Google co-founder Sergey Brin seeds billionaire political effort amid wealth tax debate

SACRAMENTO, California – Mr Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder and one of the wealthiest people in the world, is donating US$20 million (S$25.2 million) to a new California political drive weeks after he took steps to leave the state to avoid a possible billionaire tax.

It is Mr Brin’s largest and most visible political move ever, and it is the primary contribution to seed a US$35 million effort by billionaires to fund ballot measure campaigns in California, according to a disclosure obtained by The New York Times on Jan 28.

The donations indicated that California’s billionaires were prepared to spend big in 2026 on state initiative drives – and could serve as a warning shot that a nascent wealth tax proposal could face a barrage of opposition funding if it ever reaches the ballot.

The first checks from the new coalition, Building a Better California, are not directed against the billionaire tax proposal, but rather towards two initiatives that aim to make housing more affordable in a state where the median home price has surpassed US$850,000. Organisers said Mr Brin and other wealthy donors had been discussing ways to address the high cost of housing for several months, but they accelerated their effort after the wealth tax was introduced.

“We support forward-looking policies aimed at making the state more livable and affordable – while protecting innovation and entrepreneurship, which help support a strong economy and good-paying jobs,” spokeswoman for Building a Better California Abby Lunardini said in a statement.

Forming the group is one of several strategies that wealthy Californians have been exploring ever since a health care workers union drafted the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act and began collecting signatures to place it on the November ballot. That initiative, if it reaches the ballot and is approved by voters, would impose a onetime 5 per cent tax on the assets of billionaires and devote most of the revenues to health care.

Mr Brin, 52, has assiduously kept a low profile in recent years, and has never made a disclosed political contribution as large as US$20 million during his 25 years in the public spotlight.

But since 2025, even before the wealth tax effort gained steam, Mr Brin has been examining various reforms that could fix the state’s economic and budget issues, according to a source who is familiar with his thinking and who was granted anonymity because the source was not authorised to speak publicly. Building a Better California grew out of those conversations, the source said.

Mr Brin did not return a request for comment. He moved to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe before a Jan 1 deadline to leave the state and avoid being subject to the proposed wealth tax.

Other seven-figure contributors to the new group, according to a disclosure obtained by the Times, include a smattering of traditional Silicon Valley donors, including prominent investors John Doerr and Michael Moritz; Stripe chief executive Patrick Collison, a longtime advocate on housing issues; crypto founder Chris Larsen; and Mr Eric Schmidt, who ran Google as chief executive officer with Brin and his co-founder, Mr Larry Page, for many years. Mr Stewart Resnick, a Californian who owns a farming empire that produces oranges, pistachios and POM Wonderful juice, has also contributed.

All of the donations were made over the past 16 days.

Building a Better California was incorporated as a non-profit social welfare organisation on Jan 14, according to records with the Secretary of State’s office and an affiliated political action committee made its first disclosure on Jan 28. The paperwork was handled by a Sacramento-based law firm that has decades of experience advising business groups on ballot measure campaigns in California.

The firm, Nielsen Merksamer, also filed five initiative proposals last month that could undermine the billionaire tax in different ways if they were to qualify for the November ballot and receive more votes. The measures range from a prohibition on retroactive taxes, which the wealth tax includes, to a narrower definition of residency in California. It is not clear who is behind those measures, and they are not expected to be ready for signature gathering until February. Nielsen Merksamer declined to comment on the proposals.

Building a Better California did not draft those measures, a person involved in the effort said, but may spend money to support them if backers begin to collect signatures for them.

In California, various interest groups are engaged in fierce competition to collect enough signatures to place their measures on the November ballot. Campaigns pay petition circulators for each signature, and the prices have been climbing.

The price for signatures on the billionaire tax recently rose from US$4 to US$5 per signature, according to data compiled by Bicker, Castillo, Fairbanks & Spitz Public Affairs, a longtime ballot campaign firm. Several other campaigns are paying US$6 or US$7 per signature – including the two campaigns that Mr Brin and his associates have contributed toward.

Paid signature gatherers tend to prioritise whichever ballot measure nets them more money, so an infusion of cash from any interest group could drive prices higher and make it harder for the proposed billionaire tax to qualify for the ballot.

In January, campaign finance filings show, Building a Better California gave US$6 million to an initiative that would help middle-class residents buy newly built homes by creating a new down payment assistance program funded with US$25 billion in bonds. The group also gave US$5 million to a measure that seeks to speed construction of housing and key infrastructure by changing the California Environmental Quality Act, a landmark law that builders have blamed for delaying their projects.

Mr Bob Hertzberg, a former Democratic state lawmaker who is backing the down payment measure, said he had been talking to the donors about his idea for some time.

“They’re excited about what we’re doing,” he said in an interview. “It’s a really elegant solution for everybody.”

The union backing the billionaire tax said it’s necessary to make up for the deep cuts to health care funding that President Donald Trump signed into law in 2025.

“You cannot build a better California when emergency rooms are closing their doors and communities are losing their hospitals, so we look forward to being the next ballot question this group supports,” said a statement from chief of staff for the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West Suzanne Jimenez.

Building a Better California is not likely to directly support or oppose the proposed wealth tax.

Still, with an estimated net worth of US$266 billion, Mr Brin could just be getting started. He has not donated to a state campaign since 2010, when he gave US$100,000 to a measure to uphold California’s landmark climate policy. In 2006, he donated US$1 million to an initiative that would have funded clean energy research with a new tax on oil.

He has traditionally been associated with Silicon Valley’s left-of-centre elite, memorably showing up at San Francisco’s airport in the first week of Mr Trump’s first term to protest a suspension of visas for immigrants from seven countries, including five with Muslim majorities. He set up his own social welfare non-profit group a few years ago, Catalyst4, that spends its money on climate and disease-related advocacy.

Since stepping down in 2019 from a day-to-day role at Alphabet, Google’s parent company, Mr Brin has not been seen much in public. But he has been thrust more into the political spotlight in part because of the interests of his girlfriend, a wellness influencer named Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto, who has accompanied Mr Brin to events at the White House and posted voluminously about their time with Mr Trump and her admiration for the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement on social media.

At a White House dinner in 2025 on artificial intelligence, Mr Trump praised Mr Brin, and said Ms Gilbert-Soto was his “really wonderful MAGA girlfriend”. NYTIMES