Sergey Brin gives $25m on top of $20m he’s already given to Super Pac trying to block state’s proposed 5% wealth tax

A Google founder has more than doubled his financial contribution to the fight against a proposed wealth tax in California. New filings with the state show that former Alphabet president Sergey Brin donated $25m to a Super Pac dedicated to blocking the tax on top of $20m he had already given.

Brin is not alone among Google’s top brass in upping his financial stake in the campaign against the ballot proposal. The company’s former CEO Eric Schmidt donated $1.02m, adding to a previous $2m contribution.

The tech titans are battling the California Billionaire Tax act, often referred to simply as the billionaire tax. It’s a proposed ballot measure that would require any California resident worth more than $1bn to pay a one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state. It’s sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, and is still in the signature-gathering phase.

If the measure reaches the ballot and gains voters’ approval, the tax would apply to billionaires based on their residency as of 1 January 2026. For Brin, worth about $247bn, the bill would likely be upwards of $12bn. That stipulation appears to have caused him and several other billionaires to leave California at the end of last year. Brin relocated to a $42m estate on the north-eastern shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada, and his Pac donations show Reno as his address. Schmidt’s filings show his address as West Hollywood.

  • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    8 days ago

    Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.

    Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.

  • 9point6@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 days ago

    Dude is worth a quarter of a trillion

    He can afford to spend 12.5bn on stopping this before he’s losing money

    Frankly I’d be campaigning on this if I was an advocating politician of the bill. “He is willing to burn this money rather than pay a fair share into public finances to benefit everyone”

    • errer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      He has already left the state to avoid the tax according to the article. So he’ll pay nothing even if it passes. I suspect he’s funding the measure simply because he doesn’t want this to start some sort of nationwide precedent.

    • Ava@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      “The $45m he spent to fight this would’ve allowed us to renovate this school. The $12b he’d owe would let us renovate 100 schools. Or get X thousand of the homeless off the streets. Or fixed 10 million potholes.”

      Make his name responsible for those things not happening.

    • SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world
      0·
      8 days ago

      Can we get one good one though? There has to be one good billionaire, somewhere, by sheer statistical folly. Narwhals exit. Bumblebees fly. Now complete the impossible trifecta.

      • Shelena@feddit.nl
        0·
        8 days ago

        I think you have to be evil to become a billionaire. Nobody by themselves contributes something to society that is worth billions. So they are taking more than they contribute and are apparently willing to do so and disadvantage other people. This is evil. That is why there are no good billionaires.

        Also, if by some extreme coincidence you become a billionaire by accident and if you are a good person, you would give it away for the benefit of society. So then you would not be a billionaire anymore.

  • omarfw@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    These people own the government. You can’t beat them with politics. They’re not going to be brought to heel until they are made to be actively afraid of the working class.

  • skisnow@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    8 days ago

    The fact that he’s both willing and able to do this, is the one single biggest argument in favour of abolishing billionaires.

  • SabinStargem@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    A jackass with more money than they can enjoy in life, spending it on making the lives of others more miserable. Classy.

    • Beero@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 days ago

      Wexner straight up said he’s Epstein’s boy…fuckin get some rope and find a free for this baby eater.

  • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 days ago

    Imagine being so rich that, not only could you drop $45M without even thinking about it, and not only could you just move to a new $42M house without thinking about it, but you would still be worth $235 BILLION after losing 12 billion dollars… and being angry!

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      7 days ago

      The amount of money here is absurd. $45m is 0.02% of his net worth.

      Say you’re a successful doctor and have a net worth of $1m. If you wanted to spend 0.02% of your net worth on something it would be $200.