This week, California voters will decide through a ballot measure whether to impose an asset tax on the state's ultra-wealthy for the first time. But these billionaires, especially the tech billionaires from Silicon Valley, have no intention of simply paying up.
"For Brin, $100 million is like a middle-class family having a lavish dinner at Olive Garden — it's nothing to him." That was how San Francisco political consultant Eric Jaye described Brin's spending to block the billionaire tax. Democrats might think it's no big deal for the ultra-rich to pay more taxes, but Brin clearly disagrees.
For the past several months, every Tuesday, more than twenty of the world's top billionaires or their advisors have dialed into a conference call to plan how to fight a war. According to foreign media reports, their enemy is California Proposition 40, a wealth tax aimed specifically at billionaires.
The billionaires are so nervous because the bulk of this tax falls on a very small number of people. According to foreign media analysis, Brin, Jensen Huang, Page and Zuckerberg together would bear about 40% of the roughly $107 billion total, amounting to $42.8 billion.
On November 3, California voters will vote on this proposition. If passed, it would be America's first state-level wealth tax, imposing a one-time 5% tax on the net assets of California residents worth more than $1 billion, based on residency as of January 1, 2026, with wealth calculated at year-end and payable over five years.
To block the proposition's passage, about 80 top billionaires have donated more than $333 million to the opposition group "Building a Better California," making it one of the best-funded political actions in California history. Supporters have raised only about $32.7 million, less than one-tenth of their opponents.
Billionaires Stay Behind the Scenes, Donating Stock Directly
The conference call is organized by "Building a Better California," which updates donors weekly on polling, advertising and opposition research, and often ends with one question: can you donate a little more?
The donor list reads like a Silicon Valley hall of fame: Google co-founder Sergey Brin, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, legendary investor John Doerr. Partners from top venture firms like Sequoia, Coatue, General Catalyst and Benchmark, as well as founders of companies like Robinhood, DoorDash, Reddit, Figma and Coinbase — these billionaires have all contributed.
Silicon Valley investor Trevor Traina described it as an "Avengers-level" operation. The billionaires are well aware of how sensitive this is. Amid populist anger over wealth inequality, billionaires spending money to oppose a billionaire tax requires extra caution. An internal memo that circulated emphasized that the public face of the effort must be other supporters, not the billionaires themselves. The organization's own polling acknowledged that the public views billionaires negatively on nearly every issue.
To that end, they hired an influencer marketing firm to produce content that looks more like news and leans left, in order to reach Democratic voters. Even the donation method is unique to tech billionaires. Fundraisers advised tech entrepreneurs to donate appreciated stock directly, so they can avoid capital gains tax. Over the past six weeks, more than two-thirds of the money the organization received came in the form of stock. Using tax avoidance to oppose a tax increase — that is perhaps Silicon Valley's shrewdest political maneuver.
Brin Becomes the Leading Figure
Brin is the leader of this counteroffensive. Because of this billionaire tax, he moved his residence and business to Nevada at the end of last year. But Brin was not willing to give up. This year he assembled a team, assigning his family office head George Pavlov and two veteran election operatives to specifically fight the proposition. Another group organized by crypto billionaire Chris Larsen later merged into Brin's camp.
In the first six months, Brin wrote seven checks totaling $102 million to block the measure, making him the largest individual donor to a single proposition in California history. Based on his fortune of about $260 billion, his potential tax bill would be about $13 billion — the $100 million blocking fee is less than one percent of that. However, Brin no longer wants to foot the bill alone. He hasn't donated since July. His advisors made clear they hope others will contribute more in the fall round.
This month, "Building a Better California" told donors the budget was still about $25 million short, and an anonymous donor was willing to put up another $13 million — provided others matched that amount. Former Google CEO Schmidt has donated more than $40 million cumulatively, making him the second-largest donor. Doerr and Collison donated $40 million and $33 million respectively, ranking third and fourth.
Collison's situation is particularly awkward. Most of his wealth is in Stripe stock, and the payments company, valued at $159 billion, has not yet gone public, making the stock hard to liquidate. Rippling CEO Parker Conrad also complained on social media that the tax is unfair to founders of unlisted unicorns, because they would have to pay taxes on stock they can't sell.
It's worth noting that Google's other co-founder, Page, has personal assets almost equal to Brin's. Once deemed a California resident, he too would face a tax bill in the tens of billions, but public records show no direct donation from Page. Page is Silicon Valley's most mysterious billionaire, rarely appearing in public for years, quietly operating an AI manufacturing startup called Dynatomics behind the scenes.
Setting Up Counter-Propositions
The billionaires' real trump card is launching two counter-propositions. In response to the union-backed Proposition 40, "Building a Better California" designed Propositions 41 and 42, with Proposition 42 seeking to ban retroactive taxation and constitutionally prohibit future wealth taxes. Under California law, if two conflicting propositions both pass, the one with more votes takes effect. That means even if Proposition 40 wins a majority, it could be "stolen" by its opponents. Internal documents state the goal bluntly: win both, and defeat Proposition 40 by an overwhelming margin, thereby pouring cold water on the nationwide wealth tax movement.
The billionaires are so nervous because the bulk of this tax falls on a very small number of people. According to foreign media analysis, Brin, Jensen Huang, Page and Zuckerberg together would bear about 40% of the roughly $107 billion total, amounting to $42.8 billion. They pay almost no personal income tax. Page and Brin had three years since 2019 in which they disclosed no taxable income. California billionaires pay state income tax each year amounting to only about 0.2% of their wealth. This is because their wealth is almost entirely in stock — if they don't sell, it isn't income, and they don't owe tax. And when they want to spend money, they don't need to sell stock for cash; they simply pledge their existing equity as collateral.
