Supporters of a proposal to impose a flat tax on California billionaires say they have gathered enough signatures to place the measure on the ballot in November. The initiative has become one of the most politically contentious issues in the state over the past year, prompting tech moguls to spend tens of millions of dollars to oppose it.
The campaign, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union and the United Healthcare Workers West union, has collected more than 1.5 million signatures, according to a statement from the organization. The measure required 870,000 signatures to qualify for the vote.
The proposed tax on billionaires has coincided with increased political spending and attempts by some of California’s wealthiest residents to shift their assets to other states. While unions have pushed the initiative as a way to address health care and food assistance costs, tech leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the proposal and vowed to block its passage.
The measure would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ assets (including stocks, art, businesses, collectibles and intellectual property) to offset cuts in federal funding for health services for low-income people that were signed by Donald Trump last year. The tax would apply retroactively to billionaires living in the state as of Jan. 1.
Tax advocates and union members held a news conference Monday to announce they would submit signatures for ballot approval. Flanked by a line of health care workers holding signs reading “keep hospitals and emergency rooms open,” union members called on Californians to support the tax to save the state’s public health system and address inequality.
“Ultra-rich billionaires have seen their fortunes soar, even as food, rent and gasoline prices rise,” said Mayra Castañeda, a health care worker who campaigned for the proposal. “We say that those who have prospered from here in California can afford to invest a little more to keep California running.”
California has more billionaires than any other state—a few hundred, by some estimates. Nearly half of the state’s personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone of its nearly $350 billion budget, comes from the top 1% of earners.
“Paying taxes like any other resident will not hurt billionaires,” California union leader Liz Perlman said at the news conference. “It won’t reduce the number of yachts they receive for water skiing, but it will help our hospitals and the workers who have been unfairly punished by Trump’s cruelty.”
Tech moguls, including current and former CEOs of companies like Google, DoorDash, Reddit, LinkedIn and Facebook, have poured money into the campaign against the tax.
Alphabet Chairman Sergey Brin has donated at least $45 million to Super Pac Building Better California, which is dedicated to blocking the tax. Former Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt donated more than $3 million. Meanwhile, Larry Page, co-founder of Google with Brin He spent around 173 million dollars on two mansions in Miami earlier this year and has moved a number of its limited liability companies outside California. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, also purchased a $170 million Miami property earlier this year.
The proposal has created a deep rift between Newsom and prominent members of his party’s progressive wing, including Bernie. Sanders. The independent senator from Vermont backed the measure and touted it as a model for other states.
Newsom has long opposed wealth taxes at the state level, believing such levies would be disadvantageous to the world’s fourth-largest economy. The governor, who is considering a run for president in 2028, spoke openly about his efforts to overturn the proposal, saying he would “do what I have to do to protect the state.”
Analysts say an exodus of billionaires could mean a loss of hundreds of millions of tax dollars.
“It’s one of the reasons Newsom’s path to the Democratic nomination will not be easy,” said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. “He is already facing a [budget] deficits whose size is uncertain… and in the coming years, a tax on billionaires that could backfire.”
The progress of the measure proponentThe Service Employees International Union considers the threat of an exodus exaggerated.
The tax is a “viable response to a crisis created by Congress,” Suzanne Jiménez, chief of staff for SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, said in a statement. He added that he would “keep emergency rooms open, hospitals staffed, and health care systems running.”
The California Business Roundtable, a committee that has received massive donations from billionaires including Page and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, is leading the effort to defeat the measure. The organization claims the tax would “undermine our economy, decimate the state budget, drive investment out of the state, and ultimately make everyday life more expensive for working families.”
