We’re a group of multimillionaires from the Golden State who are enthusiastically voting “yes” on Proposition 40—and imploring you to do the same.

To be clear, people like us can afford to live wherever we want. We choose to live in California because we love our state. We are proud to pay higher taxes if it means a brighter, healthier California for ourselves and our neighbors. If there’s a price tag on our beaches, our mountains, our piers, our cable cars, and our state parks, we’re proud to pay it.

As multimillionaires, we’re willing to do our part. It’s past time for billionaires—our thousand millionaire cousins—to do theirs. The opposition from some of them to this commonsense idea is embarrassing for all of us.

Inequality in America is at an all-time high, and with more billionaires than any other state, California is at the epicenter of the crisis. Members of our class are hoarding their wealth and threatening the stability and competitiveness of our economy, the vibrancy of our democracy, the freedom of our press, and the very existence of our planet. They are also poised to reap the most benefits from the rise of unregulated AI, which threatens to upend human society as we know it.

Our federal and state tax codes have done a poor job at checking wealth inequality, sometimes by design. They require little of those of us that have the most, and this is especially true in the wake of the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act. As a result, our state is one of many that is starving for revenues and facing the prospect of drastic cuts to essential services like healthcare, food assistance, and education.

Prop 40—a one-time, 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires—would help solve this problem and achieve what we’re after: establishing tax fairness, raising desperately needed revenues, and checking the power of the rich.

The most common pushback to Prop 40 is that it will lead members of our class to move to lower tax jurisdictions and hollow out the tax base. This fear is overblown. Numerous studies have failed to find compelling evidence that wealthy people are leaving high-tax places in droves, or that they pick up sticks if their taxes are raised. Prop 40 is also a retroactive tax; no matter where billionaires live now, if they were a California resident as of January 1, 2026, they’re paying it. And even if billionaires do leave in the future, they pay so little taxes as it is that it would take years for the loss of their tax payments to exceed what Prop 40 would raise.*

It’s a shame that some of our peers in the billionaire class have spent millions trying to quash this ballot initiative, rather than supporting a very sensible solution to a shared problem. Despite what they say, a relatively small tax on wealth over $1 billion is in no way going to disincentivize future innovation in California. We do not see Prop 40 as a punishment on our success, but rather a sign of the heightened obligation we have to invest in the state and country that enabled our success in so many ways.

To be sure, Prop 40 should just be the beginning of this effort. It is essential that, in their role as governor, Xavier Becerra or Steve Hilton keeps the momentum going by prioritizing policies that reduce inequality and boost the power of working people. If Prop 40 passes, that shouldn’t be too tall a task. As the first tax on billionaires anywhere in the world, there can be no doubt that it will create an unstoppable national and international wave to tax wealth. All Becerra or Hilton has to do is ride it.

California, we have the chance to make history in November. We have the chance to lead the world in establishing basic tax fairness, raising revenues for essential programs, and checking the power of the richest among us. With so much on the line, we urge you to stand up for the future of all Californians and vote “yes” on Prop 40.