Prop 41 and 42: Sergey’s Silver Bullets

By James Fenkner, CFA

Weaken the Wealth Tax Werewolf While You Still Can

Vote YES on Props 41 and 42

Late last year, Sergey Brin packed up, rode out of the Golden State, and crossed over to Nevada, the Silver State. He carried two silver bullets with him: Propositions 41 and 42, which are meant to stop Proposition 40 – the billionaire tax – before this initial hunt of the ultra-rich broadens into open season on every Californian’s financial nest egg.

Brin can afford this ammunition. He is worth more than $250 billion, the fifth-richest person on Earth and the second-largest fortune built in California, after his Google co-founder Larry Page. The class conflict and envy embedded in Prop 40 was tailored for uber successful men like these. Sergey moved his official residence to Nevada before the January 1, 2026, cutoff, so the tax may well miss him.

With much of his paper wealth beyond California’s grasp, why is he still risking a high-stakes gunfight with California’s political machine? And why should a voter cast his lot with this lone ranger rather than the machine itself?

The answer is simple. Sergey Brin may not share the views of every hardworking Californian, but on the wealth tax he is aligned. In protecting himself, he is also protecting you.

To understand why he is in the battle, consider his self-interest, the company he keeps, and, perhaps most important, the place from which he came.

Sergey’s girlfriend, Gerelyn “GG” Gilbert-Soto, is very public in her support of President Trump. Late in December 2025, at a Christmas party in a Marin redwood treehouse, Brin told Gavin Newsom to his face that he was leaving the state. Then he backed “Building a Better California” with more than $100 million dollars in firepower, along with John Doerr, Chris Larsen, Michael Moritz, Patrick Collison, and Eric Schmidt, to fund “Yes on 41 and 42” and to fire back.

Sergey Brin’s early Soviet years left a bitter taste of socialism’s real-world failures. “I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union.” He told The New York Times, “I don’t want California to end up in the same place.”

No one should.

At a White House dinner on September 4, 2025, Brin told Donald Trump: “You are applying a lot of pressure on Maduro, and I think that’s fantastic. That’s what a U.S. president should do. I hope it will also be the same for Cuba and other places.” Those are not the words of a progressive Karen Bass Democrat.

Prop 40, and then 41 and 42, grew out of SEIU UHW’s reaction to Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. One big piece of that law required able-bodied adults to get the lead out and work or lose Medicaid. Fair enough and well past due. But in California, the requirement for such personal responsibility means a cut in Federal Medicaid spending in the tens of billions a year. With 120,000 dues-paying members, that reduction hit SEIU UHW’s bottom line hard. Rather than tighten their own belts, the union’s mission pivoted from caring for the poor to eating the rich. Prop 40 is that grotesque act in statute: a raid sold as justice, drafted so the next raid needs only a new date and a new list.

Buried in the Prop 40 text:

“The Legislature may amend the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, by statute passed in each house… two thirds of the membership concurring, if the statute is consistent with and furthers the purposes of the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.”

The risk is a simple two thirds vote to apply this wealth tax to any Californian they wish at any time of their choosing.

“As Goes California, So Goes the Nation.”

Comrades Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would take a wealth tax built on such a California chassis and drive it through D.C. at breakneck speed. Killing Prop 40 does not kill the appetite to eat the rich or take away the wealth of others. California is a pilot project that the Democratic Socialists of America dream of introducing nationally. forestalling a national wealth redistribution campaign is why, in part, Sergey is funding 41 and 42. These are silver bullets: clean shots, not a spray of lead; they weaken the California wealth tax werewolf before it bites and infects others.

Sergey’s Two Bullets

Prop 41 says a new special tax on this ballot cannot park its money outside the Gann spending cap, and it requires audits of programs funded by such taxes.

Prop 40 does park the take outside Gann and doesn’t require an audit. If 41 passes with more Yes votes than 40, 40 is gone.

Prop 42 forbids a new state tax on simply owning personal property, stocks, businesses, savings, intellectual property, and forbids a tax that is retrospective. Prop 40 does both. If 42 passes with more Yes votes than 40, 40 loses again.

Neither measure requires 40 to lose a majority vote. Each need only a larger Yes total than 40 on the issues where they intentionally collide. Courts, per usual, will decide what conflicts.

You need not love or even like billionaires to enthusiastically root for this lone ranger’s fight. He could just ride off in the sunset or cower in a gilded cage like so many others. Billionaires can go anywhere, in luxury and comfort.

Most people cannot.

Props 41 and 42 protect you and whatever financial wealth you have been able to build.

Keep California from turning even more Soviet.

Vote YES on both Prop 41 and Prop 42.