Overview
- SEIU-UHW’s initiative would impose a single 5% tax on net worth above $1 billion, not income, and is still collecting nearly a million signatures to qualify for the November 2026 ballot.
- The draft targets those who were California residents on Jan. 1, 2026, a retroactive design cited as accelerating relocations and restructurings among wealthy individuals.
- New York Times reporting, cited by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, says Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin shifted numerous entities from California to Nevada before year-end.
- Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya claims on X that hundreds of billions of billionaire wealth have already left the state, a public assertion that has not been independently verified.
- Political opposition is growing, with Gov. Gavin Newsom opposing the measure and commentators highlighting revenue uncertainty and the OECD’s record of countries retreating from wealth taxes.