Seattle Socialist Mayor Katie Wilson came under fire on Wednesday for laughing when pressed about the mass exodus of wealthy residents and businesses leaving the state over new progressive taxes, waving them “bye!”

Wilson’s comments were in reaction to the state’s new “millionaires tax,” a 9.9 percent tax hike on incomes over $1 million, which was signed into law on March 30 and has already caused well-known business executives and Seattle-based companies, like Starbucks, to leave the state.

“I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are, like, super overblown. And if… the ones that leave… like, bye,” said Wilson, laughing with a beaming grin on her face.

The April 14 conversation at Seattle University circulated on social media this week, sparking some outrage among Washington state residents. Wilson told the audience that she was ecstatic about the statewide millionaires tax, with the mayor saying that she was looking to implement her own progressive tax options for Seattle.

“In general, we still have the very regressive tax system, and my office is doing a lot of work to look at what our options are in terms of progressive taxation,” she said. “We do have more flexibility at the city, at the county, in terms of taxing authority. And at the same time, I believe what I said before, which is that it’s not good for Seattle’s business environment, for example, for the cost of doing business in downtown Seattle to be wildly out of step with, for instance, neighboring Bellevue.”

Wilson added, “We have a large structural budget deficit at the city that we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with in this upcoming budget cycle.”
 

Mayor Wilson, whose politics mirror those of NYC socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani, was elected to office in November 2025, beating out Democrat incumbent Bruce Harrell. On Tuesday, Starbucks announced a $100 million expansion into Nashville, just weeks after its billionaire founder Howard Schultz announced his departure from the state altogether.

Schultz’s exit came days after the millionaire’s tax was signed into law by Democrat Gov. Bob Ferguson. Seattle currently has the highest combined state and local sales tax rate in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation, which sits at 10.35 percent. A group of business owners has since filed a lawsuit against the state’s new wealth tax.