About 11,000 news pieces were published around the world in 2024 by some of the most read and most watched news outlets claiming that droves of millionaires were fleeing countries in record numbers. This was a huge exodus, we were told, with economic consequences, and the root of it all was supposedly taxes on the super-rich. But here’s what all this media reporting left out, these record numbers of millionaires leaving represented just 0.2% of all millionaires. In other words, almost 100% of millionaires did not move to another country, yet somehow this was spun a full 180 into an exodus. So where does this story come from? Well, it’s based on a report published by a firm called Henley and Partners, which helps sell golden passports to the super rich. Golden passports were just ruled to be unlawful by the European Court of Justice, thanks to a challenge by the European Commission, which said golden passports impose a serious risk of corruption, money laundering, tax evasion. Our review of the Henley and Partners report shows that there were several issues with the report’s methodology, its sample and its reporting. But what the media reported and what governments listened to was a fiction, based on questionable data published by a firm that helps the super-rich buy their way out of rules that apply to everybody else. Scare stories like these are used to block the positive change people want.