The $13.3 billion at stake! Google's Sergey Brin spends $102 million to prevent California billionaire tax

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has now spent over $100 million to fight the wealth tax in California.

As per a filing, Brin donated another $20 million to Building a Better California, bringing his total contributions to the group to $102 million.

Building a Better California is leading the campaign to defeat the billionaire tax, with Brin’s latest contribution making him the biggest financial backer of the costly effort to block Proposition 40.

The Proposition 40, which will be on the ballot in November, would impose a one-time, 5% tax on California’s 200 billionaires, with 90% of the revenue from the proposed measure going toward the state’s health care program and 10% going toward education, food assistance, and administration.

Brin had earlier publicly criticised Proposition 40, which he saw as a return to the Soviet-style socialism his family fled in the late 1970s.

“I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union. I don’t want California to end up in the same place,” he told the New York Times in a statement in April.

Why is this fight worth it for Brin?

The maths is simple for Brin. If Proposition 40 passes in November, he would owe an estimated $13.3 billion to the state. Spending $102 million to avoid that is a return of roughly 130-to-1 if it works.

His net worth is valued at about $282 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Building a Better California is funding two rival ballot measures that could cancel the billionaire tax if they win more votes. In contrast, the group supporting the tax, launched by a healthcare workers’ union, has raised just over $30 million so far

Who else is fighting against Proposition 40?

Brin, the world’s fourth-richest person, has also brought other tech billionaires into the fight against the tax while significantly increasing his own political spending in California.

Proposition 40 has sparked strong opposition among some of California’s wealthiest people, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, both of whom have donated to groups fighting the measure.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom also said the tax would hurt the state by eroding its tax base, ultimately reducing key revenue for social services.

“The fact is it actually will reduce investments in education,” Newsom said in a Bloomberg Businessweek interview earlier this year. “It will reduce investments in teachers and librarians, and childcare. It will reduce investments in firefighting and police.”