Kamal Ghorui
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has made his biggest single public donation ever, continuing his philanthropic practice. Citing new regulatory filings, a report by The New York Times said that Brin has donated $20 million to a new coalition titled “Building a Better California”, aimed at tackling California’s housing affordability emergency. The report said that this is “Brin’s largest and most visible political move ever.” With this massive donation, he also becomes the anchor donor of a $35 million launch package that includes tech leaders in the Silicon Valley.Eric Schmidt (Former Google CEO) has donated $2 million; Michael Moritz (Venture Capitalist): $2 million; Max Levchin (PayPal CEO) $1 million, and other contributors include Patrick Collison (Stripe), Tony Xu (DoorDash) and John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins).
California’s ‘Wealth tax’ on ultra-rich
The donation comes at a time when California billionaires are bracing for a ballot initiative that proposes a 1% wealth tax on the state’s ultra-wealthy. Recently, Peter Thiel funneled $3 million to a California business group leading the fight against a proposed billionaire wealth tax.Sergey donated $1.1 billion worth of shares to non-profit last year Last year, Brin’s transferred stock worth roughly $1 billion to Catalyst4, a nonprofit he founded in 2021. Catalyst4 operates with a dual-mission structure, focusing on Central Nervous System (CNS) diseases and climate solutionsBrin has also distributed $45 million to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s research and $90 million to his own family foundation. This follows a previous $700 million donation in May, marking 2025 as the most prolific year of Brin’s life for charitable giving.His philanthropic spree is fueled by rally in Alphabet shares in 2025. Driven by the company’s dominance in the AI sector, the stock reached a record high last year. Brin, who retains a 6% stake in the tech giant, has seen his personal fortune grow by a staggering $97.3 billion in 2025 alone.
