Mayor Katie Wilson took a wrecking ball to Seattle and even left-wing companies can no longer stay silent.
Now the executive behind one of America's most iconic liberal brands has fired back.
What he said about her is something no Seattle politician has ever had to survive.
Howard Schultz Built Seattle and Katie Wilson Is Taxing It to Death
Howard Schultz opened his first Starbucks store in Seattle in 1971.
He bought the company in 1987, took it public in 1992 with 140 stores, and grew it to a global brand that made Seattle synonymous with coffee, innovation, and American entrepreneurship.
Socialist Katie Wilson has been Seattle mayor for less than a year.
Nine days after winning the election, she stood outside a Starbucks and called on Seattle residents to boycott it.
In April, she laughed off concerns about Washington's new 9.9 percent millionaires tax – the one that sent Schultz packing to Miami.
"I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are like super overblown,” Wilson said with a chuckle. "And the ones that leave, like, bye."
This is the person now in charge of the city Schultz built.
Starbucks Is Moving to Nashville and Seattle Is Hemorrhaging Jobs
Starbucks filed notices for 61 more permanent layoffs at its Seattle headquarters – cybersecurity analysts, systems administrators, technology managers – while simultaneously building a new corporate hub in Nashville and moving 2,000 jobs to Tennessee.
Those 2,000 jobs represent more than half of Starbucks' Seattle-area workforce.
A 21-year Starbucks veteran laid off as a direct result of the Nashville restructuring told Seattle Red radio he was never given the option to relocate – his role was simply eliminated.
"The move to Nashville actually came with restructuring of roles, which actually led to layoffs," he said. "I was not even given the option to move to Nashville. It was just, 'your role is eliminated due to restructuring,' and that's that."
Fisher Investments pulled its 6,000 employees out of Washington in 2024 after the state introduced its capital gains tax.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos moved his fortune to Florida years ago for the same reason.
Wilson's response to all of it: "Bye."
Seattle Has the Worst Office Vacancy Rate in America and Wilson Just Made It Worse
Schultz described the collapse sequence in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal: empty storefronts kill foot traffic, foot traffic losses shutter small businesses, jobs disappear, tax revenue dries up, and then confidence – "something that's hard to build and easy to lose" – evaporates.
The former Starbucks CEO blasted the business environment that Seattle and Washington state are creating.
Seattle's office vacancy rate hit 33.3 percent in the first quarter of 2026 – the worst of any major city in America.
Detroit went from the manufacturing capital of the world to a city auctioning homes for less than a used car.
Chicago lost 200,000 residents to Texas and Florida in the last decade while violent crime exploded.
A Stanford Hoover Institute report found San Francisco is now more dangerous than 98 percent of American cities – and businesses were fleeing California at double the normal rate before the mayor there even finished her first term.
Seattle is not special.
It is just the latest city where Socialist Democrats convinced voters that prosperity can be mandated through redistribution instead of grown through freedom – and it ends the same way every time.
Wilson's theory, as Schultz laid it out, is that "prosperity can be mandated through redistribution rather than generated through growth."
Detroit's last Republican mayor left office in 1962.
The city filed for bankruptcy 51 years later.
Wilson has been in office five months and is already running a structural budget deficit.
The Washington Post editorial board called her "arrogant" and "defiant about the consequences of her antagonism toward successful people who create value for society."
When the Washington Post is calling a Socialist Democrat out for destroying her city's tax base, something has gone badly wrong.
Schultz is 72 years old.
He built the company that gave Seattle its identity, watched it grow into a global hub, and is now watching a Socialist Democrat dismantle it one tax hike at a time.
He said what needed to be said in the Wall Street Journal.
Whether Seattle's voters hear it before Wilson finishes the job is another question entirely.
Sources:
- Howard Schultz, "Seattle Is Fracturing Its Business Culture," The Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2026.
- Will Potter, "Hammer blow for woke Seattle mayor as Starbucks tycoon blasts her," Daily Mail, May 12, 2026.
- Julia Dallas, "Former Starbucks CEO calls out Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson over 'hostile' business environment," MyNorthwest.com, May 12, 2026.
- Lisa Stiffler, "Filing shows Starbucks' recent job cuts will impact 61 tech jobs at Seattle HQ," GeekWire, May 11, 2026.
- Jason Rantz, "Starbucks insider speaks out: laid off after 21 years as Nashville move kills Seattle jobs," Seattle Red, April 28, 2026.
- Joshua Q. Nelson, "Washington Post calls Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson arrogant over tax remarks," Fox News, May 2026.
