I'm a millionaire in California who supports taxing the rich. I'm disappointed Prop. 40 was rejected — people will suffer.

Scott Ellis is a Silicon Valley-based millionaire who supports the taxation of the wealthy. Patriotic Millionaires This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Scott Ellis, a 56-year-old millionaire who lives in Silicon Valley, about Proposition 40, California's proposed 5% billionaire wealth tax, which was rejected by California voters on November 9. Ellis is a member of Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy Americans who advocate for a fair tax system, a livable wage, and equal access to political power. The following has been edited for length and clarity.(Editor's note: This article was first published in January 2026 and updated on November 12, 2026.)I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. The reality is that if people spend over $300 million opposing something and people spend about $30 million in favor, you get outspent by 10:1. That does matter.It was a big task to get it on the ballot in the first place, and I was really delighted that it was, because it at least started us on what I think is the right conversation: Let's talk about wealth. How much wealth do people have? Is there such a thing as too much? What should we do when people have too much?I've been talking about wealth and excessive wealth for a number of years. I feel like a few years ago, people were kind of humoring me. They're listening much more seriously now. There are conversations in my group chats with friends about wealth and wealth taxes.The conditions that led to this in the first place haven't suddenly gone away, and they will get worse. The massive federal funding cuts are working their way through states and local communities. This was on the ballot because of the health cost implications. Millions of people are going to lose their healthcare; there will be more suffering.There are tens of millions of voters in California who don't have a billion dollars. They're the ones who chose to do this, and I hope they're watching. I think it should be interesting for people to see how the wealthy responded. When I think about my concern about excessive wealth and how it distorts democracy and undermines our society, you couldn't ask for a clearer example than Sergey Brin spending over $100 million in one state election.The question I ask everybody is, "Are you worried?" I'm worried about the health of our economy, our society, our democracy. But I'm going to be fine — I've been very financially fortunate. I'm worried about you, your healthcare, and your kids.I'm very glad that this effort was made, and I hope that additional efforts will be made in the future. Read Ellis' original as-told-to essay, published in January 2026, below:I never thought I'd live in California. I grew up in Colorado, went to college in Boston, and lived in Texas. I came out here for business school because I wanted to be at Stanford, and because you could play golf during the winter.Now I love it here. It has nothing to do with taxes; taxes have never been anywhere on our list of criteria for deciding where to live. I want to live where my family is and love the weather, the jobs, and the dynamism.Taxes are the price that we pay to live in a civil society. We have to do this together. There are examples all around the world of the power of effective government, and just like anything else, government needs to be funded. We should make it effective and efficient.I'm proud to pay the taxes I pay. I should pay taxes that are higher than other people because I have more wealth than other people — that makes sense.My wife and I achieved financial success in our careersA lot of our financial success has been due to my wife's success, as well as mine at the beginning of our careers.I went to Harvard undergrad, worked at McKinsey for three years, and then went to Stanford. I then worked at Hewlett-Packard for almost eight years.In 2007, my wife was a VP at Yahoo, and we had two small kids. I looked at my boss's job and the CEO's job, and decided I didn't ever want those roles. I thought, "Uh-oh, I'm on this ladder, and it's not really where I want to go."Ultimately, my wife and I decided that I would step back and be the stay-at-home parent. My wife continued her career, and she's been very successful in consumer internet at Yahoo, Google, and Pinterest.I developed an interest in social issues in collegeI studied poverty, urban America, housing, transportation, and sociology in college, and started thinking more about questions like: What does fairness look like? What does justice look like? What would it look like to build a great society?I got busy pursuing my career, meeting my wife, and raising our kids, but as time passed and we progressed in our careers, I got back into thinking about how we help others around us. I did a bunch of volunteer work in different contexts, eventually becoming the COO and then the CSO of a nonprofit called New Teacher Center, which does intensive mentoring programs for new teachers.Since 2012, I've started and run several nonprofits in the education space, and advised almost 200 individuals and organizations on things like strategy, finance, operations, and culture.I'm also really focused on