Eric Schmidt is furious. And he has every reason to be.
The former Google CEO poured $3 million into Sergey Brin’s massive operation to kill California’s proposed billionaire tax. Now he is watching that same coalition lose its focus, get routed by the state Democratic Party, and drift into side battles that undercut the original mission. Sources close to the matter say Schmidt is “rightfully upset.”
This is not some polite disagreement among donors. It is a civil war inside the very group built to stop a one-time 5 percent confiscation of wealth from anyone worth more than $1 billion. The tax, Proposition 40, is the purest expression of class-warfare politics California has seen in years. Unions want the money. The Democratic Party just endorsed it. And the people who actually create the wealth are discovering that even $100 million does not buy discipline.
Scripture cuts straight through the noise. “Thou shalt not steal.” That is Exodus 20:15. A government that reaches into private balance sheets to seize accumulated capital is not practicing justice. It is practicing theft dressed up as fairness.
Building a Better California started with a clear target. Kill the billionaire tax before it drives still more capital, talent, and companies out of a state already hemorrhaging both. Sergey Brin has committed more than $100 million. John Doerr put in $10 million. Michael Moritz added $7.5 million. The group raised $118 million through June alone.
Their counter-measures, Proposition 41 requiring audits on special-tax spending and Proposition 42 banning retroactive taxation, were designed to gut Prop 40 if both reached the ballot.
Then the California Democratic Party held its executive board meeting in San Diego. The party endorsed Prop 40. It opposed Props 41 and 42. The billionaire coalition went 0-for-3. Courtni Pugh, a former SEIU operative now at a firm working for Xavier Becerra and Gavin Newsom, was supposed to keep Democrats neutral. She failed.
Newsom himself opposes the tax, yet his party just handed the union a formal endorsement. That tells you who actually runs the California Democratic Party.
Schmidt’s frustration runs deeper than one lost vote. Building a Better California has expanded into six different ballot measures. Ten million dollars went to Proposition 45, which would streamline the California Environmental Quality Act for housing, water, energy, and infrastructure projects.
As shocking as it may sound, that is a sensible reform. CEQA has become a weapon for endless delay. Yet Schmidt’s own wife, environmental philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, is leading the campaign against Prop 45 alongside Jane Fonda. She believes it guts safeguards. So the same family is funding both sides of an environmental fight while the real threat, a wealth tax that would accelerate California’s decline, gains formal party backing.
One adviser to a donor put it plainly: once you splinter the mission, “you’re in a place where you may not be as effective.” Another source asked the obvious question. This is not only about what you are against. What are you for?
The original sin here is the tax itself. It is a one-time 5 percent levy on net worth above $1 billion, with revenue steered toward healthcare and other programs. Proponents claim it will raise tens of billions. History and common sense say it will raise flight. Larry Page and others have already moved assets or residency. Brin himself shifted to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Capital is mobile. Innovators are mobile. Envy is not a development strategy.
California already taxes high earners at punishing rates. It already drives businesses to Texas, Florida, and Nevada. Adding a wealth tax on top is not progressive policy. It is a declaration that success itself is a problem to be punished. The same political class that spent decades welcoming Silicon Valley’s donations now turns on the donors the moment the money is needed for union priorities.
Schmidt is not wrong to rage. A focused defense of property rights and economic sanity is hard enough in a one-party state. Diluting that defense across environmental side quests and secondary measures only helps the other side. The Democratic Party just proved it will side with the SEIU over its own governor and over the people who built the state’s remaining economic engine.
Voters will settle this in November. Until then, the internal fracture among the billionaires is a warning. Even those with the most to lose can lose their way when the mission expands beyond the clear and present danger. The tax is the danger. Everything else is distraction.
