By Iris Craige, Assistant Director of Policy and Advocacy
October 23, 2026
In January, a group of tech billionaires launched Building a Better California, a political organization with an affiliated Political Action Committee (PAC) that has become a major financial player in campaigns over billionaire taxation, housing policy, and environmental review. Its backers have a vision for California’s future and the money to promote it. Whose interests would that vision serve?
The group’s formation was closely tied to opposing Proposition 40, a proposed one-time tax on billionaire wealth. But its agenda now extends well beyond taxation, with major investments in campaigns concerning housing development, public spending, and environmental protections. The largest donor, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, had reportedly relocated to Nevada before making his first contribution to the group in January. By August, he had contributed $102 million to the group. Other major backers include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and venture capitalist John Doerr.
The scale of this spending illustrates the disparity in resources available to influence California politics. While residents organize to make their voices heard, a relatively small group of wealthy donors can invest millions to advance policy proposals across the state–even from out of state. Community organizations working to build political power through grassroots organizing and popular education rarely, if ever, have access to comparable financial resources.
A Billionaire-Funded Political Agenda
Getting a proposal onto the ballot in California requires significant investment and resources. Under the current law, 546,651 signatures must be collected to qualify an initiative statute, while constitutional amendments require 874,641 signatures. Signature gathering requires extensive coordination, staffing, and boots on the ground. Once a proposal qualifies, campaigns typically spend millions on advertising, consultants and voter outreach. It’s these costs that underline the important difference between the right to vote on a proposal and the resources needed to advance one.
According to California Fair Political Practices Commission records checked October 20, Building a Better California contributed $127.8 million to support Proposition 42 and $58.35 million to support Proposition 41, two measures that would establish restrictions on wealth taxation. Both could interfere with the implementation of Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire wealth tax. The organization has also contributed $103.5 million to the campaign against Proposition 40, and it has given $10 million to the campaign for Proposition 45, which would change California’s environmental review process for housing and infrastructure development.
However, Building a Better California’s political spending reaches well beyond these measures. It has contributed $6 million to Proposition 37, a $25 billion down-payment loan program for middle-income homebuyers, and $1 million to Proposition 1, which would authorize bonds for affordable housing. Building a Better California also supports Proposition 3, which would extend existing higher income-tax rates to fund education and healthcare.
Shaping the Ballot
Together, Building a Better California’s positions on these propositions show the breadth of their agenda. The organization supports certain public investments in housing and education while directing substantially greater financial resources toward proposals that would restrict new taxation of wealth.
Although the organization’s supporters describe their agenda as an effort to address affordability and government accountability, critics are skeptical about a billionaire-funded political movement. Debru Carthan, executive vice president of SEIU-United Health Care Workers West, criticized Sergey Brin for spending millions to oppose a proposed wealth tax intended to fund health care services, arguing that wealthier Californians should contribute more through taxes.
It’s also important to note that tech billionaires’ increasingly have a financial and political interest in spurring public investments in housing across the state. The American Prospect recently wrote about tech money pouring into the Abundance Network, an organization that views private sector, for-profit development as key to solving California’s affordable housing crisis. The organization claims “rebellion against elites” is part of what is driving California’s problems, and relinquishing more power to corporations and billionaires would make us all better off.
Who Has a Say?
Building a Better California illustrates the vast differences between political resources available to regular Californians. Though voters ultimately decide whether ballot measures pass, it is often wealthy donors who finance efforts to qualify measures for the ballot and spend millions communicating their positions statewide.
We’ve seen similar dynamics in Los Angeles, where Airbnb has spent heavily on political campaigns at a time when it is trying to relax the city’s short-term rental regulations. The issues differ, but both examples demonstrate how substantial financial resources can give private interests a prominent role in debates over housing policy.
The concern is not whether wealthy individuals should be allowed to participate in politics, but rather that concentrated wealth gives a small number of people disproportionate resources to shape which policies receive attention and how those policies are presented to voters.
Addressing these imbalances would require stronger campaign finance transparency, alongside broader reforms to limit the influence of concentrated wealth. And while these stronger rules governing political money are needed, communities have power to shape California’s future today. Creating spaces to learn and building relationships are central to strengthening collective power. When tenants organize and residents press for shared demands, we can win changes that no individual could secure alone.
