Newsom blasts proposed massive wealth tax

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has blasted the state’s proposed massive wealth tax as debilitating to the local economy — but fellow lefty progressives gripe he’s turning into the “billionaires’ errand boy.’’

Newsom insisted in an interview Monday that the recent exodus of moguls from the state over its proposed “Billionaire Tax” only proves he’s right to oppose it.

“This is my fear,” Newsom told Politico, referring to the Golden State’s billionaires fleeing to dodge the repressive proposed tax.

“It’s just what I warned against. It’s happening.

“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,” the gov said.

““That’s not what we need right now, at a time of so much uncertainty.”

Newsom, a leader of the left with an eye toward a 2028 presidential run — and who is rarely at odds with progressive labor — said there is room for “a national conversation” about wealth taxes, just not on a state level.

“That’s different. That’s very different,” he said of a national tax on the country’s most wealthy. “We live in a competitive reality with 49 other states.”

California’s proposed 2026 Billionaire Tax Act would slap a onetime 5% tax on individual fortunes exceeding $1 billion.

The suggested measure — pushed by the state’s later unions to cover federal budget cuts to social services and health care — could be voted on by California residents in November if enough people sign a petition to get it on the ballot.

Just the mere prospect of the tax has now sent billionaires in the state in a panic, prompting everyone from Google co-founder Larry Page and In-N-Out heiress Lynsi Snyder to scoop up homes and move some of their businesses out of state.

But Newsom’s alliance with the 1 Percent on the issue has rankled some on the left.

“Another reason I’m never Newsom. He’s a billionaires’ errand boy beholden to them,’’ civil-rights lawyer and professor Alejandra Caraballo wrote on the social-media site Bluesky, according to Common Dreams.

Jonathan Cohn, the head of a “grassroots” “social and racial justice” group in Massachusetts called Progressive Mass, also said on Bluesky: “Gavin Newsom wants a future for the Democratic Party that consists of sucking up to conservative billionaires.

“That’s a path destined for losses,” he contended, according to Common Dreams.

But Newsom, referring to the proposed tax, predicted to the New York Times on Monday, “This will be defeated — there’s no question in my mind.”

Newsom has gained an unlikely ally in his battle against the tax: frequent critic, fellow Dem and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who took to X to side with the governor for a change.

“The @CAgovernor and I have had our policy disagreements over the past few years on issues like his opposition to Prop 36, but he is spot on here,’’ wrote Mahan, who is considering a run for governor, with his decision expected in the coming weeks.

“This so-called wealth tax is going to backfire, and middle-class taxpayers are going to be forced to pick up the bill,’’ Mahan warned.

“We need to close federal tax loopholes, cut waste – not crash California’s economy.’’

Newsom revealed he’s been working behind the scenes for months to convince the labor group to stand down, adding that in one of the “many, many, many, many, many” conversations he had about the tax, someone complained about California’s direct democracy process, which allows anyone to collect signatures to put a proposal on the ballot.

The unidentified person donated a large amount to the failed 2021 recall effort against Newsom, the governor added.

“That’s pretty ironic because you didn’t have any problem with direct democracy when you tried to recall me,” Newsom said of his foe.