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billionaire tax
Newsom Ripped as Billionaire 'Errand Boy' for Opposing Wealth Tax on California Plutocrats
"Gavin Newsom wants a future for the Democratic Party that consists of sucking up to conservative billionaires," said one progressive critic. "That's a path destined for losses."
Jan 13, 2026
California Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed Monday to stop a proposed tax on the state's richest people, drawing condemnation from progressives who argue that the expected 2028 presidential hopeful's literal and figurative friendship with billionaires has no place in a Democratic Party that must center working class people and issues to win.
Last month, the Service Employees International Union—United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) led the introduction of the California Billionaire Tax Act (CBTA), a state ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of roughly 200 billionaires "to protect healthcare, keep hospitals and emergency rooms open, and prevent millions of Californians from losing coverage" amid historic cuts to social safety programs by congressional Republicans and the Trump administration.
Supporters are currently collecting the 900,000 signatures needed for the CBTA to qualify for California's 2026 ballot. Meanwhile, billionaires including venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Sergey Brin are among those fighting the proposal.
Public opinion polling in recent years has shown that around three-quarters of all California voters, and over 9 in 10 Democrats, back a billionaire wealth tax. So do unions, social and economic justice groups, progressive economists, and congressional lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—another possible presidential aspirant whose support for the CBTA incensed Thiel and other Silicon Valley billionaires like Larry Page and Elon Musk.
However, Newsom finds himself aligned with Thiel—a seven-figure supporter of President Donald Trump's presidential campaigns—in opposing the proposed tax.
“This will be defeated—there’s no question in my mind,” Newsom said of the CBTA in a Tuesday interview with the New York Times. “I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state."
Two headlines preview the 2028 Democratic presidential primary -- and perfectly reflect the big divide inside the Democratic Party. On one side are those fighting billionaires, on the other side are those who are owned by billionaires.
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— David Sirota (@davidsirota.com) January 13, 2026 at 6:45 AM
Newsom—who has close personal, business, or political ties with billionaires including the Getty family, GAP co-founder Doris Fisher, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and Siebel Systems co-founder and cousin-by-marriage Tom Siebel—said he is against the CBTA because it could stifle California's world-leading technological innovation and drive away businesses and wealthy individuals.
"The impacts are very real—not just substantive economic impacts in terms of the revenue, but start-ups, the indirect impacts of … people questioning long term-commitments," Newsom told Politico Monday. “That’s not what we need right now, at a time of so much uncertainty."
Not all plutocrats oppose a billionaire wealth tax. Benioff, Warren Buffet, Abigail Disney, Bill Gates, Jensen Huang, Chris Hughes, and George Soros have all advocated higher taxes on the ultrarich.
Huang, CEO of tech titan Nvidia and one of the 10 richest people on the planet, said last week that he is "perfectly fine" with the CBTA.
Gavin Newsom has terrible political instincts. Cozying up to racists like Charlie Kirk. Attacking trans kids. Defending billionaires. When left to his own devices he always picks the wrong path.
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— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social) January 13, 2026 at 4:53 AM
Responding to Newsom's opposition to the CBTA, Progressive Mass political director Jonathan Cohn said on Bluesky: "Gavin Newsom wants a future for the Democratic Party that consists of sucking up to conservative billionaires. That's a path destined for losses."
Civil rights attorney and professor Alejandra Caraballo also took to Bluesky, writing, "Another reason I'm never Newsom. He's a billionaires' errand boy beholden to them."
Progressive organizer Jonathan Rosenblum asked on X, "Which side are you on?"
"Gavin Newsom is on the side of the billionaires, not the millions of working people who stand to lose healthcare because of the Trump cuts," Rosenblum added. "Shamefully typical of the Democratic establishment."
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Jensen Huang, World's 8th Richest Man, 'Perfectly Fine' With California Billionaire Tax
If the proposed tax is enacted, Huang would face a roughly $8 billion tax bill—a tiny fraction of his $165 billion net worth.
Jan 07, 2026
Jensen Huang, CEO of the tech behemoth Nvidia and the eighth-richest man in the world, said Tuesday that he is "perfectly fine" with a grassroots push in California to impose a one-time wealth tax on the state's billionaire residents.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Huang said that "we chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes, I guess, they would like to apply, so be it"—a nonchalant response that diverges from the hysteria expressed by other members of his class in response to the proposed ballot initiative.
"It never crossed my mind once," Huang said of the tax proposal.
If the proposed 5% levy on billionaire wealth makes it onto the November ballot and California voters approve it, Huang would face an estimated $8 billion tax bill—a tiny slice of his $165 billion net worth. Those subject to the tax would have the option of paying the full amount owed all at once or over a period of five years.
