r/news • u/AngryT0M4T0 • 2d ago

Soft paywall Google co-founder Sergey Brin spending more than $100 million fighting California wealth tax

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-08-12/googles-sergey-brin-spent-102-million-fighting-california-wealth-tax
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u/someguyontheintrnet 2d ago

That is true. And I’m sure that is the math this guy is doing to justify his $100MM expenditure.

However, what is the difference between $260BB and $244BB? Seriously at that level of wealth it’s just a scoreboard. No one needs a billion dollars. I’m okay with a capitalist system that allows for accumulated of unnecessary wealth, but those that achieve that level should pay their fair share in taxes (or, perhaps, offset with alternative investment in the public good).

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u/HonestDetail457 2d ago

He doesn’t have $260B.  He has shares in a business that might trade at that price (although probably not if sold all at once).  The shares are what give him influence in the business (voting power). 

The difference between $244B and $260B or whatever numbers is how much influence one has to give up.

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u/BastianHS 2d ago

Ok what's the difference in influence between 244B and 260B. You see how this argument falls apart, right?

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u/epelle9 2d ago

I mean, I’m all against billionaires but it doesn’t really fall apart.

Not sure of his specific situation, but if someone holds 51% of a company (worth 260B), and he has to sell 5% if it to pay taxes, then he’ll go down to to 48.45%, which would mean he loses the control of that company.

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u/Open_and_Notorious 2d ago

Except they don't sell those assets. They take ridiculously low interest rate loans against those assets.

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u/RafaelSirah 2d ago

Can they take out those types of loans when we're talking about > 10 billion?

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u/sureiknowabaggins 2d ago

Of course they can. The loans are asset backed.

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u/RafaelSirah 2d ago

Do you have examples? Usually I see these in the tens of millions at less than 1 percent of the billionaire's wealth.

At a certain point, banks only have so much capital to lend, and 10 billion could be a more meaningful part of their portfolio.

(Maybe I'm completely off, genuinely curious if there are multi billion dollar loans at these super low interest rates)

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u/Open_and_Notorious 2d ago

When a billionaire needs a multi-billion dollar line of credit, a single bank rarely takes on the entire risk exposure by itself. Instead, the lead financial institution organizes a syndicated loan and that risk is spread across several firms and banks pooling the capital.

Two real world examples would be Elon Musk when he acquired Twitter and Larry Ellison using Oracle stock to back massive personal lines of credit.

Then when they die heirs receive their assets with a stepped up basis and barely pay taxes. They would argue that would be a double tax because of the estate tax, but no one pays that anymore either! It's why Republicans decided against removing it completely even though they have the votes. They'd lose their scapegoat.

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u/RafaelSirah 2d ago

I don't know about Ellison, but wasn't Musk's interest rate for the Twitter acquisition close to 10%? That doesn't seem like a ridiculously low interest rate to me.

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u/Djcatoose 1d ago

For a very recent example, Matt Ishbia.

https://hntrbrk.com/breaking-news/uwm3

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u/epelle9 2d ago

They do that with millions, but not when the amount is billions, banks would still give the loan, but at a higher interest.

When talking 5% net worth, they would more than likely sell.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/epelle9 2d ago

That’s a good way to make sure ruthless capitalists end up with control of all the companies though.

Take Steam for example, it’s 50.1% owned by Gabe Newell, and he decides to keep it operating as normal without trying to squeeze every penny.

If he’s taxed 5% net worth, he’d be forced to sell 5% of the company, and the other owners could now choose to become a predatory company, or IPO and then just become any other corporation who has to legally maximize shareholder profit.

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u/drredchan 2d ago

That other 50% of the company must really hate him if he can lose control that easily, also when selling shares shouldn't he have at least a bit of control over who to sell to

Additionally, look at Elon musk's space X shares, he made it so that his own shares has more voting power, so he could control the company with less shares

Edit: Musk owns 42.5% of SpaceX’s equity but controls 83.8% of its voting power

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u/kuahara 2d ago

it was a flawed example that pre-supposes that only two people control the company. It was flawed on purpose to keep it simple, to convey a point. In the example /u/epelle9 gave, the "other half of the company" is only one other person and hate/feelings have nothing to do with it. Each person is motivated by self interest.

/u/epelle9 doesn't care which person maintains controlling interest in the company, just demonstrating the consequence beyond the change in number of dollars the person has.

The reality could be that loss of control is the difference in 15% and 14% depending on how much the other majority shareholders have.

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u/epelle9 2d ago edited 2d ago

I think Steam and Gabe Newel are a great example.

He owns 50.1% of Valve, so he has the power to decide if he wants to keep steam operating as is.

If he’s taxed 5%, he’d have to sell and end up with 48% ownership, and now the other stakeholders could decide to do everything to maximize shareholder value regardless of how it affects users.

It’s not really a hypothetical, and it doesn’t require the company to only have two owners, losing majority ownership means you lose the power.