addressing excessive wealth and its impact on society and thinking about a future vision for American democracy, which is how I came to Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of wealthy Americans who advocate for higher taxes on wealthy people like ourselves, a higher minimum wage, and a broader distribution of political power across our society.I've been struck by the massive accumulation of wealthIn recent years, I've been struck by the massive accumulation of wealth enabled by the consumer internet space, globalization, and the structure of the finance industry. It's different from what it used to be in the '80s and '90s; this is a whole new ballgame.More recently, I've been looking around Silicon Valley at all these people who are so incredibly wealthy, talented, and successful, and realizing how few of them are thinking about choosing to build a better society together.They're excited about starting new companies and raising new funds, but these are all people who have more money than they could ever spend, and their next goal is to generate even more money, mainly for people who already have more money than they could ever spend.Meanwhile, 10% of our society is in poverty. It really feels unfair and wrong, and we can do better.People don't need more than $30 millionThe proposed billionaire wealth tax in California doesn't impact me and my family directly. People may think, "You're happy to raise taxes on other people."But we need to start with a different conversation, about how much wealth is enough, how much wealth is too much, and what is financial success?I believe that if you have $30 million in wealth, congratulations, you won capitalism. If you do the analysis of reasonable investment returns and inflation, you can buy a really nice first house, a nice second house, your kids' college is paid for, your end-of-life expenses are covered, and you have a very, very luxurious ongoing existence.So much of success in life is luck. Yes, people absolutely get educated and work hard. But it's been found that the wealthier people are, the more they tend to attribute their wealth to how good they are and how hard they worked.I look at single moms working three jobs, working the night shift — a heck of a lot of people who have less than $190,000 in wealth [the median household wealth] are working very hard.Once you get beyond $30 million — and almost no one ever gets there — you get to a point where your life is so good, you really can't materially improve your life anymore. We should implement a very aggressive annual 50% tax on all household wealth over $30 million. Excessive wealth turns into excessive power through huge campaign donations, which threatens and undermines democracy and capitalism.The wealth tax is a step in the right direction — but not enoughI'm absolutely delighted that we're moving in this direction, but I believe changes to wealth taxes need to happen at the federal level.When wealthy folks bring up moving out of California, it's a distraction. All of a sudden, instead of us talking about the fact that millions of people are going to be either losing healthcare or paying much more for healthcare, we're worried about the 200 really rich people who might move.People move all the time. Companies move all the time for all kinds of reasons — it's just part of business. These conversations happen all the time — like, "Oh my gosh, there won't be any more companies in Silicon Valley." Well, 20 years later, look around. There are still some companies here; it's just fine.It's 65 degrees and sunny here. The CEO of Nvidia recently said they'll be staying in California because that's where the talent is. We've got the Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood, Tahoe, the Redwoods, the beach, and great weather. I'm really not worried that people aren't going to want to live in California.I love it here. My wife and I are thinking about living in different cities for maybe a month at a time, but I have no plans to go anywhere else. Although I definitely love Colorado — I still have my Denver Broncos coasters and will be cheering for my Broncos — I'm from Silicon Valley now, and that's where I'm going to stay. Read next Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Jane Zhang is an editor on Business Insider's Business Contributors and Freelance team, where she writes and edits compelling first-person stories and as-told-to essays that explore the personal narratives within themes of money, business, and tech. She also runs Business Insider’s For Love & Money advice column about relationships and money, and the Salary Journeys series following real people and their real paychecks.Jane holds a master’s degree in journalism and international relations from New York University and her bachelor’s in anthropology from Yale-NUS College in Singapore. She was previously a Senior Writer at Mothership.sg, and her work has appeared in The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times, Hell Gate, and The Yappie. She was a fellow with the Asian American Journalists Association VOICES program in 2023.Jane grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, spent eight years living in Singapore and two years in New York City, and now resides in Chicago. as told to California Billionaires More