The level of inequality in US society is obscene: the top 0.00001% (around 20 centibillionaires) hold an amount of wealth equivalent to 12% of US GDP, while half of Americans report struggling to afford basic necessities like gas and groceries. Programs working people rely on are facing deep cuts to free up money for war and tax cuts for the rich. Meanwhile, Zohran Mamdani’s popularity nationwide is an indicator of the widespread support for taxing the rich to improve the lives of working people.

In California alone alone, around 220 billionaires collectively hold over $2 trillion in wealth, 80% of which comes from big tech profits, while nearly a quarter of young people live in poverty. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is expected to knock millions of Californians off of health insurance and food assistance.

This was the impetus for Proposition 40, the California Billionaire Tax, initiated by the healthcare workers’ union SEIU-UHW, which aims to put a one-time 5% tax on the total wealth of every billionaire in California who’s resided in the state as of Jan 1, 2026, raising enough to cover the $100 billion in cuts to healthcare hitting the state’s worst off the hardest. 

Prop 40 is popular. Over 1.6 million signed the petition to get the first-in-the-world billionaire wealth tax on the ballot, and three-quarters of Gen Z voters indicated they would vote yes in a recent poll. As of the time of writing, more voters are leaning yes than no, but that lead is narrow, and winning it will require a strategy that can stand up to the massive sums of money that have been amassed by the pro-billionaire opposition.

Billionaires Fight Back

Soon after signature gathering began for Prop 40, threats started rolling in from tech billionaires that they would leave the state to dodge the tax. Larry Page has claimed Miami, Peter Thiel bought a mansion in Buenos Aires, and Sergey Brin, Google co-founder who’s at the head of the opposition has declared that he lives in Nevada, despite continuing to work out of his office in Mountain View, California.

Brin, the world’s fifth richest person, launched the Building a Better California PAC to oppose the tax and fund two competing ballot measures which could block it, personally pouring $102 million into it, along with tens of millions more from Silicon Valley’s tech, crypto, and venture capital billionaires.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, a consistent ally of the Silicon Valley elite, reassured his wealthy donors as he personally pushed for the “Yes on 40” campaign to retract the initiative (he failed). He disingenuously claims to support a nationwide billionaire tax, arguing that a statewide wealth tax will drive billionaires to flee with their tax dollars to more billionaire-friendly states. 

With Newsom’s encouragement, Planned Parenthood and the California Teachers Association have joined him and the billionaires in opposing Prop 40. Their leaders argue that it’s for their own reasons, that the measure was “poorly written,” and only provides a one-time revenue boost, while a consistent stream of income is necessary to counteract Trump’s cuts. The willingness of this “progressive opposition” to stand with Newsom is driven by their political ties with the Democratic establishment, and is part of the billionaires’ strategy to split the labor movement and peel away a section of working-class voters who’d otherwise support Prop 40.

Socialist Alternative led the 2020 Tax Amazon movement, which won a 1% tax on Amazon and the top 2% of businesses in Seattle to fund green union jobs and affordable social housing. Its pro-corporate opposition argued that the tax would kill jobs and drive big business out of Seattle. This is the same gun-to-our-head argument “No on 40” is making: we depend on these rich guys so we need to be nice to them.  In fact, it’s the other way around: it’s the billionaires who need working people. What they are forced to accept depends on the strength of our movement, in California and nationwide. Big business did not leave Seattle, while the tax raked in nearly $400 million last year.

A victory for Prop 40 in California, carried through by a movement primed to defend it against billionaires’ attempts to evade it, is a crucial opportunity today to break from this race to the bottom. It would provide massive inspiration for the working class to take up the fight to tax billionaires’ wealth across the US and internationally.

What’s Needed To Win?

We launched the fight to win the Amazon Tax in Seattle with an explosive rally followed by the first of many mass, democratic “Action Conferences.” These assemblies discussed, debated, and voted on the way forward, agreeing to wage a public, confrontational battle against Amazon and big business in City Hall and in the streets, with a clear strategy for escalation. This is the kind of grassroots, movement-based approach we need to win Prop 40, especially as the over $100 million dropped by the opposition on attack ads ramps up.

The California Federation of Labor Unions, representing 2.3 million union members, voted to endorse Prop 40. They are joined by Bernie Sanders, California DSA, and a wide range of labor and community organizations. These forces should urgently organize “Billionaire Tax Now!” rallies across California, to put the widespread support for taxing the rich on full public display and supercharge an in-person get-out-the-vote operation to bring the billionaire tax to working peoples’ doorsteps.

If Prop 40 passes, the billionaires will go all out to try to reverse it. To defend it, we need to go on the offensive, building a movement to spread it beyond California to fund a working-class program that would include demands like free healthcare for all. This would quickly come up against the parties of Newsom and Trump, both of which represent the interests of the billionaires—the working class needs a party of our own to fight for ours. 

To end inequality for good, we need to wrest control over the economy from the billionaires and replace the capitalist system, which favors a privileged few, with one rooted in the common interests of working and young people everywhere. Building a mass movement for a massive tax on the rich is a powerful step in that direction.