The rest of America is wondering how we failed to pass prop 40, the one time tax on billionaiares.

The tax would have taxed the assets of around 200 billionaires.

This was a wealth tax, not an income tax, or a property tax. A wealth tax is like a property tax, but also includs investments, savings, businesses, and other assets.

The prop lost because opponents spent hundreds of millions of dollars to stop it. They pushed two propositions to stop additional taxes, and activated the anti-tax voter base. The truism is that if you can get three things to vote on, people will vote. The additional two propositons seems to confirm this truism. With two more propositions, they had three things for anti-tax people to vote on.

## About the Proposition

Propsition text here: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_40,_One-Time_Wealth_Tax_for_State-Funded_Healthcare,_Education,_and_Food_Assistance_Programs_Initiative_(2026)

## Who supported the tax?

The main proponent was SEIU UHW, a union which represents healthcare workers.

Bernie Sanders stumped for it.

Due to the limited scope of how the tax money would be used (90% for shoring up Medi-Cal cuts), some other unions were willing to oppose the tax.

## Who Opposed?

Billionares, listed below, and Gavin Newsom. Other Dems also opposed, and, as expected Republicans opposed it.

## Gavin Newsom

He came out strong against the tax, probably because Reid Hoffman and others the billionaire capitalist class have been supporting his exploratory campaign for President in 2028.

Newsom wrote an essay claiming to support a national wealth tax.

https://gavinnewsom.substack.com/p/its-time-for-a-national-billionaires

It smells of deception, to clain to want a national policy while opposing the exact same policy in the very state where he has political power.

This is called "concern trolling" by online denizens, and "cheap talk" or "bullshitting" by boomers and genx, where someone claims to care about something, but does nothing, or opposes it in a different context.

The statements about caring need to be considered a lie, in the face of concrete evidence that contradicts the statements.

(His essay is called "tu quoque" or "you also" or "an appeal to hypocrisy")

## The Billionaire Shit List

So, Prop 40 and the people lost, but you can always carry out a person boycott against the billionaires, by refusing to buy their products, by refusing to work for them, and refusing to put up with their greed.

* Sergey Brin - Google

* Peter Thiel - PayPal, Palantir

* Chris Larsen - Ripple (crypocurrency banks use for transfers)

* Eric Schmidt - Google, Alphabet

* John Doerr - Kleiner Perkins (venture capital firm)

* Vinod Khosla - Sun Microsystems (defunct company)

* Michael Moritz - Sequoia Capital

* Stewart Resnick - The Wonderfun Company, Pom Wonderful juice

* Max Levchin - Affirm, PayPal

* Tony Xu - DoorDash

* Patrick Collison - Stripe (payment processor)

* Marco and Kim DeGeorge - Alo Yoga

* Ronald Conway - investor

* Marc Pincus - Zynga (video games)

* Prince Alex von Furstenburg - Arrow Investments

* Douglas Leone and Patricia Perkins-Leone - Sequoia Capital

* Jed McCaleb - Stellar Development Foundation

* Parker Conrad - Rippling

* Reid Hoffman - LinkedIn, Greylock Partners

* Palmer Luckey - Oculus, Anduril

* Larry Page - Google, Alphabet

* Don Hankey - Hankey Group

Some of these donors are \\\\\\\"venture capitalists\\\\\\\". The following is a list of the VCs and some of their investments. See the site links for more details.

* Kleiner Perkins - Amazon, Google, Spotify, Rippling, Electronic Arts, Figma

* Sequoia Capital - SpaceX, Airbnb, NVIDIA, Reddit, Klarna, Apple, DoorDash, YouTube, Instacart, Linear, PayPal, Block (Square and other financial platfomrs), and more (they are the main VC in Silicon Valley)

* Founders Fund - SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril, Stripe, Facebook, Airbnb, Ramp, Neuralink, OpenAI, Cognition, Nubank, Trade Republic, Affirm, Rippling, Spotify, Polymarket, Asana, Postmates, Lyft, and more.

* Greylock Partners - Reid Hoffman joined as a partner after selling LinkedIn. Most of the billionaires are Republicans/conservatives and/or MAGA but Hoffman is Democrat and funding Newsom 2028.

## Notes

https://ips-dc.org/billionaire-bankrollers-meet-the-22-california-billionaires-opposing-prop-40/

https://voteyeson40and3.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/91/2026/09/California_Billionaire_Report_9-23-2026.pdf

https://www.kleinerperkins.com/

https://sequoiacap.com/our-companies

https://foundersfund.com/portfolio/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/dem-megadonor-drops-bombshell-potential-144306505.html