How do economic elites respond to the ruling coalition realignment in authoritarian regimes? While the existing literature on authoritarian politics pays immense attention to whether the nominally democratic institutions strengthen authoritarian resilience or lead to democratization, empirical research on economic elites’ behavior under authoritarian settings is lacking. During politically unstable times, do authoritarian legislatures serve as property protection institutions as a public good or as rent-seeking forums for insiders? This article focuses on how entrepreneurs acted during China’s political transition from Jintao Hu to Jinping Xi and demonstrates that entrepreneurs with legislature connections have a higher probability of staying in the market during the leadership succession period, but this effect was not significant while the leader continued in office, which is suggestive of discriminatory property protection and elites’ self-selection.