This is precisely the core argument of the proposition's sponsor, the California healthcare workers union SEIU-UHW: Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" cut federal funding for Medi-Cal while giving tax breaks to the rich, and now it's time for the wealthiest to fill that gap.
Jensen Huang Plays the Long Game, Musk Left Long Ago
The person with a completely opposite attitude to Brin is Jensen Huang. In an interview with foreign media, he said that based on his fortune of about $184 billion, paying about $8 billion over five years would be an honor for him. Huang said he isn't afraid of paying taxes, only of becoming poor. He also said, "I am the ultimate version of the American Dream." Having gone from a dishwasher at Denny's to the head of the world's most valuable company, those words carry weight.
As early as January, he said he hadn't considered the matter even once — if taxes are owed, just pay them, and NVIDIA stays in Silicon Valley because the talent is here. Perhaps Huang sees further ahead: neither he nor NVIDIA could leave Silicon Valley, and as long as NVIDIA grows steadily and its stock keeps rising, a tax bill approaching $10 billion wouldn't be too big a problem for him. Making enemies of the California government and public, and disrupting NVIDIA's normal business, would be more trouble than it's worth.
Another billionaire, Zuckerberg, chose to negotiate with his board. Meta disclosed alongside its October 21 earnings report that in July, Zuckerberg told the board the tax could force him to sell stock, reducing his voting power from 60.6% to about 53%, and that he was also considering selling his Palo Alto home. Based on his fortune of about $225 billion, his tax bill would exceed $11 billion. Under Zuckerberg's threat, the Meta board ultimately agreed to issue new non-voting Class C shares, allowing Zuckerberg to immediately sell 20% of them — equivalent to 10% of his total economic interest — to pay the tax. In exchange, Zuckerberg promised to stay in California for the next eight years.
After Page and Brin moved out of California, among tech billionaires worth over $100 billion, only Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang still live in the state. More billionaires have chosen to leave California. Before the January 1 deadline, Page and venture capitalist Peter Thiel moved to Miami, and director Spielberg became a New York resident. Page also bought two luxury homes in Miami for $173 million. According to the Hoover Institution, departing billionaires took $536 billion out of the tax base, nearly 30% of taxable wealth.
The first to foresee all this was the world's richest man, Musk. As early as December 2020, he announced his move to Texas, then sold all seven of his California properties and has since rented in Texas. If he hadn't left California, based on Forbes' estimate of nearly $1 trillion in wealth, 5% would be nearly $50 billion. By leaving early, he perfectly dodged the blow.
Billionaires Become Targets in Blue States
In fact, this wave of taxing billionaires has been brewing for a long time. During the Biden administration, a "Billionaire Minimum Income Tax" was proposed, requiring those with net assets over $100 million to pay a minimum of 25%, including unrealized capital gains. However, this billionaire tax has been written into White House budget proposals every year since 2022, yet never became law.
With the federal level stalled, Democrats turned to states and cities. Taxing the rich is not just California's agenda — it has become a common direction for Democratic-governed states and cities. Washington State, home to Microsoft and Amazon, has never had a personal income tax, but it too has changed tradition and now aims its tax increase at the wealthy. Governor Bob Ferguson signed a bill in March this year imposing a 9.9% tax on annual income above $1 million starting in 2028. New York City's newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Governor Kathy Hochul jointly introduced New York State's first "second home tax," imposing a surcharge on second residences worth more than $5 million held by non-New York City residents. This means billionaires who hold property in New York even if they don't live there regularly will have to pay extra tax.
But whether to target billionaires has also caused huge divisions within the Democratic Party. The California Democratic Party supported Proposition 40 in August by a narrow margin just over the 60% threshold, but San Francisco Democrats subsequently voted against it, publicly breaking ranks. California Governor Newsom has been explicitly opposed to taxing billionaires, saying in June that he could negotiate with unions to withdraw the proposition from the ballot, but ultimately failed to reach a deal, and on October 9 he publicly supported Proposition 42.
Newsom's argument is that a wealth tax should be levied at the national level, and California must compete with the other 49 states. It's worth noting that Newsom is very likely to run for president in 2028, and he needs the support of billionaires and is even more reluctant to be seen as a radical Democrat. But Newsom's move has also drawn criticism from the party's progressive wing. Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders made a special trip to California to campaign for the proposition, and Silicon Valley-area Congressman Ro Khanna directly called on Newsom to stop only caring about donors.
Many of the billionaires opposing the proposition are longtime Newsom donors. Larsen has donated more than $12 million against the proposition and has said he will support Newsom in 2028. Whether or not California passes this proposition, imposing a wealth tax on billionaires could continue to push Silicon Valley's wealthy further toward the other side of the political balance. Former White House AI chief and Silicon Valley tech investor David Sacks publicly declared on X that after blindly funding the left for years, Silicon Valley has finally seen the situation clearly. According to "Americans for Tax Fairness," billionaire families' political spending in 2026 is estimated at about $1.7 billion, with about 69% going to Republicans.
Doerr was once a traditional major donor to the Democratic Party, but now he is publicly resisting California Democrats. Brin once publicly opposed President Trump, but now has become a good friend of the Republican White House. On the 16th of this month, he even attended a fundraiser dinner at Mar-a-Lago for the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc., sitting right next to Trump.
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