Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, all of 43 years old and barely five months into the job, slapped a 9.9% wealth tax on millionaires, told anyone who didn't like it to hit the road, and then watched in real time as one of the city's most iconic companies did exactly that. Starbucks just announced it's relocating 2,000 employees to Nashville, a move projected to cost the Seattle region $750 million in tax revenue over the next decade.
She literally said "bye." They literally left. You can't make this stuff up, folks.
Wilson's now-infamous comments came during a press conference where she gushed about being "really, really excited" about the wealth tax and dismissed concerns about capital flight. "I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our area are, like, super overblown," she told reporters, adding with breathtaking arrogance, "And if they do leave, like, bye." That's your mayor, Seattle. A woman who talks like a college sophomore workshopping her first hot take on TikTok.
Starbucks didn't even blink. Nashville it is. Two thousand jobs, gone. And Starbucks isn't the only one eyeing the exits. Microsoft President Brad Smith said publicly that he's "more worried right now about the business climate around Seattle than at any point in the past 30 years." Thirty years. That takes you back to 1996. This man has watched Seattle through the dot-com bust, the Great Recession, and the autonomous zone lunacy — and this is what keeps him up at night.
Boeing has signaled similar concerns. Amazon is right there in the city watching all of this unfold. When the companies that literally built your skyline start talking about leaving, maybe — just maybe — you don't tell them "bye."
But Wilson had bigger priorities. Before the Starbucks news dropped, she was busy tweeting "I'm not buying Starbucks, and neither should you." Great economic development strategy. Publicly boycott the company that employs thousands of your residents. Very mayoral.
Now let's talk about what Wilson's Seattle actually looks like on the ground, because this is where it gets ugly. The city has an estimated 25,000 people experiencing homelessness in the greater metro area, with a survey counting 17,000 and another 4,000 to 5,000 in emergency shelters. An audit of the King County Regional Homeless Authority found $13 million in missing funds and a total deficit of $44.7 million. Thirteen million dollars just vanished, and the response from the progressive establishment was a collective shrug.
Meanwhile, crime is doing exactly what you'd expect. In 2025, Seattle logged 100,480 threat incidents and 21,292 violent crimes. Remember the police-free protest zone? That six-block utopia gave us 5 shootings and 2 murders before anyone in charge admitted it was a catastrophically bad idea. Former Mayor Bruce Harrell captured the progressive mindset perfectly: "When this person commits six or seven crimes, I don't know his or her story. Maybe they were abused as a child. Maybe they're hungry." Six or seven crimes. Maybe they're hungry. Got it.
To her credit — and I use that word loosely — Wilson walked back her "bye" comments, admitting they were "not productive in the sense that they caused more harm than good." She also suddenly discovered that the city has a "multidimensional relationship" with corporations. Funny how that epiphany arrives right after $750 million walks out the door.
The Spectator's Christopher Sandford draws a sharp parallel to 1971, when Boeing laid off 40,000 workers and someone put up a billboard near Seattle-Tacoma airport asking, "Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?" We might need a new billboard. This time it should read: "Will the last taxpayer leaving Seattle please forward your check to Nashville?"
This is what "eat the rich" governance looks like when the rich actually eat their losses and leave. Wilson wanted to play progressive hero, and she got her wish — she's the mayor of a city with 25,000 homeless people, a $44.7 million homeless authority deficit, over 21,000 violent crimes, and now a $750 million hole where Starbucks used to be.
She said bye. They said bet. Nashville says thanks.
