Actor Mark Ruffalo tells Gavin Newsom 'we aren’t looking for the Democratic version of Trump' after he opposed the billionaire tax

Ruffalo didn’t pull any punches on X, saying that “It’s crazy that this is what he [Newsome] chooses to spend his political capital, and part of his legacy, doing.”

Californians will vote on the measure on Nov. 3 in the state’s general election.

Billionaire tax

Ruffalo’s post was in response to a post from state Rep. Ro Khanna, who shared a graphic of Newsom with text on it that read “Join Gov. Newsom in voting YES on 42 to protect your retirement from new taxes.”

Khanna supports Prop 40 and in his post accompanying the image of Newsom said “It is so sad to see Gavin Newsom be the poster child to ban any new wealth tax on billionaires.”

Proposition 42 is a competing measure on the same ballot as Prop 40 that would bar the levying of new and retroactive taxes on things like personal assets, individual savings and more. The measure would all but repeal Prop. 40 if passed. An additional measure on the ballot, Proposition 41, would also undercut Prop. 40, if enacted, CNBC reported.

Newsom, a Democrat, has said that he does not support a wealth tax at the state level. “The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place,” he wrote in June, in a Substack post arguing for a national billionaires’ tax.

Newsom, who is currently serving his second term as California governor, has said he would consider running for president in 2028. However, Ruffalo believes that Newsom’s position on Prop. 40 is at odds with his presidential aspirations.

“It’s beyond sad. It’s beyond disappointing; at this point, it’s disqualifying for anyone with ambitions for higher office as a Democrat, or a Republican, for that matter, to be fighting to keep billionaires from being taxed while kids don’t have health insurance and the cost of living goes sky-high,” Ruffalo wrote.

The taxes collected by Prop. 40 would mostly go toward state health care programs that were impacted by funding cuts by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, per CNBC.

“California’s health care safety net is under extraordinary threat, as Medi-Cal — the backbone of coverage for nearly 15 million low-income Californians, including more than half of the state’s children, 2.2 million seniors and people with disabilities, and one in five of all working adults — faces billions in federal funding cuts which will only exacerbate existing challenges,” the text of the proposed law reads.

‘We aren’t looking for the Democratic version of Trump’

Ruffalo also zeroed in on the billionaires that Prop. 40 would impact, and Newsom’s perceived support for them.

“These billionaires are also the ones hellbent on replacing entire workforces with the AI they are developing with our tax dollars,” noting that Newsom “vetoed the bill that would have put a ‘kill switch’ on AI for our protection,” in reference to a 2024 AI safety bill passed by legislators.