Nov. 9
California’s Billionaires Spent $333 Million to Kill a One-Time 5 Percent Tax and Are Winning a Constitutional Ban on Ever Paying One
Voters rejected Prop 40, 53.2 to 46.8, and are passing Prop 42, the ban on wealth taxes, 52 to 48. Sergey Brin alone paid $102 million.
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About 80 of California’s billionaires put $333 million into one committee this year to stop a one-time 5 percent tax on their fortunes. Voters rejected the tax by 6 points and, as of Sunday night, Nov. 8, 2026, are passing the billionaires’ own measure, a ban on wealth taxes written into the state constitution, by 4. So we read the Secretary of State’s count, the campaign finance filings behind the money, the Legislative Analyst’s Office review of the tax, the ballot language of the measure that nullifies it, and the wealth tax bills sitting in five other state legislatures. The question is what a permanent exemption from taxation costs, and where the fight goes next.
Proposition 40 would have taxed, once, 5 percent of the net worth of every Californian worth more than $1 billion on Jan. 1, 2026, roughly 250 people by Forbes’ count, and sent about 90 percent of the money to health care. The Legislative Analyst’s Office, the Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal office, wrote that the state "probably would collect tens of billions of dollars from the wealth tax," and that billionaires leaving the state "probably would reduce state revenues by less than $1 billion per year." A National Bureau of Economic Research paper from May 2026 put California billionaires’ combined wealth at $2.3 trillion and the tax’s yield at about $100 billion.
Every dollar against it passed through one committee, Building a Better California, which raised $333,247,914 from about 80 donors, according to state filings reviewed by the Fullerton Observer and The New York Times. Sergey Brin, the Google cofounder, gave $102 million of it. Eric Schmidt gave $40.2 million, John Doerr $40 million, Patrick Collison $33.1 million, Vinod Khosla and Chris Larsen $12.5 million each. The union behind the tax, SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, raised about $32 million. Brin told The New York Times, "I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union. I don’t want California to end up in the same place." Frank Slootman, the chairman of Snowflake, who gave $5 million, told Politico, "We are hunted animals in this state. They will be at it again in two years."
The same committee paid for two counter-measures. Proposition 42 would add to the constitution a prohibition on "new state taxes on personal property, including business interests, intellectual property, and financial assets." It also bars retroactive taxes and voids any conflicting measure on the same ballot that gets fewer votes. Building a Better California moved $159 million into the Yes on 42 committee. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the billionaire tax "really damaging to the state" in January and wrote in June that "wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes," endorsed Proposition 42 on Oct. 9, 2026.
The Secretary of State’s count as of Sunday afternoon, Nov. 8, 2026, with every precinct reporting: Proposition 40 at 46.8 percent yes to 53.2 percent no; Proposition 41, the second counter-measure, at 45.5 percent yes and failing; Proposition 42 at 52 percent yes; and Proposition 3, the California Teachers Association’s measure that makes the income tax surcharge on incomes over $371,000 permanent, passed 60 to 40 and was called by the Associated Press on election night. Decision Desk HQ projected Proposition 40’s defeat on Friday evening.
Voters in the same election passed an income tax on the top 2 percent of earners by 20 points, with the teachers’ union behind it, and rejected a one-time tax on about 250 people by 6 after about 80 of them spent $333 million. The constitution of the state with the most billionaire wealth in the country is 4 points from saying those 250 can never be asked again.
The people who lost say they are coming back. Dave Regan, the president of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, said on election night, "California’s healthcare workers intend to be back on the ballot in 2028, to correct the damage and overcome all of the lies and deception and completely outrageous campaigning we’ve seen." In October he told Bloomberg, "We would love to do this in Florida in 2028." Other states already have the bills. Washington State’s Senate passed SB 5797 in April 2025, a 0.5 percent tax on financial assets above $50 million, by 26 to 21, and the House let it die. New York’s S165 billionaire mark-to-market tax and Illinois’s SB 3376 mark-to-market bill sit in committee; Maryland’s HB 1238 surtax bill died without a vote when the session ended in April, and Minnesota’s HF 4616 wealth tax died in May. In Congress, Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna introduced S. 3956, a 5 percent annual wealth tax on wealth over $1 billion in March 2026; it was referred to the Finance Committee with no cosponsors listed.
The billionaires’ answer, and Newsom’s, is that wealth moves. I say let them move. The ones who live in California can pay their fair share, and the Legislature can say so in a bill. Prop 42 writes into the state constitution that California can never tax what its richest residents own. SEIU-UHW says it intends to try again on the 2028 California ballot, and its president has said he would like to try Florida the same year; neither measure has been filed. New York’s and Illinois’s billionaire tax bills are in committee. Washington State’s Senate passed one 26 to 21 in April 2025 and the House never voted on it. The people who spent $333 million to stop a one-time 5 percent tax expected to pay far more than that, and the tens of billions the Legislative Analyst’s Office expected is what they kept.
CALL TO ACTION
Who you’re contacting and how: Reach out to one of your state legislators. You can do that by email, phone, FaxZero or even a printed letter. You could even go to their office during business hours, bring donuts, and tell the staff you’re going to talk to them about an issue you care about if the legislator isn’t there.
Find your legislators by clicking on this sentence.
What you’re asking for: Ask them to publicly endorse a state tax on wealth above $1 billion, modeled on the bill Washington State’s Senate passed in 2025, and to commit to voting no on any measure that writes a ban on wealth taxes into your state’s constitution. You can read the Washington State bill, even print it out and share it if you like, by clicking on this sentence.
Let them know who you are, what you want, and why you care. Offices count identical messages once, so write it in your own words.
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