California’s Billionaire Wealth Tax: Healthcare vs. Greed On November 3rd, at a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, the people of California will decide whether to pass a 5% wealth tax on more than 200 billionaires in California who are worth $2.2 trillion. This initiative, known as Proposition 40, would raise enough revenue to prevent 3 million working-class Californians from losing the healthcare they currently have as a result of Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Last year, these billionaires became $500 billion richer. As a result of a rigged tax code, they pay a lower effective tax rate than a plumber or a nurse. The greed of these billionaires is really extraordinary. Instead of paying their fair share of taxes, billionaires are now spending $229 million — 0.01% of their wealth — to oppose a 5% tax on their wealth. The effort against this initiative is being led by the 4th wealthiest man in the world, Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, who is spending over $100 million to defeat it. If the California billionaire wealth tax is passed, Mr. Brin would owe $13.5 billion more in taxes. But don't feel sorry for him. He would still have $256.5 billion left over to feed his family. (And don’t let him fool you into thinking he left the state. Mr. Brin owns at least four mansions in California worth some $103.5 million. Tax experts have made it clear that he would owe this tax.) It is also being opposed by Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Larry Ellison, Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel. These 5 Big Tech billionaires are worth over $646 billion combined. Dangerously, many oligarchs today believe that they have the divine right to rule and that they are masters of the universe. They live lives completely separate from ordinary people and are obsessed with becoming even richer and more powerful than they already are. The result: They would rather let people in California suffer or die because they can’t afford to go to a doctor than pay their fair share of taxes. Let's be clear: These billionaires have more money than they could spend in over 100 lifetimes. How many mansions do they need? How many yachts do they need? How many private jets do they need? So today I say to the billionaire class: Control your greed. Show a bit of compassion to working families and their kids in California. Instead of spending $229 million on TV ads against this wealth tax, I have a better idea: Start paying your fair share of taxes. In 1933, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said: “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” What Justice Brandeis said was accurate 93 years ago. It is even more accurate today. Our job now is to tell the Oligarchs in California that we will no longer tolerate their insatiable greed. We will choose healthcare for working families and their children over obscene wealth for the richest people in the world. Let us stand together in solidarity. They have the money. We have the people. Let's win this struggle.

From @WSJopinion: California’s wealth tax proposition is pro-business. By funding healthcare and education, it would invest in the human capital that companies need to thrive, writes @RoKhanna.

My 5% wealth tax on less than 1,000 billionaires would raise over $4.4 trillion to: Provide $12,000 to a working family of 4 Enact universal childcare Expand Medicare for dental, vision & hearing End homelessness Require a $60,000 minimum salary for teachers Let's get it done.

NEW: Billionaire Wealth Management in the Mega-Liquidity Era How to financially prepare for SpaceX IPO, Cerebras, Anthropic, OpenAI, & more.. With Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz's Multi-Family Office Chief Investment Officer, Michel Del Buono (@MDB_CIO) We cover: - How $50M–$1B+ personal portfolios are actually constructed & managed - Pre-liquidity planning - QSBS stacking strategies - Secondary market SPV risks - Trust & estate structuring - BDC liquidity gates - Tax loss harvesting - Real assets & depreciation Plus.. private jets? 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Michel Del Buono, CIO at @a16z Perennial (01:05) The Billionaire office playbook (02:57) The 35% IRS trap (07:55) Multiply your QSBS benefits (11:48) Biggest Pre-liquidity mistakes (12:32) Why is diversifying a trap? (14:28) SPVs and Secondary traps (17:36) The cap table illusion (19:57) How does SPV carry actually work? (22:53) The SPV operator who fled (24:33) The private credit trap (28:38) Why endowments dump VC? (32:19) Public demand for private tech (35:08) Racing for AI equity (36:20) The data center tax loophole (39:36) The golden visa play (40:35) New York’s wealth tax (45:42) Shield your income with real assets (50:25) The Billionaire spending mindset (53:39) Buying vs Chartering jets (55:31) Dodging NGO scams

ALERT: Odds that the billionaire one-time wealth tax passes in California dip to 28%, according to Polymarket.⁠com. Several billionaires have already left the Golden State and taken over $25 billion in tax revenue, which is roughly 25% of the bill's projected $100 billion gain.