{"id":44093,"date":"2026-01-29T06:51:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T06:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/sergey-brin-and-the-whos-who-of-the-tech-scene-just-spent-millions-in-donations-ahead-of-californias-wealth-tax-vote\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T06:51:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T06:51:16","slug":"sergey-brin-and-the-whos-who-of-the-tech-scene-just-spent-millions-in-donations-ahead-of-californias-wealth-tax-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/sergey-brin-and-the-whos-who-of-the-tech-scene-just-spent-millions-in-donations-ahead-of-californias-wealth-tax-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Sergey Brin and the who&#8217;s who of the tech scene just spent millions in donations ahead of California&#8217;s wealth tax vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/697adf44e1ba468a96aaeccd?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Composite image: Max Levchin, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt.\"\/><figcaption>Max Levchin, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and other billionaires dumped millions in donations ahead of California&#039;s wealth tax.<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images, Evan Agostini\/Invision\/AP, Yoan Valat, Pool via AP<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>The who&#039;s who of California&#039;s billionaires are pouring millions into state campaigns.<\/li>\n<li>Sergey Brin, Max Levchin, Eric Schmidt, and others donated $35 million to support housing reform.<\/li>\n<li>The donations come ahead of a contentious billionaire wealth tax that could go into effect soon.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Google cofounder Sergey Brin is one of the many California-based billionaires pouring millions into donations ahead of the state&#039;s proposed wealth tax.<\/p>\n<p>Brin, along with other tech executives, venture capitalists, and philanthropists, donated a combined $35 million to ballot measure committees in January, supporting affordable housing ballots in California, per a disclosure seen by Business Insider.<\/p>\n<p>The disclosure was filed by the coalition &quot;Building a Better California.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Brin was the largest contributor in the filing, donating $20 million. Others donated large sums on various days in January, like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and PayPal CEO Max Levchin, who donated $2 million and $1 million, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Others in the list include DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, and Kleiner Perkins Chairman John Doerr.<\/p>\n<p>Brin&#039;s multimillion-dollar donation comes ahead of California&#039;s vote on a measure that would levy a one-time, 5% tax on billionaires in the state. The tax, due in 2027, would be imposed retroactively from January 1 this year.<\/p>\n<p>Groups like the one Brin donated to are part of a concerted push by billionaires to negate the need for the wealth tax, either by funding alternative programs or by funneling money into political action committees opposed to the measure.<\/p>\n<p>Reactions to the potential tax have been mixed. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he&#039;s &quot;perfectly fine&quot; with it, saying this month that Silicon Valley&#039;s talent pool was worth any taxes.<\/p>\n<p>However, other executives have taken a more defensive stance. Brin and Google&#039;s other cofounder, Larry Page, moved an LLC they are both tied to from California to Delaware in December.<\/p>\n<p>LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman said the tax would be &quot;horrendous&quot; for innovation. White House AI czar David Sacks said the tax, if enacted, would be akin to an &quot;asset seizure.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The New York Times reported that Palantir&#039;s chairman, Peter Thiel, donated $3 million to the California Business Roundtable in December, which has directly opposed the wealth tax.<\/p>\n<p>Representatives for the executives did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Max Levchin, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and other billionaires dumped millions in donations ahead of California&#039;s wealth tax. Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images, Evan Agostini\/Invision\/AP, Yoan Valat, Pool via AP The who&#039;s who of California&#039;s billionaires are pouring millions into state campaigns. Sergey Brin, Max Levchin, Eric Schmidt, and others donated $35 million to support housing reform. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}