Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, told reporters he's ready to write an $8 billion check to the state of California. "The fact that I can afford to pay $8 billion in taxes over five years is a privilege," he said. "I feel it's a privilege. It's a responsibility."
He might be the only one who feels that way.
California's Proposition 40 — a one-time 5% wealth tax on assets exceeding $1 billion — was supposed to be the crown jewel of progressive taxation. The SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West union pushed it onto the November 3, 2026, ballot with visions of $100 billion flowing into health care, food assistance, and public education. The pitch was simple: there are roughly 214 billionaires in California sitting on a combined $1 trillion in net worth. Skim 5% off the top. What could go wrong?
The billionaires could leave. And they did.
Google co-founder Larry Page scooped up $173 million in Miami waterfront real estate and relocated his family office to a Delaware-Florida setup. Google co-founder Sergey Brin bought a mansion on Allison Island and officially listed a Nevada residence. Peter Thiel moved his family investment operations to Miami in late December 2025 — just days before the January 1, 2026, residency snapshot date the tax uses to determine who owes what.
The departures of Page and Brin alone wiped $26.7 billion off the projected revenue. Total estimates have collapsed from $100 billion to roughly $40 billion. Six of California's 214 billionaires cleared out before the deadline, and the measure hasn't even passed yet.
Now comes the polling. A UC Berkeley Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research-POLITICO survey found just 45% of likely voters support Prop 40, with 43% opposed and 12% undecided. Jack Citrin, the UC Berkeley political science professor who co-directed the poll, was blunt: "The trend in Prop 40 is certainly going against Prop 40."
The number that should alarm Sacramento even more: among voters who said they'd heard a "great deal" about the measure, opposition runs 57% to 38%. The more Californians learn about it, the less they like it. Jon Cohen, founder and CEO of polling firm TrueDot, characterized it as "relatively soft support."
Even the political class can't hold the line. Governor Gavin Newsom — not exactly known for opposing new revenue streams — came out against Prop 40. When the governor of California looks at a tax on billionaires and says no thanks, the math has already been done.
Brin, for his part, poured over $100 million into the opposition PAC "Building a Better California." He told the New York Times, "I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union." That's Google money fighting a California tax from a Miami zip code. The callback writes itself.
DoorDash co-founder Tony Xu faces a potential $2.62 billion liability despite owning just 2.6% of the company's equity — his voting rights structure inflates the tax exposure beyond his actual share value. The tax doesn't care what you can sell. It cares what the spreadsheet says you control.
The architects of Prop 40 built a tax designed to hit 200 to 250 individuals. They assumed those individuals would sit still. They assumed a trillion dollars in net worth would just wait patiently to be assessed. They assumed billionaires — people who built empires on spotting inefficiencies — wouldn't notice an inefficiency the size of 5% of everything they own.
Support has dropped steadily since February, opposition ads launched in late August, and 66% of Democrats still back the measure — which means a third of the party that put it on the ballot already doesn't.
Projected revenue: $100 billion. Current estimate after departures: $40 billion. Trend line in polling: down. Billionaires remaining in California who publicly welcome the tax: one.