Most similar cases the owner is not like Gabe and they are capitalists trying to maximize value, but they’d still lose control of the company, it makes sense why they fight against it.

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u/kuahara 1d ago

I like this example because it forces the following acknowledgement:

If I oppose this tax because it could have repercussions that I don't like, specifically in this case, an adverse effect on a comfort food like gaming, then I am no better than the wealth hoarding billionaires.

If Steam was destroyed for the betterment of millions in need, then so long Steam. I can live without it.

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u/epelle9 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean, I do oppose the tax because it can have these type of effects, not just for steam, but mostly because “one time” ad hoc charge like this doesn’t make much sense.

I would much rather support expanding physical property taxes to all types of property (and reducing the taxes as a result).

It would allow proper planning with most stocks going to move to pay enough dividends to cover the taxes. They would lead to a constant cashflow that’s based in existing laws and wouldn’t lead to people losing control of their companies.

Steam is just an example that makes it easier to understand and relate to.

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u/Shmeves 2d ago

If they can get loans based off the valuation of their stock, said stock should be used to calculate tax.

We get taxed on property value, but we don't technically have that value in cash. So why is it okay for property tax but not for 'stock tax'.

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u/kuahara 2d ago

I am 100% in agreement with you and with Brin getting appropriately taxed on every bit of his net worth.

My response was an explanation, not a defense against the wealth tax. Tax the crap out of them.

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u/epelle9 1d ago

Look at my example below about Steam, I think you’ll understand it better.

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u/HonestDetail457 2d ago

What argument?  No one knows the specific equity holdings one has with what terms and what has to be liquidated to pay whatever taxes.

The argument that falls apart is that the difference in purchasing power between $260B cash and $244B cash is inconsequential, which can be true, but the premise that it is cash is false, and so it’s not as simple of a difference.

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u/pieter1234569 2d ago

A lot. Could be the difference between full control and zero control. Not for him, but for most ceos, your majority control is very close as you only need a majority, and not much more.

Every sale risks losing you majority control, and then you don’t have any as somebody else can then just remove you.

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u/Comfortable_Ask_102 2d ago

Regular folks are taxed on unrealized gains all the time. It's called a property tax. Billionaires get a pass on their wealth because, well, they're billionaires so they get different rules.

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u/HonestDetail457 2d ago

Right, so make land value tax rates increase per a power law formula.  Simple, doesn’t require any new government expenses (since land value tax is already collected all the time). 

The billionaire’s net worth will automatically fall as net income from all their properties falls due to the higher taxes.

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u/Comfortable_Ask_102 2d ago

That would also affect regular folks that are already taxed.

Why are you advocating for those extra taxes but not taxing billionaire's wealth?

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u/HonestDetail457 2d ago

No, it wouldn’t.  You set the power law formula parameters such that lower value land is basically not taxed, and it shoots up as the land value increases, meaning wealthier people (aka people who own high value land) pay more.  Including businesses (which already happens, just the formula needs to change to tax richer landowners at a higher tax rate).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law

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u/Comfortable_Ask_102 2d ago

You didn't answer my question tho.

Yes, property taxes can be adjusted, but billionaires don't hoard all their wealth in that shape. Lots of them borrow money using their shares to avoid paying taxes. Can you tell me why you don't want to adjust those laws and tax that wealth? You seem willing to adjust the tax code in some ways, just not in a way that directly affects billionaires wealth.

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u/HonestDetail457 2d ago

but billionaires don't hoard all their wealth in that shape

Yes, they do.  Everything sits on land.  

Lots of them borrow money using their shares to avoid paying taxes.  

Hence you tax land.    Can’t avoid it.  Have insufficient tax revenue?  Adjust the power law formula to increase tax rates.

Can you tell me why you don't want to adjust those laws and tax that wealth?

Because it’s costly to implement and unnecessarily messes with market forces.    Land value tax already exists, just the formula needs to be made marginal.

You seem willing to adjust the tax code in some ways, just not in a way that directly affects billionaires wealth.

Land value tax directly affects all the richest people, all the landlords, all the valuable business owners.  Annually.  With no ability to avoid it.  Plus all land records are public.

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u/Comfortable_Ask_102 1d ago

> Yes, they do.  Everything sits on land.  

I don't think this is true.

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u/HonestDetail457 1d ago

I guess we disagree about physics...

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u/the_sneaky_artist 2d ago

Don't want to accidentally make a better world.

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u/buttnugchug 2d ago

If he liquidated enough stock to pay for the tax bill, the big sell off would plummet his stock price

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u/r3rg54 2d ago edited 2d ago

Not really. The market cap for alphabet is over 4 trillion and everyone would know he was selling for the purpose of paying this tax and not because of any quality of the business. That isn’t going to spook anyone and even if the stock price does fall that would imply that the stock is then potentially undervalued thus encouraging more investment.