"'Who cares' is absolutely the appropriate reaction," said Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank. "It means nothing to him. David Sacks types look like the biggest babies in the world."
Bruenig was referring to the White House cryptocurrency czar who left California for Texas at the end of 2025 in an apparent effort to avoid the possible billionaire tax, which would apply to anyone living in California as of January 1, 2026.
“As a response to socialism, Miami will replace NYC as the finance capital and Austin will replace SF as the tech capital,” Sacks declared in a social media post last week.
"Frontline caregivers are glad to hear that, much like the overwhelming majority of billionaires, Mr. Huang will not be uprooting his life or business to make an ideological point over a 1% per year fix to a problem that Congress created."
The proposed one-time tax on California's roughly 200 billionaires would raise an estimated $100 billion in revenue, funds that would be set aside for the state's healthcare system, food assistance, and education.
Organizers are pursuing the tax in direct response to unprecedented Medicaid cuts enacted by US President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress over the summer.
Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and the lead sponsor of the ballot initiative, welcomed Huang's response to the proposed tax in a statement late Tuesday.
"We agree with Jensen Huang that California has a tremendous talent pool of workers uniquely qualified to continue moving many industries forward, including within the tech sector and beyond," said Jimenez. "This initiative will ensure the $100 billion healthcare funding crisis created by [the Trump-GOP legislation] in July is fixed, so that all of those workers can access emergency rooms and vital healthcare in California."
"Frontline caregivers are glad to hear that, much like the overwhelming majority of billionaires, Mr. Huang will not be uprooting his life or business to make an ideological point over a 1% per year fix to a problem that Congress created last July—and that California will unite to solve this November," Jimenez added.
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As Billionaires Seethe, Organizers Say Proposed Wealth Tax in California Is 'Not Radical'
"Asking the handful of wealthiest Californians to contribute less than the annual appreciation on their fortunes to mitigate these crises is a small, reasonable, and administrable request," argued a group of experts.
Jan 02, 2026
Billionaire outrage against a proposed one-time wealth tax on the richest Californians reached a fever pitch in recent days as organizers began the process of gathering the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to get the initiative on the November ballot.
Without providing specifics, billionaire Bay Area investor Chamath Palihapitiya claimed in a social media post that he knows people "with a collective net worth of $500 billion" who "scrambled and left California for good yesterday" to avoid the potential 5% wealth tax, which would apply to billionaires living in California as of January 1, 2026. (The evidence for significant billionaire tax avoidance via physical relocation is virtually nonexistent.)
Palihapitiya characterized the proposed ballot initiative, which is aimed at raising revenue to avert a healthcare crisis spurred by federal Medicaid cuts, as an "asset seizure tax."
Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager who lives in New York, similarly described the proposed tax as "an expropriation of private property."
The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, meanwhile, published a hostile editorial on Thursday denouncing the proposed tax and mocking its supporters, including Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW).
"Many progressives think of taxation the way teenage boys think about cologne: If some is good, more must be great," the editorial reads. "California, already reeks of overtaxation, but it’s thinking about trying out its most potent scent yet: a wealth tax. Just a whiff has some of the state’s wealthiest residents fleeing."
The Wall Street Journal reported that "the firms of two high-profile California investors issued announcements on New Year’s Eve about establishing new offices out of state, without saying anything about the proposed Golden State tax."
"Tech investor Peter Thiel’s investment firm, Thiel Capital, said it signed a lease in December for office space in Miami," the newspaper added. "The office will 'complement Thiel Capital’s existing operations in Los Angeles,' the company said."
Supporters say the response from billionaires and other opponents of the proposed tax—including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is helping raise money to fight the initiative—badly misses the mark. According to organizers, most billionaires see larger capital gains increases in months than the amount they would pay if California voters approved the tax.
“Asking those who have benefited most from the economy to contribute more—particularly to stabilize healthcare systems under direct threat—is not radical. It is reasonable,” Suzanne Jimenez, the chief of staff of SEIU-UHW, told the Journal.
Earlier this week, as Common Dreams reported, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) endorsed the proposed wealth tax, which proponents say would raise roughly $100 billion in revenue from around 200 California billionaires. Under the proposal, most of the resulting revenue would be allocated to a Billionaire Tax Health Account, while the rest would go toward an account to fund food assistance and education.
A new expert analysis of the proposal, authored by some of those involved in drafting the initiative, argues that the one-time tax is urgent because "decisions at the federal level have put—and will put—California's healthcare system, education system, and broader economy under severe stress."
"Asking the handful of wealthiest Californians to contribute less than the annual appreciation on their fortunes to mitigate these crises is a small, reasonable, and administrable request," the experts write. "And that is all that this ballot measure does."
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