The Billionaire Tax Act is vying to make it on to the ballot this November in California. I wrote about it in “Robert Reich’s ressentiment” and cited the Pirate Wires profile “The Secret NIMBY Millionaire Behind California’s Asset Seizure” in my conclusion. I commented that it’s the kind of profile that might give ad hominem argument a good name.
The proposed asset tax is dangerous, deceitful, disingenuous, “dumb” (i.e., stupid), and, most of all, destructive. I think it would be wise to pay attention because what happens in California doesn’t stay in California. Pirate Wires has followed up its profile of Reich with Blake Dodge’s backgrounder on “The Architects of California’s Billionaire Tax.”
Pireate Wires editor-in-chief Mike Solana has written several columns on the tax. See “California’s Tech Industry Kill Switch” (January 12) and “Exodus: The Largest Wealth Flight in California History” (January 23).
Most recently, Solana reports on the (creative) resistance to the tax in “Wealth Tax Counterstrike.” In this column he covers five countermeasures in the works. He commented in yesterday’s newsletter:
Rumor has it the measures are backed by a couple billionaires targeted by the SEIU’s wealth tax, which brings me to the piece of this I love the most: the Marxist academics who designed the proposition thought they were targeting a bunch of oligarchs with way too much control over our government. But the truth is tech billionaires have tried their best, for decades, to keep out of politics, a fact I’ve complained about for years. Now, in 2026, they’re pissed, and they’re looking to drop a nuke. Congrats, commies, you’ve created your billionaire supervillain.
Soloana concludes his current column on a mildly optimistic note:
Billionaires were always going to find an exit for themselves. But as the contours of this battle come more greatly into focus, it’s clear any California future that includes the tech industry will also now include a very small but very animated, and very radicalized class of wealthy donors who are not only interested in defending themselves, but in targeting the system that forced them to defend themselves. The billionaires are still not throwing punches nearly as hard as they could or should. But this is certainly a start.
I frequently fall back on Linda Loman’s plea on behalf of her husband in Death of a Salesman: “Attention must be paid.” That plea on behalf of the common man applies, if somewhat ironically, in this case. David Mamet’s update on the Salesman‘s theme in the film adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross applies as well: “Always be closing.”
