The billionaires were panicking because their wealth was by the controlling shares in their own company. There can be two types of shares, ones that have decision making power and others that don't, just for trading. If billionaires had to give up their controlling shares to pay the tax bill, that would dilute their control. They didn't want that.

Jensen's shares are the other kind. He can pay the tax bill without losing control. He's more ok with this than the Zuck. Zuck's entire wealth comes from owning 99% of the controlling shares.

He's a decent guy, or he was, before he put himself in bad company. NVIDIA has never done layoffs.

would provide only a one-time revenue boost at a time when California needs ongoing funding to recover from the impact of the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act,

They are taking the long winning strategy of "perfect is the enemy of the good". If we don't pass a one time tax now, maybe that will by some mysterious mechanism cause a more durable tax later.

43 was of the same ilk.

If it was just that, I would agree, but the problems went deeper than just "it's a start but not good enough"

The beneficiaries of the fund was a SINGLE union, not the whole state, and there were poison pill provisions ensuring that we couldn't do it again in future, so this would have been a one and done, not a prescident like we all hoped. So basically it was bound to fail to accomplish what we would hope even if it passed and would likely make things more difficult to get an actual tax, instead of just a narrowly applied windfall