California Ballot: Tech Leaders Unleash $300 Million Against Prop 40

California voters will vote on November 3 to determine the fate of a one-time 5 percent tax on the assets of the state's billionaires.

The opposition campaign has become the most expensive ballot measure fight in state history, according to David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University who tracks local elections.

Prominent tech figures have donated more than $300 million to defeat the measure, known as Prop 40.

Key contributors include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, DoorDash founder Tony Xu, Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison, Ripple co-executive chairman Chris Larsen, and venture capitalists John Doerr, Michael Moritz, and Vinod Khosla.

Supporters of the tax have raised only $32 million, creating a spending disparity of nearly ten to one.

Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has not donated directly to the opposition, but Meta's SEC filings reveal he told the company's board that he would buy a home outside the state to avoid the tax.

The board, which includes Xu and Collison, subsequently created a new class of shares that Zuckerberg could use to pay the tax, a move intended to prevent his departure from affecting Meta's stock price.

A flood of advertising and mailers has caused confusion among voters, with some flyers claiming the tax could apply to anyone, including those with retirement savings.

Brian Galle, a University of California at Berkeley economics professor who helped write the proposal, stated that those claims were not part of his original text.

Galle noted the irony of the spending, saying, "The irony is that Prop 40 is meant to make democracy more equal, but the billionaires are using their money to avoid that."

Francesco Trebbi, a professor at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, described the contest as "Sergey Brin v millions of Californians," arguing it erodes trust in the system.

The fight highlights a split among Democrats, with the state party endorsing the tax despite limited ground support reported by Ashley Craig of the pro-tax group Patriotic Millionaires, who often hears from voters that the measure has secret provisions to tax everyone, a claim Galle says would require a two-thirds majority in the assembly to change and must stay true to the measure's spirit, while Governor Gavin Newsom, who is eyeing a 2028 run, opposes the tax, calling it "poorly written" and warning it would harm the state if billionaires, whose wealth the authors estimate at 2.3 trillion, leave, with Gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra and former congresswoman Katie Porter also opposing it, and opponents backing two other ballot measures, one barring new state taxes on personal property or those imposed retroactively, and the other requiring state auditors to review proposed tax measures for financial impact before a vote, which could negate the tax even if voters approve it if either passes with more votes, and a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll found voters narrowly support the tax but also back the two measures aimed at stopping it, with Mark Baldassare, the institute's statewide survey director, noting that only about a third of citizen initiatives pass, so the burden is on the yes side, and he plans to poll again as voters receive state guides explaining the measures, and Suzane Jiminez, chief of staff at the SEIU health workers union, which sponsored the measure, said she feels confident, noting that 3,000 volunteers have recently been knocking on doors and distributing flyers, and that Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna have rallied support across the state, and McCuan suggested that even a defeat could benefit backers, who could blame moderates and target big tech as a political bogeyman.