One of California governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) most high-profile donors is getting the heck out of dodge.
Steven Spielberg, one of the most influential movie-makers in Hollywood history, is reportedly fleeing California for New York, as the state weighs levying a stupid wealth tax that’s sending billionaires fleeing the already high-taxed state, the New York Post reported February 19.
Of course, Spielberg will perhaps never admit that the looming tax had anything to do with it. As his spokesperson Terry Press gaslighted in a statement, Spielberg’s “move to the East Coast is both long-planned and driven purely by his and Kate Capshaw’s desire to be closer to their New York-based children and grandchildren.” Tellingly, the Post noted that “Press did not answer queries about Spielberg’s stance on the proposed tax, which would slap a one-time 5% tax on individual fortunes exceeding $1 billion.” Go figure.
Is this just an extreme coincidence or is Spielberg realizing that his penchant for throwing millions of dollars into the coffers of tax-hiking Democrats is about one of the dumbest routes to receiving a sizable return on investment (ROI), as his wealthy California cohorts seem to be seeing? You decide. If the California wealth tax becomes state law, it “would apply retroactively to the beginning of this year,” the Post analyzed. Gee, who could blame Spielberg for possibly wanting to protect his $11.5 billion net worth from getting knocked down a peg or two in arbitrary wealth taxation?
Spielberg is no stranger to whipping out the big bucks to help Democrats win bigly.
In 2020 alone, Spielberg spent $4,250,000 to help the left win elections country-wide, according to Open Secrets. This isn’t surprising given his on-record disdain for President Donald Trump. At the end of 2017, Spielberg released The Post (2018), which glorified The Washington Post's war on President Nixon with the Pentagon Papers controversy in 1971. Spielberg told liberal outlet The Guardian January 19, 2018, that “The level of urgency to make the movie [The Post] was because of the current climate of this [Trump] administration, bombarding the press and labeling the truth as fake if it suited them.”
After all, it was Spielberg himself who served as Hillary Clinton’s image adviser as the 2016 presidential election was set to kick into high gear by providing her with “likeability lessons.” That investment didn’t pan out so well either.
