California Gov. Gavin Newsom continued his vocal opposition to the proposed billionaire tax measure, saying at a Bloomberg forum event in San Francisco that it would ultimately degrade the state’s tax base as the ultrawealthy left the state.

It wasn’t a new argument for the governor, who has deep ties to the state’s ultra-wealthy tech barons and has emerged as a fierce opponent of the tax. But Newsom on Thursday described personal, almost intimate conversations with the state’s billionaires, whose concerns about the tax he said he has been fielding for months.

“I’ve met with people who feel they’re being attacked because of it,” he said, “people that have no problem paying more income tax, people that literally are giving away all of their money but want to do it on the timeline that their family has approved.”

Newsom did not name the individuals.

“I’ve met with all of them, and they’re all in different stages of their lives, their careers and their abundance. Some will never give a penny away. Some I respect, some I don’t, some I never have,” he said. “But I met with them as well.”

The tax’s proponents accused Newsom of misleading voters, as he prepares to leave office next year with the state in a budget deficit that could lead to service cuts. Newsom is widely believed to be considering a presidential run in 2028.

“Unfortunately, it appears that the governor is trying to distract voters and push this crisis onto the next administration – that’s deeply disappointing at a moment when our communities need leadership,” Suzanne Jimenez, the chief of staff for the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the principal union behind the tax, said in a statement to The Sacramento Bee.

“If Governor Newsom could see what front-line health care workers see every day—seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans at risk of losing care because of massive federal health care cuts in HR1—he wouldn’t be standing in the way of this ballot measure,” she added.

On Wednesday, a second major labor union, the California Teamsters, threw their weight behind the tax proposal. The billionaire tax campaign is currently in the signature-gathering state, and it’s not totally clear if it will make it on the ballot.

“They have the money,” to do so, Newsom noted in Thursday’s interview. If the measure does qualify, it will lead to a highly disputed and expensive fight, given the resources of labor unions and those of the ultrawealthy targeted by the tax.

But tax proponents say that in an era of soaring wealth inequality, and as Republicans and President Donald Trump continue to cut taxes for the ultrawealthy and corporations, they’re finding receptive ears among voters. In their announcement, the Teamsters cast their entry into the campaign as striking back at the artificial intelligence companies designing technologies that threaten the jobs of the union’s roughly 250,000 members.

“The same Big Tech Billionaires shedding crocodile tears over the idea of paying their fair share of taxes while amassing sky-high piles of cash are exploiting a rigged system that makes delivery workers and bus drivers pay higher rates than the AI executives trying to wipe away our jobs,” Teamsters California Co-Chairs Peter Finn and Victor Mineros said in a statement.

The tax proposal as designed would apply to residents who had more than $1 billion in assets as of Jan. 1. Opponents, however, have argued the tax’s targets would use their resources to tie the measure up in court, and that it will also lead growing numbers of individuals to leave California. Tech billionaires Peter Thiel and David Sacks are among those who have opened offices and established ties in other states ahead of the Jan. 1 deadline.

Bloomberg editor Brad Stone asked Newsom specifically about Google cofounder Sergey Brin, with whom Newsom has a long friendship. Brin has in recent months cut business and personal ties with California, according to media reports. He has re-registered LLCs that control some of his assets to Nevada, according to The New York Times, and recently purchasing a $40 million home on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, according to SF Gate.

Newsom said he was “disappointed” at the idea billionaires like Brin may be considering leaving the state, but added that he thinks “they’re disappointed in some respect as well. There’s just a lot of anxiety out there.”

Because the state has a progressive tax system that collects larger portions of its revenue from the wealthy, Newsom argued the flight of just small numbers of billionaires could significantly degrade the state’s budget pictures in the long run.

“I’m very mindful as the guy who budgets for this state that we rely on a very small number of people that allow us to do very historic things,” he said. The governor is at work at alternative measures, he said.

But labor union officials disputed that, saying Newsom, whose budget did not include any suggestions to close gaps caused by the federal government’s steep cuts to Medi-Cal and a wide range of social services, isn’t coming up with other answers.

“At no point has Governor Newsom’s office offered an alternative or compromise to address the looming healthcare collapse caused by $100 billion in healthcare cuts,” Jimenez said. “But the 120,000 front-line health care workers of SEIU-UHW aren’t waiting for the Governor to act — patients’ lives are at stake, and we are committed to seeing the Billionaire Tax approved by voters this November.”

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