Overview
- Wealthy donors led by Sergey Brin have poured more than $100 million into Building a Better California and given additional millions to formal anti‑Prop 40 committees, with recent filings showing new multi‑million gifts from John Doerr and Chris Larsen.
- The opposition has backed two rival ballot measures, Propositions 41 and 42, and reserved large ad buys to try to defeat or nullify Prop 40 before November.
- A public spat between Mark Cuban and Rep. Ro Khanna crystallized a key argument against the tax: many founders are ‘cash poor, stock rich,’ and investors warn they will steer deals and startups out of the state if the levy passes.
- Nonpartisan analyses and academic modeling have cast doubt on the revenue math, with some scenarios projecting net revenue losses and a Stanford/Hoover simulation showing losses in a majority of cases and an average negative net present value.
- The initiative remains a close contest in polls and faces unresolved legal and implementation questions — including retroactivity, how to value illiquid holdings, and whether the state could or would lend against or seize shares to collect the tax.