Early Facebook employee and Silicon Valley investor Chamath Palihapitiya said Wednesday that he strongly supports Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax. He stopped short of endorsing the Democratic presidential candidate.
Warren's so-called wealth tax would include a 6% tax on wealth over $1 billion and a 2% tax on every dollar of wealth held between $50 million and $1 billion. The tax would raise $1 trillion over 10 years, economists have found. Warren has said she plans to use the funds to pursue her ambitious climate agenda, invest in child care, reduce the national student loan debt and achieve "Medicare for All."
The tax has landed Warren in the crosshairs of billionaires such as Omega Advisors CEO Leon Cooperman who have emotionally attacked the proposed tax. Fellow billionaire Palihapitiya, however, says he has no problem with the wealth tax.
"I love it," he said on CNBC's "Closing Bell" with Seema Mody. "There's a very small sliver of people who will be deeply and completely affected by a wealth tax, which is not rich people, but specifically rich people who own unproductive assets or rich people who have concentrated stock positions."
"I'm not afraid," he said.
Palihapitiya donated $5,000 to Warren's presidential campaign in May, according to FEC documents, but he declined Wednesday to publicly endorse her.
"Even if I disagree with things that she says — some of them I do disagree with, some of them I agree with — but knowing where she stands is much more useful and helpful than having someone who can be somewhat volatile, unpredictable and change their mind constantly, because that kind of indecision is not helpful for the process of capitalism and democracy to really flourish," he said.
He added he thinks some of Warren's policy ideas such as Medicare for All are "far-fetched."
