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If you’ve turned on the TV or scrolled through a streaming app in California lately, you’ve seen them: slick, big-budget commercials paid for by a handful of the state’s richest people running under the misleading name, Building a Better California.
Their goal is simple: confuse the voters. They are spending a fortune to panic working-class families — especially Asian American, Latino, Black and immigrant communities — into voting against their own interests.
In personal and simple terms: It comes down to a question of fairness. I recently received my Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from my modest IRA investments. It is a case of use or lose it. As usual, before I even saw a cent, right off the top, I took out 10% for federal income tax and 5% for state income tax.
The so-called Billionaires' tax is asking California's 250 billionaire households to pay a one-time 5% tax, just like I'm required to do. While my RMD is not enough to live on, billionaires will still have billions to pay for their yachts and multiple mansions in whatever state or country they want to live in.
Here is a breakdown of some of the misleading language the billionaires are using:
The "Retirement Shield" Scare:Their flagship ad warns: "Proposition 42 is the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act. We must protect the hard-earned nest eggs of our nurses, teachers, and firefighters from Sacramento's tax grabs."
- The Truth: Total nonsense. Prop 40 doesn't touch standard retirement accounts or pensions. It only hits people with a net worth over $1 billion. The PAC is hiding behind nurses and teachers to protect a permanent tax loophole for billionaires.
The "We're All in This Together" Myth: Another ad flashes corporate-friendly politicians alongside the claim: "Joined by teachers, doctors, and firefighters, a broad bipartisan coalition is saying No on Proposition 40."
- The Truth:It’s not a grassroots movement. Over 90% of the money funding this opposition comes straight from a tiny group of tech executives and venture capitalists who refuse to pay a one-time 5% tax on their massive fortunes.
Ultimate Cash Grab: Follow the money
When I was working in preint newspapers (remember those?), one of the mantras we repeated when covering complicated or confusing issues, was "follow the money." So, just who are the billionaires contributing to Building a Better California?
The primary billionaires funding the anti-tax PAC Building a Better California are prominent Silicon Valley tech executives, founders, and venture capitalists. The PAC has raised $229M ($248M across all related committees) to defeat Proposition 40 (a proposed one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires) and to support countering ballot measures, Propositions 41 and 42.
The largest individual billionaire contributors to the PAC, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, include:
- Sergey Brin: The Google co-founder is the group's dominant financial backer, contributing $102 million to the campaign.
- John Doerr: The venture capitalist (chairman of Kleiner Perkins) has contributed $20 million.
- Vinod Khosla: The venture capitalist and founder of Khosla Ventures has contributed $13 million.
- Eric Schmidt, Patrick Collison, and Chris Larsen: These executives are also listed as contributors; consult official California campaign finance disclosures to verify their specific donation amounts.
When Google co-founder Sergey Brin can casually drop $102 million of his own money into a single election just to dodge a tax bill, it’s no longer a political campaign. It’s a corporate buyout of our democracy.
The super-rich are betting that $255 million in prime-time TV ads can trick everyday Californians into defunding their own local healthcare systems and schools.
Below, see the billionaires' preferences and the enormous amounts of money they are contributing to the anti-tax measures that they oppose and support:
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Consider this contrast:
In California, the bottom 10% of earners make $16,000 or less a year, yet they pay over 11% of their income in state and local taxes.
Meanwhile, California billionaires saw their wealth grow by 1.5 times between 2023 and 2025, while paying a mere 0.2% of that wealth in state income taxes.
Yet, these same ultra-wealthy individuals fight tooth and nail to keep every penny, while throwing pocket change — (for them) hundreds of millions of dollars — at campaigns to manipulate elections.
What $255 million could actually do
To put that $255 million war chest into perspective, think about what it could actually build for communities in desperate need across California:
- Community Health Clinics: Fully fund operations and equipment upgrades for dozens of clinics in underserved areas, providing free or low-cost dental and pediatric care.
- Mental Health Services: Finance mobile crisis teams and substance-use treatment facilities across multiple counties.
- Classroom Support: Give thousands of classrooms technology grants, books, and science supplies, or help fund real teacher retention pay in high-need districts.
Instead, that cash is going into slick ads designed to pit immigrant communities against public services, weaponizing front groups like the California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce to do their dirty work, much in the same way conservatives used Asian American students to undo affirmative action policies.
View from the edge
As Rep. Roh Khanna has pointed out, California’s roughly 250 billionaires sit on a combined mountain of $2.2 trillion—a fortune that exploded by 144% in just three years.
When a tiny elite spends a quarter-of-a-billion dollars to dodge a modest tax that would help save 150,000 healthcare jobs, it isn't "protecting the economy." It’s an assault on everyday people.
At this point, we also need to remind ourselves that all of this headache-inducing election rhetoric follows the federal income tax cuts, courtesy of Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, benefiting the top 1%. Under that GOP-sponsored bill, households in the richest 0.1% are projected to receive a combined $60.3 billion in tax breaks in 2027 alone, averaging permanent annual cuts of roughly $309,000 per household by 2029. That $309,000 is no small change for retirees living on fixed incomes.
As the ultra-rich's pockets get filled, Trump's bill also cut funding for the safety-net programs designed to assist those in the lower-income brackets.
As the Indian American lawmaker Khanna asks, the choice comes down to: “Will the Democratic Party stand with the donor class, or with the working class? Are we going to stand with 250 billionaires in California, or with poor kids who need healthcare?”
The Olicharchs' machine wants you to believe the billionaire class speaks for all of us. But ordinary voters are waking up. Until the rules of the game change, we’ll keep getting outspent — and left holding the tab for a rigged system.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, feel free to repost.
