As he gears up for a potential presidential bid, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday proposed a nationwide “billionaires’ tax,” — a day after the state wealth tax measure he opposes certified for the November poll.
Newsom’s counter proposal requires a federal minimal tax fee on People value greater than $100 million, quite than a state degree one-time 5% wealth tax that the governor argues could possibly be dodged by billionaires who might depart the state for an additional.
Newsom, who mentioned earlier this month that he’s “contemplating working for president,” mentioned the nation ought to return to pre-2017 company tax charges and shut offshore loopholes that permit multinationals to shift earnings and pay much less in taxes. He additionally mentioned inheritance guidelines should be rewritten.
“Over the following twenty years, this nation will stay by means of the biggest intergenerational wealth switch in human historical past, with roughly $124 trillion altering arms. If we don’t act, that switch of wealth among the many ultra-wealthy will lock in a everlasting American aristocracy of inherited wealth,” Newsom wrote in a Substack publish saying the proposal on Friday morning.
California Governor Gavin Newsom provides remarks on the Heart for American Progress Concepts Convention in Washington, Could 19, 2026.
Annabelle Gordon/Reuters
The announcement comes a day after California’s personal billionaire tax certified for the November poll, having collected greater than double the signatures wanted. The measure, a one-time 5% tax on billionaire wealth launched by healthcare staff union SEIU-UHW, in response to steep healthcare funding cuts ensuing from President Donald Trump’s “Massive Stunning Invoice,” has confronted opposition from Newsom, California Democratic gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra and main lobbying organizations.
“We will’t let a single advocacy group, nevertheless well-intentioned, write the state’s tax code by itself phrases,” Newsom wrote, calling out the SEIU-UHW.
The measure has additionally led to heavy spending from billionaires, who oppose the tax. The nonprofit, Constructing a Higher California, which helps committees selling two competing poll initiatives that might nullify the billionaire tax initiative, if handed, has raised greater than $118 million — and $80 million of that comes from Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
On this April 5, 2025, file photograph, Sergey Brin attends the 2025 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif.
Taylor Hill/FilmMagic by way of Getty Pictures, FILE
Newsom says that he understands the “anxiousness driving the wealth tax proposal in California,” however that he’s voting no on the California proposal, as a result of he argues the measure dedicates nearly all the income to only state-funded healthcare companies.
SEIU-UHW Vice President Debru Carthan mentioned Thursday that the coalition supporting the tax wouldn’t again down.
“The billionaire tax shall be on the November poll,” mentioned Carthan. “And we intend to win.”
About 250 billionaires can be taxed underneath the California measure, and the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Workplace says it’s probably that some billionaires would go away the state.
“You might not be capable to decide up and transfer to Texas or Florida to shelter your earnings from taxation, however I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom writes. “Wealth is movable, and it outlets for the state with the bottom taxes. The combat belongs on the federal degree, the place this damaged system was created within the first place.”
Dan Schnur, a political science professor at UC Berkeley, referred to as Newsom’s tax proposal “savvy political positioning” because it helps him enter the 2028 discipline with out being seen as an opponent to taxing the wealthy.
“He is not towards taxing billionaires, he simply has a unique manner of doing it,” Schnur mentioned. “He now has a solution for progressive Democrats, whether or not in California or in early major states, as to why he did not assist the poll measure.”
In Washington, one other 2028 contender, California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, joined Vermont impartial Sen. Bernie Sanders — each of whom supported the California’s initiative — in introducing laws that might set up an annual 5% wealth tax on billionaires nationwide.
Newsom can be proposing a nationwide public fairness fund, giving People a stake in financial good points generated by synthetic intelligence firms. The fund — geared toward staff left behind by automation — would assist common baby care, free increased schooling, profession coaching and healthcare.
“A part of this fund might present an actual transition for the laid-off manufacturing facility employee in Ohio or the 25-year-old coder in San Francisco who despatched out a thousand resumes and bought zero callbacks,” Newsom wrote. “This might embrace important severance and moveable advantages whereas we assist them by means of the transition and into new jobs with packages like enhanced employment insurance coverage.”
“As synthetic intelligence reshapes the nation, each American ought to personal a chunk of the long run it builds,” Newsom wrote.
Different potential 2028 contenders are additionally starting to stake out their positions on AI. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has launched laws proposing a nationwide moratorium on AI knowledge heart development, which might create a short lived prohibition on the development and growth of knowledge facilities till Congress passes laws to deal with the financial, environmental and security impacts of synthetic intelligence.
ABC Information’ Will Lennon contributed to this report
