Google co-founder spends $45m in fight against California billionaire tax | Sergey Brin gives $25m on top of $20m he’s already given to Super Pac trying to block state’s proposed 5% wealth tax
Source: Hrmbee
Google co-founder spends $45m in fight against California billionaire tax | Sergey Brin gives $25m on top of $20m he’s already given to Super Pac trying to block state’s proposed 5% wealth tax
Source: Hrmbee
48 Comments
how much money will these assholes spend in order to avoid having to spend money? god forbid the money they spend would actually go towards doing some good.
Those “do no evil” days are long gone at Google.
These people are nothing but shit. Unfortunately, unlike X, Facebook and Instagram, Google is so hard to completely avoid.
Paying the taxes would be cheaper
Fuck
These
People
Some of the major issues below:
>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.
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>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.
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>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.
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>Brin donated $20m to Building a Better California in January, bringing his total donations to the Pac to $45m. Brin has also contributed to the state’s gubernatorial campaigns of Steve Hilton, the Republican frontrunner, and Democrat Matt Mahan, who is seen as tech-friendly and is a favorite among Silicon Valley elites.
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>Schmidt also donated to Building a Better California in January, with a $2m contribution, making his total just over $3m to the Pac. The former CEO has also given $1.04m to another Super Pac fighting the billionaire tax called the California Business Roundtable.
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>Along with Schmidt’s contribution, the California Business Roundtable has also received donations from Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel ($3m), Ring founder James Siminoff ($100,000) and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen ($750,000). Building a Better California has also gotten money from Larsen ($2m), along with DoorDash CEO Tony Xu ($2m) and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison ($7m). Several prominent venture capitalists have also shelled out to both Pacs.
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>Brin has become increasingly involved in politics over the past two years, along with much of Silicon Valley. He attended a White House dinner last year, where Donald Trump called his girlfriend, wellness influencer Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto, a “really wonderful Maga girlfriend”. Brin’s former wife is Nicole Shanahan, who was Robert F Kennedy Jr’s running mate for president in 2024. Schmidt has less of a presence in the Trump White House, but actively worked with both the Obama and Biden administrations.
The key takeaway here is that the billionaires and other wealthy and well-connected are really making the case here for this wealth tax: If they can put their thumbs on the scale in this way for this ultimately minor regulatory issue, how else are they weighting the scales in their favor? And should anyone really be allowed to do so? Further, it’s clear that they have more money than they know what to do with, so in a way a wealth tax for the ultrawealthy can help them with this problem.
>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.
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Schmidt also donated to Building a Better California in January, with a $2m contribution, making his total just over $3m to the Pac. The former CEO has also given $1.04m to another Super Pac fighting the billionaire tax called the California Business Roundtable.
>Along with Schmidt’s contribution, the California Business Roundtable has also received donations from Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel ($3m), Ring founder James Siminoff ($100,000) and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen ($750,000). Building a Better California has also gotten money from Larsen ($2m), along with DoorDash CEO Tony Xu ($2m) and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison ($7m). Several prominent venture capitalists have also shelled out to both Pacs.
>Brin has become increasingly involved in politics over the past two years, along with much of Silicon Valley. He attended a White House dinner last year, where Donald Trump called his girlfriend, wellness influencer Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto, a “really wonderful Maga girlfriend”. Brin’s former wife is Nicole Shanahan, who was Robert F Kennedy Jr’s running mate for president in 2024. Schmidt has less of a presence in the Trump White House, but actively worked with both the Obama and Biden administrations.
Nothing says “this tax might be a good idea” quite like spending $45 million trying to kill it.
“You just want to tax the rich so you can give their money to someone else!”
-No, I want to tax the rich so they can’t buy elections, media, armies, and Pedophelia with impunity.
“Too late…”
~~Don’t~~ Be Evil
These dipshits. It passed in Washington state. It will pass here.
And all my Republican acquaintances whose combined lifetime assets will never approach $45 million: We must protect him!
These are the soulless of society. The voids of empathy that feed upon others. They are leeches, harming millions.
Doesn’t this prove the point that we should tax them out of their status if they’re going to use it to undermine the countries they live in? They’re a literal cancer.
Personal growth is all that matters to them. They’ll gladly shoot themselves in the foot, if it means the shrapnel might hurt the plebs.
