California’s Controversial Billionaire Tax Has Enough Signatures To Appear on Ballot

California's approximately 214 billionaires may have to get out their checkbook for a one-time tax that would place a 5% levy on their assets.

The California Billionaire Tax Act, sponsored by a labor union, would place a "one-time, 5% emergency billionaire tax" on those with $1.1 billion in worldwide assets who were living in California as of Jan. 1, 2026.

Supporters of the initiative announced in a Monday press conference that they have collected more than 1.5 million signatures on petitions that call for a statewide vote on the proposed tax, enabling the measure to appear on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. This is far more than the 875,000 signatures that were required.

According to the the Billionaire Tax Now coalition, led by the Service Employees International United Healthcare Workers West, which represents more than 120,000 healthcare workers, the tax is needed to offset the Big, Beautiful Bill passed by the Trump administration that they say will severely cut Medicaid, leaving 3.4 million in the state uninsured and increasing premiums for everyone else.

The group says the one-time tax will raise $100 billion—the amount they estimate was lost in federal cuts—over five years, with 90% of funds going to healthcare and 10% to public K-14 education and state food assistance programs.

The coalition also says the tax will keep emergency rooms, hospitals, and nursing homes open and staffed, and stabilize healthcare premiums for the average Californian.

The group points out that the estimated 214 billionaires who might be taxed can well afford it, saying that, in 1982, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans was about 2% of the country’s gross domestic product. Today, however, that stands at roughly 20% of GDP, according to published research.

The annual growth rate of a billionaire has been 7.5%, according to the labor group, five times that of the average worker.

"When healthcare is cut, it means longer emergency wait times, fewer healthcare workers, rural hospitals shutting down, delayed care, and lives lost that could have been saved," Mayra Casteneda, an ultrasound technologist and union member, said in a Monday press conference to announce the ballot initiative.

"Billionaires have seen their fortunes skyrocket even as food, rent, and gas prices have increased, crushing working families who are struggling to stay afloat," she said. "Hospitals are already cutting services, clinics are closing, and families are set to lose healthcare coverage. So we say those who have prospered here in California can afford to invest a little more to keep California running.

"It is a life and death situation. Most Californians—and most billionaires—recognize that this is reasonable and necessary. A very small group of the most controversial billionaires on the planet try to stop us. It is this David and Goliath battle—and David has just won the first round."

"Billionaires are making record profits and still getting billions in tax cuts," added Jared Hamil, a delivery driver and union member. "These billionaires pay less of their share of taxes than the millions of workers who are struggling to get by here in California.

"Every year, workers hear the same story: There's not enough to go around," he said. "Not enough to keep hospitals open, not enough to keep emergency rooms or clinics fully staffed, longer wait times at appointments ... not enough money to invest in healthcare, public schools, food assistance programs, and programs to keep families out of crisis. But when it comes to corporate givebacks, the rules suddenly change. Billions are available for tax breaks that benefit the largest companies."

Liz Perlman, executive director of AFSCME 3299, representing 25,000 healthcare workers, said, "Hospitals are closing and people will die. Why? So billionaires can get another tax cut that they don't need. It's immoral and needlessly cruel. This measure does one thing: It rights that wrong.

"Being taxed like everyone else will not hurt the billionaires," she said. "It will not reduce the number of yachts they get to waterski behind. But it will help our hospitals and the workers who have been unfairly punished by Trump's cruelty."

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California have come out in favor of the proposal. On March 2, the pair co-introduced their own proposed legislation, the "Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act," which would impose a 5% annual wealth tax on billionaires to help expand social welfare programs.

The campaign says the tax on the 938 billionaires in America—who are now collectively worth $8.2 trillion—could raise $4.4 trillion over 10 years.

Who are the California billionaires?

Thanks to being the country's technology hub, California is home to more billionaires than any other state, who together hold roughly $2 trillion in wealth. Among them are four of the world's wealthiest people: Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and Alphabet's Larry Page and Sergey Brin, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index. 

