California voters have rejected a first-in-the-nation tax on the net worth of billionaires following a contentious ballot fight that generated huge spending by some prominent tech leaders eager to stop their taxes from going up. The measure would have imposed a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of Californians whose net worth exceeds $1…
Page F139From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 10 November 2026
Billionaires spend $425 million to beat a wealth tax, outspend backers 250 to 1, then outlaw a rematch.
As it ran on the front
California's final filing on Proposition 40 closed at $425 million spent to defeat it, the most expensive opposition campaign in state history, outspending the measure's own backers 250 to 1. The tax itself asked billionaires for a nickel on the dollar, once, on wealth over $1 billion, to backfill the hole the Big Beautiful Bill tore in the state's Medicaid budget.
The opposition did not wait for November. On August 25th, groups funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and venture capitalist Peter Thiel opened an advertising campaign against the measure under two names: Building a Better California, and Californians Against Wasteful Spending and Higher Taxes. Read against the filing that followed, the second name describes the opposition's own ledger better than it describes the tax.…
…(cont) By October 27th, Senator Bernie Sanders put a number to the fight in progress: $333 million already committed to beating Proposition 40. Sanders asked, on the record, what else that sum could buy. Not homelessness, he said. Not cancer. Not child poverty. A 5 percent tax on billionaires is what the money was spent to stop.
On November 1st, the Hill reported the measure dividing California's own Democrats, with experts quoted calling the tax's broader economic impact "nuanced." Nine days remained before the vote.
On November 10th, Proposition 40 failed. The final filing landed at $425 million, the figure the state now carries as its costliest opposition campaign on record. Online that night, the toasts ran to one name. Y Combinator's chief executive, Garry Tan, wrote: "Huge thanks to Sergey Brin here." Venture capitalist Ilya Sukhar posted: "God bless Sergey Brin." Crypto entrepreneur David Marcus posted one word: "Hero."
That settles the one-time question. It does not settle the standing one. No date for that vote is in the filing yet.
The nickel-on-the-dollar ask is closed, hon. The Medicaid hole it was written to backfill is not. Somebody still pays for that hole. The filing says only who already spent $425 million to make sure it isn't them.
“Four hundred twenty-five million dollars to kill a nickel-on-the-dollar tax, then they write themselves a permanent exemption so nobody gets to ask twice. That's not persuasion, that's a toll booth with a lobbyist's name on the gate. The hole in Medicaid doesn't close itself, so somebody poorer gets the invoice instead.”
“Look, $425 million sounds like a lot until you remember these are the job creators — Sergey built a search engine, doesn't that count for something? Sure, the spending ratio was 250 to 1, but that's the market working, that's free speech with a checkbook. Did I say checkbook? I meant conviction. The real issue here is government overreach, not whether billionaires can out-advertise a ballot measure.”
Earlier in this story
- California billionaires spent 250-to-1 to defeat a tax on billionaires, then outlawed asking again. By Ruth · the evening edition, 10 November 2026
The receipts
A wealth tax on billionaires seemed like a political layup. The outcome of a California ballot initiative shows otherwise.
The outcome could hinder the wealth tax movement in California and across the country in future years.
California saw the most expensive opposition campaign in its history as funding of political campaigns broke records in the US midterms In the hours after polls closed on election day, tech industry players began praising Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, on social media. “Huge thanks to Sergey Brin here,” wrote Garry Tan, the CEO…
· Billionaire tax divides California Democrats, draws myriad questions from the morgue, 1 Nov 2026
· Sanders: Billionaires Fighting Prop 40 Would 'Rather Poor Kids With Cancer Die Than Pay a Little More in Taxes' from the morgue, 27 Oct 2026
· Billionaire-Backed Groups Launch Ad Blitz Against California Wealth Tax from the morgue, 25 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.