Report particulars how the ultra-rich are pouring unprecedented sums into state politics to dam a proposed billionaire tax and advance a tech-friendly agenda.
By Mark Kreidler for Capital & Foremost
For many of this 2026 midterm election cycle, the eye round California’s billionaire class has targeted closely on their opposition to a one-time tax on their wealth, cash that may be used to assist offset huge federal cuts to safety-net well being care applications within the state.
That’s superb so far as it goes, however it goes nowhere close to far sufficient. In fact, the billionaires are on an all-time spending spree in relation to politics at each the state and federal ranges — and their pursuits vary far afield from merely defeating a single proposition, irrespective of how irksome the Billionaire Tax Act is to them.
California’s mega-wealthy are additionally utilizing their sources to pave the best way for them to broaden their futures within the cryptocurrency and AI industries with as little regulation or pushback as potential.
“It’s not simply placing cash into the [billionaire tax] poll measure. There’s a very exact legislative agenda right here as effectively,” stated Crystal Zermeno of California Widespread Good, a coalition of labor and neighborhood teams that has been researching this energized spherical of spending.
That agenda, Zermeno stated, extends to state-level elections, the place billionaire cash is getting used to help both Republican or, in Democrat-safe districts, pro-business Democratic candidates — and in some instances, to instantly oppose labor-backed candidates in these elections.
The quantities concerned are staggering. Based on a report launched at the moment by California Widespread Good and the pro-working class group Individuals Over Billionaires, the state’s high 15 billionaires alone have poured greater than $336 million into federal and California elections thus far this 12 months.
Simply 4 billionaires — Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Silicon Valley enterprise capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and cryptocurrency magnate Chris Larsen — have given $331 million to political campaigns, both via particular person or affiliated company contributions in 2026, the report says.
“It’s an explosion of progress of their spending,” Zermeno stated. “They’re driving up the price of these legislative races immensely. And so they’re enjoying the system towards a company agenda.”
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The teams’ report attracts from broadly obtainable sources, together with the federal Securities and Trade Fee, the California Secretary of State’s workplace and metropolis ethics commissions that require political contribution disclosures. The underside line: After years of dipping their toes within the water, billionaires at the moment are absolutely engaged politically on their very own behalf, each in California and federally.
To make certain, the billionaire tax proposal in California, variations of which have constantly failed on the federal degree, has their full consideration.
Brin, whose political spending was virtually nonexistent beforehand, has personally contributed $86 million on this election cycle, and $85 million of that went to at least one group. That group, Constructing a Higher California, has launched two initiatives that, if permitted by voters, would successfully intestine the wealth tax. (The group has not taken a place on the tax proposal itself.)
“I fled socialism with my household in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created within the Soviet Union. I don’t need California to finish up in the identical place,” Brin, who hardly ever feedback publicly, stated in an announcement to the New York Occasions in April, because the Occasions ready a report describing Brin’s current rightward lurch politically.
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Brin himself will not be touched by the California Billionaire Tax Act if it passes. He purchased property in Nevada and established residency there close to the tip of 2025, and solely these billionaires with major residence in California as of Jan. 1, 2026, can be affected by the tax.
Nonetheless, Brin, who holds different properties, together with a $50 million Malibu property, continues to make use of his cash to battle the tax. A number of different billionaires, together with Larsen, former Sequoia Capital chair Michael Moritz, Google director John Doerr III and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, have given to Constructing a Higher California.
That battle, and the threatened flight of the state’s mega-wealthy if the tax passes, have garnered nationwide consideration. However the billionaires’ political spending can be closely targeted on their futures in AI and crypto.
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Headquartered in Silicon Valley’s Menlo Park, Andreessen Horowitz is taken into account essentially the most closely invested enterprise capital agency within the nation in relation to AI and crypto. It’s pouring cash into federal Political Motion Committees that align with these monetary pursuits.
Each Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have contributed individually — $41 million and $45 million, respectively — however so has their agency. Andreessen Horowitz has spent $57 million as an organization on political giving in 2026, all of it on the federal degree, based on the newly launched report.
A major recipient: Fairshake, the highly effective super-PAC that makes use of its clout to affect federal laws and elections — together with this 12 months’s midterms — in relation to beating again cryptocurrency guidelines and laws. One other recipient is the political motion committee Main the Future, a pro-AI trade group; Andreessen has argued for years that AI needs to be allowed to be developed with none authorities laws or help by any means.
And the billionaires’ cash is touchdown on native races in California, typically particularly to get a pro-business candidate elected or forestall a pro-labor candidate from doing so.
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One political motion committee, Develop California, was seeded with cash from crypto giants Larsen and Tim Draper. Larsen, a longtime Democratic donor, has spoken overtly of utilizing the PAC to push again towards labor unions that he believes maintain an excessive amount of energy in California. The proposed billionaire tax, which Larsen additionally opposes, has been pushed by the state’s largest well being care union.
Develop California spent cash on a number of major elections within the state this 12 months, typically particularly opposing labor-backed candidates, the report discovered. In Meeting District 67, the PAC used impartial expenditures to help one Democratic candidate, Mark Pulido, and oppose one other, Ada Briceño, co-president of the labor union UNITE HERE Native 11. Pulido, not Briceño, moved on to November’s common election. (Disclosure: UNITE HERE is a monetary supporter of Capital & Foremost.)
“We discovered that in races the place they become involved huge, the billionaires are outspending … the labor and neighborhood group [candidates] by 4 occasions, six occasions,” Zermeno stated.
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Absent election finance reform, this can be a sample that may recur. California’s billionaire class, a lot of it the product of the state’s thriving tech sector, is working absolutely inside present marketing campaign finance pointers by giving individually and thru PACs, which they’re additionally free to create and fund.
With an early try on the federal degree to stop states from regulating AI having failed, tech corporations could effectively see state laws as their path to a much less regulated future. The identical goes for crypto. And that implies that California’s billionaire class will proceed this cycle’s try and get pro-business, tech-friendly or anti-labor candidates elected, utilizing quantities of cash beforehand remarkable in native district campaigns.
“This has been an exponentially totally different degree of uptick of their spending,” Zermeno stated. It might be solely the start.
