Silicon Valley billionaires shell out to defeat Proposition 40

Californians are already voting on whether to implement a one-time 5% tax on billionaires that could generate as much as $100 billion toward healthcare and other social services over the next five years. And local billionaires are weighing in — with their wallets. Approximately 200 billionaires in California would be subject to the Proposition 40 tax, the majority of whom live in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the 2026 Forbes Billionaire List. Given the concentration of billionaires in and around Silicon Valley, it’s fair to assume that a significant portion of the revenue generated by the tax, should voters pass it, would have its origins here. The five wealthiest people in the Bay Area — Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang and Eric Schmidt — live in and around Palo Alto and have a combined net worth that exceeds $900 billion, according to data collected by Forbes at the beginning of 2026.

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