Oct 28, 2026 · 20 min
Billionaires spend $300 million to defeat California wealth tax
The billionaires bankrolling a record wealth tax fight; Open AI's midterms war room
The episode connects an unprecedented state tax fight to a broader question about billionaire political power and AI companies’ role in elections.
- 1A billionaire-backed coalition has spent roughly $300 million opposing California’s proposed Prop 40 wealth tax.
- 2Sergey Brin’s political group leads a donor effort that could outlast the ballot measure and reshape wealthy technology donors’ influence.
- 3OpenAI’s distributed election war room will coordinate misinformation safeguards through the midterms and vote counting.
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The episode reveals that OpenAI’s election war room is not a literal room but a distributed operation spanning Silicon Valley, Washington, and New York.
The brief
The episode opens with reporting on roughly $300 million in opposition spending against California’s proposed Prop 40 wealth tax, including how the figure and donor list were assembled.
Sergey Brin and Building a Better California anchor a billionaire coalition whose campaign raises a larger question: could this spending become a lasting political force?
Supporters say Prop 40’s one-time wealth tax would help offset federal health care cuts and preserve coverage, while opponents’ business interests shape the economic debate.
The report then turns to OpenAI’s election war room, a cross-office operation addressing misinformation and election safeguards through the midterms and vote count.
OpenAI’s effort is distributed across Silicon Valley, Washington, and New York, reflecting both the risks of synthetic media and voters’ ordinary use of chatbots for political information.
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