Huang has been sanguine about the possible upcoming dent in his bank account, telling Bloomberg Television: "We chose to live in Silicon Valley and whatever taxes, I guess, they would like to apply, so be it. I'm perfectly fine with it. It never crossed my mind once."

Huang, 61, the world's seventh-richest person with a net worth of $180 billion, according to Forbes, has reportedly spent roughly $55 million on piecing together an impressive real estate portfolio, which is said to include a $38 million mansion on San Francisco's Gold Coast and a $6.9 million home in Los Altos Hills near Nvidia’s headquarters, according to Mansion Global.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Google/Alphabet co-founder Brin, who has poured at least $45 million into efforts backing competing initiatives that would cancel out the proposed billionaire tax, such as a measure that would ban retroactive taxes and ban new taxes on personal property, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Brin, who is worth $264 billion, according to Forbes, making him the fourth-richest person in the world, reportedly owns a $50 million Malibu, CA, estate that he picked up in 2022. However, he has also lately decamped to Florida, snapping up a new $51 million Miami megamansion on Allison Island.

If the new proposal passes, Brin would get whacked with a $13.2 billion tax bill (at his current estimated net worth) no matter where he lived, provided he lived in California as of Jan. 1, 2026.

Along with Google co-founder Page, who picked up two Miami mansions for $173 million, Brin has reportedly been moving some Alphabet entities and assets from California to Florida.

Palantir and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, with an estimated net worth of $27.5 billion, shifted some of his family investment firm's operations from California to Miami in late December.

Thiel's company is still headquartered in Los Angeles, and he owns a home in the Hollywood Hills, but a press release announcing the opening of his new Miami office stressed that he has owned a residence in the city since 2020.

In late December, just before the Jan. 1 deadline, venture capitalist David Sacks opened a satellite office for his firm, San Francisco–based Craft Ventures, in Austin, TX.

Zuckerberg also recently bought a home in Miami, shelling out $170 million for a megamansion on Miami's "Billionaire Bunker" island—just three doors down from a staggering compound owned by fellow tech tycoon Jeff Bezos.

Zuckerberg also owns $112 million worth of homes in Palo Alto, and there is no news that he has sold them.

Director Steven Spielberg also made the move to New York City in February, picking up an apartment in the San Remo. But records show he still owns his longtime abode in Pacific Palisades.

Other resident billionaires include Laurene Powell Jobs, investor and wife of Apple founder Steve Jobs ($16 billion) who reportedly has abodes in Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Malibu; and Eric Yuan ($5.2 billion), founder of Zoom, who reportedly sold his San Francisco Bay Area mansion for $45 million in January.

It's not entirely clear how a billionaire would end up on the to-be-taxed list—billionaires tend to have wide-ranging assets, from stakes in private equity firms to hedge funds to properties all over the globe, bought with limited liability companies. Trying to accurately value billionaires' assets isn't necessarily an easy task.

But the coalition says that the franchise tax board would be responsible for valuing the billionaires and they would have a chance to disagree with their valuation. They can pay their tax in one lump sum or over five years.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has gone on record opposing the tax, warning that it could spark an exodus of the wealthy, whose millions in annual taxes are needed for the state.

"This will be defeated, there's no question in my mind," Newsom told the New York Times.

However, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office says that while hundreds of millions might be lost, the "tens of billions" acquired in one fell swoop would make up for it.

The coalition also points to a 4% wealth tax passed in Massachusetts in 2023 for those with incomes over $1 million, which did not see the wealthy running for the exits. Since 2022, Massachusetts has generated $5.7 billion from the tax, which was spent on education and transport infrastructure, according to People's Policy Project.

The November ballot in California will see initiatives with competing sentiments.

Also qualified to be on the ballot is a measure that would repeal the "Mansion Tax," which is a 4% tax on the total transaction for property sales of $5.3 million to $10.6 million and a 5.5% rate for sales above $10.6 million.