year.
