Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) - fresh off endorsing California's November ballot measure to seize 5% of billionaire wealth - published a Substack essay Wednesday titled, no really, "Why I Support a Billionaire Wealth Tax."
He makes it roughly a dozen paragraphs before explaining that it isn't one.
"The tax should not stop at billionaires, it must reach centimillionaires," Khanna writes, before spelling out exactly what that means: every fortune of $50 million and up, hit with a 2% federal levy on wealth above that line - every year, forever, on top of everything else you already pay. The vehicle is Elizabeth Warren's Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which Khanna notes he has cosponsored every single year it's been introduced.
And before anyone reaches for the estate planner: Khanna wants the levy to pierce irrevocable trusts, with the tax billed to the grantor who set them up - because parking a fortune in a trust, in his telling, shouldn't take it off the government's books.
Former Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky summed up the reveal in eight words: "Just like that, no longer a billionaires tax."
Just like that, no longer a billionaires tax. https://t.co/05wt4D9WX6 pic.twitter.com/xgA0vpnK6w
— Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) July 3, 2026
