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Co-founder of Google and former president of Alphabet, now involved in shaping the company's Gemini AI models.
Google DeepMind's Gemini 4 safety report says bugs block any pass on about a quarter of audited ML R&D challenges. DeepMind estimates fixing them would not change its risk call, but a post on lesswrong.com asks whether the benchmark can still rule out the automation threshold.
Reality
Tech billionaires have raised more than $340m to defeat California's Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on billionaires. Californians vote in early November, and two countermeasures on the same ballot can block the tax even if Prop 40 passes.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed Prop. 42, which voids the Prop. 40 billionaire tax if both pass and Prop. 42 gets more yes votes. SFGATE reports polls consistently lean toward Prop. 42, so a Prop. 40 majority would not settle the question.
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Donald Trump is giving the National Medal of Science to Musk, Brin, Huang and Su and the technology medal to Dell and Nadella on Thursday. CNBC reported that all six have funded Trump or Republican causes, and his latest disclosure shows trades in companies tied to five of them.
Perspective Coverage
14 publishersReality
California's Prop 40 would levy a one-time 5% tax on the assets of residents worth over $1 billion, raising $100 billion by its union backer's estimate. Its lasting effect on a top-heavy, market-sensitive budget turns on repetition, the very spread opponents predict when they call it a Trojan horse.
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Opponents of California's one-time 5% billionaire tax have raised more than $300 million, about ten times what its backers have. For the few hundred people in scope, residency was fixed on Jan. 1, 2026, so payment and a rival nullifying measure are what remain open.
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Dave Regan, the union leader behind California's Proposition 40 billionaire tax, says he would like a Florida vote in 2028 even if California says no. That makes wealth-tax and residency planning for the very rich a question about more than one state.
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Property magnate David Reuben has moved to Monaco about 18 months after the UK put long-term residents' global assets under its 40% inheritance tax. In California, where Prop 40's residency date has passed, opponents of the 5% levy are outspending supporters almost six to one.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
California voters will decide in November on Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state's 250 billionaires, who hold $2.3 trillion. Whether any of them pays turns on a three-way vote count, since two rival amendments on the same ballot can undo it.
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Sergey Brin has given $102 million to defeat California's Prop 40, a one-time 5% billionaire tax that could cost him about $13 billion. The state's $100 billion estimate depends as much on how many of its 200 billionaires stay resident as on the November vote.
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PPIC's September survey puts Prop 40 at 52%, Prop 41 at 51% and Prop 42 at 54%, and Prop 40 takes effect only if it outpolls both in yes votes. Every gap between the three sits inside a 3.8-point margin of error.
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A letter from six Nobel economists asks Californians to treat Proposition 40 as the start of a movement other states, Washington and other countries copy. The vote is in November, and the state's own pollster has supporters behind.
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California's Proposition 40 would take a one-time 5% of billionaire net worth, and at that rate the $29 billion Fortune estimates the measure loses to departures implies about $580 billion of net worth has already changed address.
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Business Insider, citing eight current and former employees, reports that Google's cofounder holds no executive title while making technical calls on Gemini from a desk the new DeepMind SVP shares. Google declined to comment.
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The San Francisco Democratic Party broke with its state party 17-4 to oppose Prop 40, but the six billionaires who have already ended their California residency are the only votes on this measure that are already counted.
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Proposition 40 would take 5% once from anyone worth over $1 billion. August polling puts it at 48% among likely voters and 75% among 18-to-29s. The composition of the November electorate is the only number that decides it.
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The CPA body opposes Proposition 40 on administrability grounds, then endorses Proposition 42, which would bar the tax outright. Approval votes, not a majority, settle it.
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A 5% levy on about 200 people was costed against wealth that has already moved. Fortune counts roughly $29 billion gone, and the two men at the top were 28.5% of the base.
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Public Citizen counts $517 million of corporate spending on House and Senate races in 15 months, with crypto, tech and gaming supplying at least $294 million of it.
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John Doerr put in $7.5 million and Chris Larsen $10 million against a one-time 5% wealth tax. Measured against what the measure would cost them, that is cheap insurance.
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