Billionaire Vinod Khosla sued over beach access by California

Earlier this week, the state of California sued Vinod Khosla over his denying access to a public beach adjacent to his property in San Mateo County, south of San Francisco.

Khosla, who founded Khosla ventures, is estimated to have a net worth of $2.1according to Forbes billion according to Forbes. He was the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and then was a partner at the big Silicon Valley venture firm Kleiner, Perkins.

Beaches in California are public land under the California Coastal Act. Khosla bought the land near the beach in 2008 for a reported $32 million. Since then, Khosla has faced lawsuits by local groups for allegedly restricting public entry to the beach by locking gates and posting no entry signs.  

In its suit, the state of California alleges that Khosla has been “improperly and illegally” restricting access to the beach. The state is seeking the right to use the beach road, a pathway from Highway 1 that crosses over Khosla’s land, as well as access to the beach.

Khosla is fighting back saying he is defending property rights. In 2018, he told The New York Times he is continuing the legal battle over access to the beach because of his principles. CNBC reported that a lawyer for Khosla criticized California’s actions saying, “While such tactics are commonplace in communist systems, they have never been tolerated in the American system where the U.S. Constitution precludes the government from simply taking private property and giving it to the public.”