March 10, 2026
Cry me a private jet
Sergey Brin Funds Misleading Ballot Measure to Negate Wealth Tax
Sergey’s $20M ‘Anti-Waste’ Campaign Has Voters Asking: Is This About Fraud – Or Just Saving Billionaires’ Bank Accounts
TLDR: Sergey Brin is quietly funding a “stop wasteful spending” ballot measure that critics say is really designed to block a proposed 5% tax on California billionaires. Online, people are split between roasting sneaky billionaire power plays and blasting California’s own budget chaos, but almost everyone smells manipulation.
Google cofounder Sergey Brin just dropped $20 million to push a California ballot measure wrapped in “stop waste and fraud” language, but online the crowd is screaming, “Just say you’re scared of a wealth tax.” The flyers never mention the proposed 5% tax on billionaires, and that’s exactly what set people off.
One camp is furious, calling the whole thing a sneaky billionaire shell game. Commenters mocked Brin’s “chump change” donation and joked about shedding a tear if he has to downgrade to only one private jet. Others dragged the state instead, pointing out California’s blown-up budget and saying, basically, “You torched the money and now want a billionaire bailout?”
The drama gets spicier: one user shrugs off the whole article as a “low effort opinion piece,” only for others to pile in with bigger-picture rants about how billionaires treat taxes like a high-score leaderboard. Another commenter flips the script, asking why the ultra-rich, who love blocking competition, don’t embrace a wealth tax as just another way to pull the ladder up behind them.
Between jokes about sobbing for Sergey and cynicism about Sacramento’s spending, the community has turned a dry tax debate into a full-blown class-warfare meme fest, with one shared mood: nobody trusts anyone holding the checkbook.
Key Points
- •A committee funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin has sent mailers and texts to Californians promoting a ballot measure that would require new tax laws to conform to existing tax laws.
- •The Brin-backed measure is described as intended to negate a separate proposed California ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5 percent wealth tax on the state’s billionaires.
- •Sergey Brin reportedly provided $20 million to launch the committee and related efforts opposing the wealth tax, with additional similar measures said to be in development.
- •A Politico poll cited in the article finds 50% of California voters support the proposed wealth tax and 28% oppose it, while many express concern that such a tax could prompt billionaire flight and higher middle-class taxes.
- •A New York Times study cited in the article reports that about 19% of all donations to 2024 U.S. federal elections came from about 300 billionaires, up from 0.3% of all donations in 2008, which the article uses to argue for a national wealth tax.