You may recall that California is trying to institute a one-time 5% tax on billionaires. Some of those absurdly wealthy folks started a Signal chat to kvetch and brainstorm opposition, which was then leaked to Emily Shugerman, The San Francisco Standard’s “Wealth & Power Reporter”:

At some point, a chat participant proposed an action more audacious than lobbying Gov. Gavin Newsom or funding an anti-tax measure: What if the group simply bought the signature-collecting company the union was using, then prohibited it from collecting more signatures?

“Of course, that’s what they would think,” said the person who had seen the messages. “That’s what you would do in business: If there’s an impediment, just buy it.”

The proposal was emblematic of the strategies the billionaire class has tested over the last eight months: unorthodox, expensive, and increasingly desperate. Since the union’s Billionaire Tax Act campaign was launched last fall, the tech elites have organized in secret, scheduling and aborting Zoom meetings, starting and deleting and uninviting members from group chats, and casually throwing tens of millions of dollars at whatever idea seems poised to defeat the initiative and scare the union into submission.

The billionaire argument against the wealth tax is that it will “[drive] out high net worth individuals, jobs, investment, and revenue” and “destroy innovation in California.” Yet I’m not seeing the value these billionaires supposedly bring to our state. The wealth they’ve accumulated isn’t being productively used—say, on housing, healthcare, or education—it’s just sitting there, growing, benefiting no one but themselves. They borrow against it, tax-free, to fund their lifestyles (and destroy media companies). If they gain economic value from the wealth, they should pay taxes on it.