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The tense exchange reportedly took place at a treehouse party hosted by crypto investor Chris Larsen in December.
"The Big Money Show" discusses California's $267M hospice fraud bust as Gov. Gavin Newsom defends the state’s record on fighting theft.
An exclusive holiday gathering just north of San Francisco turned into a stomach-churning fiscal nightmare for California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Back in December, Newsom and Google co-founder Sergey Brin attended the same "treehouse party" hosted by crypto investor Chris Larsen. It was there, according to a Bloomberg report, that Brin broke the news that he would be leaving the state in response to a proposed wealth tax.
According to the report, it was a tense, private confrontation so jarring that Newsom reportedly complained about a "lingering cold" he attributed to the interaction for months afterward.Brin allegedly explicitly cited the Billionaire Tax Act, a 5% one-time excise tax on individuals with a net worth exceeding $1 billion, hitting his nearly $289 billion net worth hard.
Just this week, the Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) said it has collected more than 1.55 million signatures, according to a press release, nearly double the 875,000-signature requirement, to put the one-time tax on billionaire assets on the California ballot this November.
If the measure is approved by voters, anyone who was a California resident on Jan. 1, 2026, would owe the tax, according to the proposal.
Brin effectively shielded his wealth from the retroactive reach of the proposed tax by buying properties in Nevada and Florida. He has also committed at least $45 million to a group called "Building A Better California" to fight the initiative, with his total spending to kill the tax already reaching $58 million this year.
The Corcoran Group agent Julian Johnston exclusively speaks to Fox News Digital about the new wave of California billionaires migrating to South Florida due to a proposed wealth tax. "I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union. I don't want California to end up in the same place," Brin told The New York Times this week regarding a story by the outlet that discussed his move.
Newsom has publicly opposed the billionaire tax, warning the measure would damage the economy and drive away investment. Since January, it’s estimated that more than $1 trillion in capital has left California.
"This is my fear," Newsom previously said in a Politico interview. "It’s just what I warned against. It’s happening."
"The evidence is in. The impacts are very real, not just substantive economic impacts in terms of the revenue, but start-ups, the indirect impacts of . . . people questioning long-term commitments, medium-term commitments," he continued. "That’s not what we need right now, at a time of so much uncertainty. Quite the contrary."
Look, even the guy who helped invent the modern surveillance state is bailing on Gavin Newsom's People's Republic of California because the tax vampires have finally gone full Dracula. Sergey Brin did not mince words at that fancy treehouse soiree. He looked Newsom in the eye and basically said, "I'm out before you clowns try to loot me like it's a Bolshevik yard sale."
And poor Gavin spent months nursing a "lingering cold" from the encounter. Must have been rough realizing that even your billionaire buddies are done pretending California's socialist experiment is anything but a slow-motion train wreck.
Brin is not messing around. He has already parked assets in Nevada and Florida, dropped tens of millions to kill this idiocy, and reminded everyone that he actually escaped real socialism once before. Now he's watching Newsom's crew try to recreate it on the West Coast with extra failure and homeless encampments.
Meanwhile, the governor is out there sounding shocked that his warnings about driving away wealth and talent are coming true. Shocked, I tell you. The same guy who turned the state into a high-tax, high-crime, open-air toilet is now watching the productive class vote with their feet and their fortunes.
This is what happens when you treat success like a crime and then act surprised when the successful start packing. California is not "progressive." It is progressively broke, progressively empty of anyone who actually creates jobs, and progressively run by people who never met a tax they didn't love until it starts costing them donors.
Brin saw the writing on the wall and got out. Smart man. The rest of us are stuck watching Newsom try to spin this disaster as someone else's fault. Same script, different treehouse.
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