Irish entrepreneur Patrick Collison donated $7m to group opposing California wealth tax

Stripe co-founder and chief executive Patrick Collison has donated $7 million (€6.2 million) to a political campaign group fighting to block a proposed wealth tax in California, US filings show. Collison (37) built online payments giant Stripe with his brother John Collison and they became billionaires in the process. Documents show Patrick Collison has thrown his financial heft behind an effort to kill off a proposed wealth tax on Californian billionaires. The Irish tech entrepreneur is recorded as donating $2 million (€1.8 million) in January to a political action committee called Building a Better California. He then donated another $5 million (€4.4 million) in March, filings show. Campaign finance paperwork lists Collison as having an address in Redwood City, in California’s Silicon Valley tech hub, where Stripe’s US headquarters are based.READ MOREBuilding a Better California, set up this year, opposes a proposal that would require Californian residents worth more than $1 billion to pay a one-off, 5 per cent tax on those assets. It is proposed that the money raised from the tax would fund healthcare programmes in the state. Voters in California are set to have their say on the idea in November, following a successful push to put the billionaire wealth-tax proposal on the ballot by a healthcare workers’ trade union. Several tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have donated millions of dollars to the Building a Better California group, which has supported rival legislative initiatives intended to nullify the wealth-tax push.Building a Better California describes its mission as ensuring the US state “remains a centre of innovation, good-paying jobs and economic opportunity”. Limerick-born Patrick and John Collison, who grew up in Dromineer, Co Tipperary, moved to San Francisco and founded Stripe in 2010, when they were 21 and 19 respectively. The company facilitates online payments and has grown into a Silicon Valley giant, employing more than 8,000 people. Its headquarters are co-located in Dublin and San Francisco. The two brothers have become Ireland’s wealthiest individuals, each estimated to be worth $17.5 billion by business media outlet Forbes. Stripe did not respond to queries about Patrick Collison’s donations to the group fighting the wealth-tax proposal.Separate filings show Sergey Brin, a cofounder of Google, has donated $82 million to Building a Better California this year. Eric Schmidt, former chief executive of Google, and Tony Xu, co-founder of US food delivery giant DoorDash, also put millions of dollars behind the group. Other donors include Daniel Tierney, who administers a Chicago-based investment firm called Wicklow Capital Inc. He handed over $500,000, filings show. Michael Moritz of venture capital giant Sequoia Capital, an early investor in Stripe and Google, is recorded as donating several million dollars to the campaign group as well. Earlier this year, Stripe became the main sponsor of the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition held in Dublin’s RDS. Patrick Collison, then aged 16, won the competition in 2005.