The political story of Gavin Newsom has always been a study in contrasts: a young entrepreneur getting his first big break from a billionaire family friend and a boy being raised by a single mother who juggled three jobs to make ends meet. That tension now echoes California’s bitter battle over a wealth tax on billionaires’ assets, a debate that hits home for a governor caught between privilege and instability. Currently, in this case, he believes that the billionaire tax is “bad economics” and vowed to defeat it. A closer look at his career reveals that billionaires have always been at the heart of his story.
In the early 1990s, Newsom began his career not in a campaign office but at a Fillmore Street restaurant in San Francisco called fat jackhe launched a venture with the support of Getty Fortune. oil heir and composer Gordon GettyA close family friend once said he treated Newsom like a son, just as Newsom’s father treated him. In fact, call Newsom’s father, William Alfred Newsome IIIthe Getty family’s attorney was downplaying the case. In 1973, the future judge personally handed over $3 million to the Italian gangsters who kidnapped Getty’s grandson. california affairs reportwhile noting the Newsoms’ deep ties to San Francisco’s other political aristocrats, the Browns and Pelosis.
This relationship extends far beyond one store. Getty invested in most of Newsom’s early ventures—wineries, restaurants and hotels—that steadily expanded the PlumpJack brand and turned the young entrepreneur into a multimillionaire long before he was sworn in as governor. Members of the Getty family went on to become some of Newsom’s most reliable political donors. Contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars Newsom’s story, however, is not directly one of extreme wealth.
Raised by mother who worked three jobs
Newsome’s parents divorced when he was a child, and he and his sister were raised primarily by their mother, Tessa, a young single parent in San Francisco who sometimes Worked three jobs— working as a secretary, waitress and paralegal — to support her children.
Family members recall that their mother slept in the dining room of a small apartment and rented out a bedroom to another family for rent, even as their father, a politician judge who once ran the Getty family trust fund, exposed the children to a very different world. Newsome said his mother taught him everything about perseverance and hard work, even as he struggled with the odds himself. dyslexia and a academic system This often leaves him behind.
A double-edged battle over wealth tax
These dual identities—the son of a billionaire-backed businessman and a busy single mother—are swirling around a proposed “billionaire tax”. The Billionaire Tax Act of 2026, championed by powerful health care workers unions, would impose a one-time 5% tax on residents’ assets worth more than $1 billion, payable over several years and based on wealth held at the end of 2026.
Supporters say the measure takes direct aim at the extreme wealth that helped launch people like Newsom’s careers, promising tens of billions of dollars for public services they say are lacking due to federal tax cuts and rising inequality. Union leaders see it as a moral corrective: In a state where billionaires buy beachfront homes, working-class Californians are crowding into unused rooms like the one the Newsoms once rented.
Newsom’s uneasy stance
Newsom has yet to accept the proposal; he has become one of its most prominent critics. called a one-time levy”Really harmful,” “bad economy” and poses a threat to California’s long-term fiscal health, the governor believes a state-level wealth tax could accelerate the exodus of billionaires and their businesses, eroding future income tax revenues that fund schools, health care and social programs.
He said he was open to a national conversation about taxing wealth but insisted California was already too reliant on a shaky income tax on the wealthy to experiment on its own. Behind the scenes, he lobbied union allies to abandon the move, warning that the backlash from nervous investors — some of whom have already moved money and operations out of state — could outlast any short-term infusion of cash.
For Newsom, the wealth tax battle is more than a clash of spreadsheets and slogans: It’s a confrontation with his own origin story. The same billionaire class that seeded his first business and fueled his campaign is now in the crosshairs of taxes he says threaten to harm the country he governs, even as memories of his mother stringing together three paychecks shaped his instincts about inequality and opportunity.
For this story, wealth Journalists use generative AI as a research tool. Editors verified information for accuracy before publishing.