Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – California has rejected by referendum a proposed tax on the wealth of billionaires defended in particular by the economist Gabriel Zucman, according to American media projections almost a week after the election.
Published on: 10/11/2026 - 09:54
The initiative planned to tax the state's approximately 200 billionaires at 5% of their net wealth to finance the public health system on which half of Californians depend, weakened by the enormous federal cuts imposed by Donald Trump.
The levy was to be one-time and its promoters hoped to collect around $100 billion from it.
They hoped that such a measure would inspire other states in the United States, at a time when anger is growing over the worsening of inequalities and the dizzying increase in the fortunes of tech giants like Elon Musk.
The count was not yet completely completed on Monday when the major American media declared the matter over: "Prop 40" failed to obtain the majority of votes, reported CNN and CBS News.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the proposed tax was rejected in the vast majority of counties in the state but received support from voters in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The referendum was organized on November 3, at the same time as the mid-term elections.
But the counting of votes is always long in California, in particular due to the large number of postal votes that state law allows to be taken into account up to a week after an election.
Popular at its launch, the tax project quickly seemed doomed to failure at the polls, despite the large left vote and the Democratic victory in the midterm elections.
The day after the election, the "no" vote was in the lead by more than 55% after counting around 60% of the votes.
"A question of time"
“Major advances are rarely made all at once,” responded Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz in a statement to AFP before Monday's screenings.
“For the first time in the United States, +Prop 40+ printed on a ballot the idea of a tax on the wealth of billionaires,” he underlined.
“The billionaires of Silicon Valley have won this battle. But they will lose this war,” said Gabriel Zucman on X last Wednesday.
“It is only a matter of time and the Democratic wave (in the mid-term elections) could well accelerate this movement,” he added.
The Franco-American economist, whose work inspired the project, accused the wealthy Californian tech pundits of having “done everything to sabotage the measure”.
Opponents of "Prop 40", including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertisements, repeatedly hammering home on television channels in the run-up to the vote that the tax risked being made permanent, causing an exodus of the ultra-rich and a fall in tax revenue.
Outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom, potential contender for the Democratic nomination for the 2028 presidential election, was also opposed to it.
Several attempts to tax large fortunes have already failed in California, without ever reaching the polls.
The most populous state in the United States would be the world's fourth largest economy if it were a country, but the divide between the haves and the have-nots is yawning.
© 2026 AFP
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