Good evening. The Justice Department charged a California man with trying to assassinate President Trump in the attack at the White House correspondents’ dinner, and in midterm news, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida proposed an aggressive House map meant to help Republicans. But tonight, we’re joined by my colleague Theodore Schleifer, who tells us about the billionaire Sergey Brin and what his political evolution means for California politics.
The billionaires dominating California politicsYes, I’d seen her Instagram. For a few months, sources of mine had directed me to the online political activity of Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto, the girlfriend of Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder and one of the world’s richest people. A gut-health influencer who was loud about her support for President Trump, she had even drawn praise from the president at a televised event last year as Brin’s “really wonderful MAGA girlfriend.” At the same time, Brin, who once donated to liberal causes, had seemed to grow more politically minded, more Trump-friendly and more Republican-curious. He was clearly angry about California’s proposed billionaires tax and began to drop big money — nearly $60 million and counting — into the state’s elections, becoming one of the biggest midterm donors so far. And so today, we’re out with a big exploration of how Brin has shifted to the right, and how Gilbert-Soto may have helped nudge him that way. Brin is helping organize the pushback by California’s billionaires to the ballot measure, which would place a one-time 5 percent tax on their assets. The fight over the proposal has raised difficult questions for the Democratic Party as it leans in a populist direction and faces an increasingly contentious relationship with the tech industry and the ultrawealthy people who lead it. A nonprofit group Brin started, Building a Better California, which is focused on affordability and state spending, is also trying to push its own ballot measures, in part to undercut the wealth-tax proposal. And he has marshaled support from other tech billionaires, raising $93 million to fight the measure so far. Brin, whose family left the Soviet Union when he was a child, explained his thinking in a statement to The New York Times: “I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union,” he said. “I don’t want California to end up in the same place.” On Sunday, backers of the tax said they had collected enough signatures for the proposal to qualify for the November ballot — meaning that we’re probably going to be talking more about billionaires for the rest of 2026. The role in politics of America’s wealthiest people has also become a major factor in California’s unsettled race for governor. After the departure of former Representative Eric Swalwell amid a sex abuse scandal, there are signs of momentum behind Tom Steyer, the Democratic hopeful has collected some choice endorsements from the liberal establishment — and who, yes, is a billionaire. Steyer is the only person in California who has spent more than Brin has on state politics this election cycle. (He has said he wants to raise taxes on the rich, but has “concerns” about the design of the billionaires tax.) Another candidate, Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, has drawn sizable support from wealthy tech executives. Other Democratic candidates, for their part, have unleashed attacks on billionaires and the role of big money in the race. In San Francisco, the heir to a billionaire family, Daniel Lurie, assumed the mayoralty last year, and has earned strong approval ratings so far. Lurie is a critic of the proposed billionaires tax, saying that the state’s wealthiest could too easily “flee” to other places. Brin, a longtime donor to a nonprofit group founded by Lurie, did precisely that ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline last year, moving with Gilbert-Soto to the Lake Tahoe area — the Nevada side.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “It’s a dangerous profession.”That was President Trump, shortly after he and other politicians were rushed away from the attack at the White House correspondents’ dinner this weekend. Trump, already the target of two assassination attempts, told reporters after the gala that he believed the threat of violence was an inescapable part of being president. The press gala gunfire, my colleague Lisa Lerer writes, underscored how a growing number of political figures have had their lives upended by violence. Got a tip?
ON REDISTRICTING What’s next in redistrictingAs the gerrymandering tug of war nears an end before the midterms, all eyes are on Virginia and Florida this week. My colleague Tim Balk breaks it down.
ONE LAST THING Trump’s ‘exclusive’ memecoin conferenceLast year, President Trump hosted an event at his Northern Virginia golf club, offering crypto investors the chance to win dinner with him in exchange for investing in his $TRUMP memecoin. On Saturday, he did it again, this time at Mar-a-Lago. But a lot has changed, my colleague David Yaffe-Bellany writes. Trump and his family have since attracted scrutiny for their crypto ventures, and the price of $TRUMP has gone down about 80 percent from last April. Taylor Robinson contributed reporting. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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