How could any of them get by with 5% less money?!
Don’t be evil is long dead
His net worth would go from $247bn to $235bn. He still would have more than enough to buy whatever he wanted for the rest of his life. He’ll never worry about money, healthcare, bills or groceries. Neither will his children, grandchildren or great grandchildren. And yet these disgusting fucks are fighting tooth and nail against this tax.
These guys should just pay their taxes like a patriot.
It’s a one off 5% tax…. Good lord. How greedy are these people!!
Look if we ask these *checks notes* billionaires to pay their fair share they *looks at notes again* will have no noticeable change in lifestyle at all.
Think of the *checks notes one last time* poor billionaires!
It’s five fucking percent for Christ’s sake
Citizens United will go down in history as one of the court’s worst decisions, and as a significant factor in the downfall of the USA.
Just pay the $45M in tax, are these people stupid
Translation: Sergey Brin is a dildo.
“For Brin, worth about $247bn, the bill would likely be upwards of $12bn.”
So, for comparison because larger numbers break brains, he is spending 0.00375% of what he’d be taxed to help Californians who also live there. Maybe a single person shouldn’t be able to spend multiple hundreds of times more money than an average person makes in a year to avoid paying to help those people.
Perhaps no one should have that much money in general.
What an asshole.
>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.
You know what, forget about the 5% tax. Just for him, drop it.
And hit him with 10% instead.
Frankly we should be putting a more progressive taxrate on capital gains, and cap it at 95% for over 4million. This is the equivalent tax rate that we had in 1944 at the top bracket.
That someone has 45 million to spend on this is an argument in favor of it.
It would be horrible if after making billions thanks to the state he lives in, the culture, community, resources, and everything else it provides, if he were to be asked to give back in proportion to what he gained there.
Obligatory “he’s in the files”:
>Google co-founder Sergey Brin visited Epstein’s private island and traded emails with Ghislaine Maxwell.
>A batch of documents released by the DOJ reveals that Brin had corresponded with Maxwell as early as 2003, and was invited to dinner at Epstein’s townhouse that year. The files also contain testimony that places Brin and his then fiancée, Anne Wojcicki, at the private island in 2007.
F these trash pos. Satan’s house is waiting
What a fucking prick. No such thing as a good billionaire. Tax them!
And here is why the billionaires are full of shit. They would pay 55 million per billion.
The laziest of them could invest in basically anything and not lose money.
Super wealthy are objectively bad for society
This is who they are. $247,000,000,000 just isn’t enough for one fucking guy.
‘Don’t be evil (unless anyone tries to touch your insane fortune that would last a thousand lifetimes… oh yeah, and if Nazis need a charitable bribe for their new ballroom.’
Fuck these guys and the misery they cause. They should be forced to forfeit every penny they own.
There are some major technical flaws in the proposed California bill. The bill is not actually calculated as 5% of his wealth. It is a much more complicated and very strange formula that would force him to give up control of Google. He does not want to give up control of Google, that is why he is fighting the bill.
I miss when the American wealthy elite wanted to do cool shit like build libraries with their names on it like Carnegie. Or compete and brag about paying their employees well, in order to attract the best people and retain them like Ford.
God the 2026 billionaire ruling class is so fucking lame.
It’s amazing how much money rich people are willing to piss away, as long as not a penny of it ends up in their employee’s pocket.
Honestly nothing makes me want a wealth tax more than this headline.
“Don’t be evil.”
Fucking joke.
If you still doubt that 99.9% of multi-billionaires are pieces of ****, this should finally convince you.
They’ll spend more than they’re going to get taxed to try and stop this tax. They’re already committing $500,000,000 to try and buy the CA state legislature.
Just pay your fucking taxes bro
Because 45 Million is considerably LESS than what a 5% tax means. Ffs tax these people already.
Spending millions on fluff when that money could be put to actual use. This is why we hate billionaires.
Honestly man, we don’t need billionaires for sure but the wealth tax just seems dumb. We’re going to collect a few billions so we can… cut everyone a check and not reduce the state or federal deficits? This tax does nothing to fix all the overspending. We’re just going to keep borrowing and over leveraging.
If you really want to redistribute billionaires wealth, we need POLITICIAL REFORM! Support raising the minimum wage, support increasing the housing supply, support a single payer healthcare, support getting money out of politics.