California's Proposed Billionaire Tax Poised for Defeat as Ban Measure Passes

California's Proposition 40, a proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires in the state, was poised to be defeated by double-digit margins, according to The Guardian. A separate ballot measure, Proposition 42, which would ban any taxation of billionaire wealth, passed. Ballot measures are questions put directly to voters rather than to lawmakers.

Proposition 42 was put forward by Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, and a group of other ultra-rich Californians. Brin's net worth is about $230bn. He contributed at least $132m to the campaign against the wealth tax, more than any other donor. Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google, gave more than $48m, the second-largest donation.

Campaign finance filings show that Silicon Valley's wealthiest figures raised nearly $425m to defeat the tax. That makes it the most expensive opposition campaign in the state's history. Executives at Palantir, DoorDash, Stripe and Reddit, along with prominent venture capitalists, contributed millions more.

The campaign against Proposition 40 used slogans describing it as an "everyone tax", a "reckless experiment" and, in another tagline, "you're next". Opponents told voters the measure would make healthcare funding worse.

Supporters, led by the healthcare union SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, argued that the revenue would help cover healthcare losses caused by Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The pro-Proposition 40 campaign raised just over $31m. Opponents outspent it by nearly 14 to one.

California Governor Gavin Newsom opposed the measure, as did Governor-elect Xavier Becerra.

After polls closed on election day, several prominent figures in the technology and investment world publicly celebrated the result. Garry Tan, the chief executive of the startup accelerator Y Combinator, thanked Brin for his role in defeating the wealth tax. Venture capitalist Ilya Sukhar posted "God bless Sergey Brin," and crypto entrepreneur David Marcus posted "Hero."

The results varied sharply by region. Counties that voted to pass Proposition 40 included Los Angeles, San Francisco and other areas of the Bay Area. Counties that voted heavily against it, with as many as 80% voting no in the latest count, were mostly rural and poorer.