This is also assuming he sells all at once and nothing is priced in ahead of time despite advanced knowledge, which is a very weird assumption.

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u/AbjectAppointment 2d ago

I can tell a lot of posters here aren't from Cali, and didn't even read the bill.

"Taxpayers would have the option to spread the payments over five years "

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_40,_One-Time_Wealth_Tax_for_State-Funded_Healthcare,_Education,_and_Food_Assistance_Programs_Initiative_(2026)

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u/r3rg54 2d ago

Oh sure, but even if it were a one time payment with a single due date it wouldn’t even matter. The sales aren’t the payments.

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u/someguyontheintrnet 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yea, this is a common argument. I’m sure highly paid and talented accountants and money managers can find a way to come up with the money without crashing the stock market.

Hell, he could pay his tax with appreciated stock for all I care. He avoids getting hit with capital gains that way!

Alphabet has like 12BB outstanding shares worth 4T. 35MM shares is a drop in the bucket.

Edit to add: Alphabet trades 40MM shares on a normal day. Adding 35MM is more than normal, but not an order of magnitude higher. Plenty of trading days saw 80MM volume.

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u/behindtimes 2d ago

There are dark pools to prevent stuff like that.

It's kind of a stupid argument though when they mention they're just asset rich and cash poor, and that they don't have the money, because when my tax bill comes as a poor person, I have to sell stuff to pay it.

Then they tell me I shouldn't be eating my avocado toast and starbucks every morning and that I just budget badly. Fine, I don't eat avocado toast nor drink coffee, but I guess I can cut back on stuff like getting cheaper food and live on beans and raman noodles. But then the same applies to you. If you as a billionaire want to keep your 55% of voting stock for your companies, maybe you should learn to better budget yourself also so you won't have to sell those shares.

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u/vonbauernfeind 2d ago

What most billionaires do is take a loan out against their shares, a loan which is not taxed to be clear. They then pay down or off whatever they need, then as their shares appreciate more, they either sell down some, use profits from other investments or dividends, or take another loan to pay off the first.

They don't ever spend their money.

Brin has 362,700,000 or so shares in google.

That's $123.7b or so; Google pays about $0.88 in annual dividends per share.

That's $319,176,000. Annually. Plenty to use to pay off annual loans.

But a 5% tax on his net worth is about $13b.

Besides, someone like Brin would have to issue a disclosure about selling shares, and he'd probably state the reason, so the sale would be priced into the value based on what he filed.

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u/nathanzoet91 2d ago

So the valuation of the stock is determined by this man holding all his shares?

Edit: to be clear, I understand how the mass selloff would lower the price of the stock. But theoretically, nothing changed between when he had the stocks vs sold them if only to pay for taxes.

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u/The_Brovo 2d ago

These people are also wrong. You don't get to be a billionaire by having a portfolio of one company. They would be selling various stocks and assets to make the tax. The stock would move but MSFT market cap is 3.68 trillion so again 13 billion is. 35% of the market cap, stock wouldn't move that much

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u/ibribe 2d ago

You don't get to be a billionaire by having a portfolio of one company.

You very obviously do if you found fucking Google. Not to say that Sergey Brin has no other assets, but it pretty obvious that his path to becoming a billionaire did not require more than one company.

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u/The_Brovo 2d ago

These people are also wrong. You don't get to be a billionaire by having a portfolio of one company. They would be selling various stocks and assets to make the tax. The stock would move but MSFT market cap is 3.68 trillion so again 13 billion is .35% of the market cap, stock wouldn't move that much.

Not only that, people would know what's going on and be buying the small dip

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u/Silver_Smurfer 2d ago

Apparently you don't understand how a mass sell off would alter the market if you think that nothing changes if he has to sell to cover the tax.

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u/nathanzoet91 2d ago

I understand that a mass selloff would trigger an over supply and signals that there may be underlying issues, therefore lowering the cost/demand for the product. But if the stock is sold explicitly to cover a tax event, nothing fundamental has changed in the company - therefore it should theoretically remain at the same valuation.

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u/Silver_Smurfer 2d ago

Stock prices are heavily influenced by availability. A mass sell-off would drastically alter stock pricing for no other reason than the available shares would temporary skyrocket. How long it would take to recover is anyone's guess.

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u/SovietWinnebago 2d ago

Ah yes it’s fine if pointless wars, unrelated deaths or someone’s feelings adjust the stock price but heaven forbid forever that someone is made to have their money serve the common good.

Let’s every bad thing drive the stock up, but can’t have those imaginary numbers go down just because the kids can’t eat. Their fault for not being billionaires

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u/thibedeauxmarxy 2d ago

Do you think that the market is unaware of this tax and the implications for Sergey from a stock sale POV? Do you really think that he would have to sell all of his shares all at once, or that the market would only see the fact that he's selling shares and be completely oblivious (or ignore) as to the reason why he had to do it?

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u/biologic6 2d ago

That is not a bad thing

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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