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, slightly 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 operating for president,” mentioned the nation ought to return to pre-2017 company tax charges and shut offshore loopholes that enable multinationals to shift income and pay much less in taxes. He additionally mentioned inheritance guidelines should be rewritten.
“Over the following twenty years, this nation will reside via 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 put up saying the proposal on Friday morning.
California Governor Gavin Newsom offers 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 “Large Lovely Invoice,” has confronted opposition from Newsom, California Democratic gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra and main lobbying organizations.
“We are able to’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 may 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 through Getty Pictures, FILE
Newsom says that he understands the “nervousness 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 simply 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 might be on the November poll,” mentioned Carthan. “And we intend to win.”
About 250 billionaires can be taxed beneath the California measure, and the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Workplace says it’s seemingly that some billionaires would go away the state.
“You might not be capable of choose 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 struggle 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 subject with out being seen as an opponent to taxing the wealthy.
“He is not towards taxing billionaires, he simply has a special means 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 help 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 may 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 positive factors generated by synthetic intelligence firms. The fund — aimed toward staff left behind by automation — would help common little one care, free larger 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 acquired zero callbacks,” Newsom wrote. “This might embrace important severance and moveable advantages whereas we help them via the transition and into new jobs with applications like enhanced employment insurance coverage.”
“As synthetic intelligence reshapes the nation, each American ought to personal a bit of the longer term 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 information heart building, which might create a brief prohibition on the development and growth of information facilities till Congress passes laws to handle the financial, environmental and security impacts of synthetic intelligence.
ABC Information’ Will Lennon contributed to this report
