Sergey Brin confronted Gavin Newsom at treehouse party before ditching California over billionaire tax
An exclusive holiday gathering just north of San Francisco reportedly turned into a stomach-churning fiscal nightmare for California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Back in December, Newsom and Google co-founder Sergey Brin attended the same "treehouse party" hosted by crypto investor Chris Larsen. It was there, according to a Bloomberg report, that Brin broke the news that he would be leaving the state in response to a proposed wealth tax.
According to the report, it was a tense, private confrontation so jarring that Newsom reportedly complained about a "lingering cold" he attributed to the interaction for months afterward.
Brin allegedly explicitly cited the Billionaire Tax Act, a 5% one-time excise tax on individuals with a net worth exceeding $1 billion, hitting his nearly $289 billion net worth hard.
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Just this week, the Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) said it has collected more than 1.55 million signatures, according to a press release, nearly double the 875,000-signature requirement, to put the one-time tax on billionaire assets on the California ballot this November.
If the measure is approved by voters, anyone who was a California resident on Jan. 1, 2026, would owe the tax, according to the proposal.
Brin effectively shielded his wealth from the retroactive reach of the proposed tax by buying properties in Nevada and Florida. He has also committed at least $45 million to a group called "Building A Better California" to fight the initiative, with his total spending to kill the tax already reaching $58 million this year.
"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," Brin told The New York Times this week regarding a story by the outlet that discussed his move.
Newsom has publicly opposed the billionaire tax, warning the measure would damage the economy and drive away investment. Since January, it’s estimated that more than $1 trillion in capital has left California.
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"This is my fear," Newsom previously said in a Politico interview. "It’s just what I warned against. It’s happening."
"The evidence is in. The impacts are very real — not just substantive economic impacts in terms of the revenue, but start-ups, the indirect impacts of … people questioning long-term commitments, medium-term commitments," he continued. "That’s not what we need right now, at a time of so much uncertainty. Quite the contrary."