When comedian Troy Hawke (opens in new tab)’s cameraman told him about Saturday’s March for Billionaires, he didn’t get it. Then he read the website (opens in new tab) for the protest. He still didn’t get it.
Then he went to Alta Vista Park on Saturday morning, where he found a dozen people holding signs with slogans such as “Property Rights Are Human Rights.”
He still didn’t get it.
“I think it’s interesting that’s where you’d put your energy,” he pondered. “It’s like someone has done a math equation, and gone, ‘Oh, these are the guys we should be supporting if we want society to flourish.’”
In the wake of the proposed California Billionaires Tax, a one-time 5% tax on the state’s 200 billionaires that would raise around $100 billion for healthcare and education, the very small handful of billionaire supporters who bothered to show up on Saturday afternoon told The Standard that the rich and powerful are being required to bear too much of society’s ills.
That tax — which would need a simple majority in November if it gets enough signatures to make the ballot — has drawn the ire of Silicon Valley leaders (opens in new tab) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (opens in new tab), who say the tax will force billionaires, and their companies, to move out of state.
“I think the 5% wealth tax is a pretty stupid way of trying to control concentrations of power,” said the sex-positive blogger Aella (opens in new tab), who was among the billionaire supporters. “You can’t just take money from people.”
Whatever one thinks of the tax, to go so far as to march on behalf of the billionaires is another story. That’s why X users (opens in new tab) imagined the march was satire before it happened, with many wondering if it was even a real thing.
Ultimately, the number of people who showed up to poke fun at the event outnumbered those who were there in earnest. There were around as many reporters (opens in new tab) – including those from The Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal had a reporter present – as there were billionaires’ supporters.
A counter protester, left, crashes the March for Billionaires at Alta Plaza Park in San Francisco, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. Organizers behind the march oppose the Billionaire Tax Act, a proposed measure that aims to increase California’s healthcare funding by imposing a one-time 5% wealth tax on California residents with a net worth exceeding $1.1 billion. | Source: Manuel Orbegozo for The Standard
Among the jesters was a man who gave his name as “Bolt Fenordkin,” who claimed he was a 73-year-old future billionaire. After all, his young face, punctured by a septum ring, was simply the natural result of Bryan Johnson’s longevity protocol.
As Fenordkin was heckled by passersby on the edge of the park, he defended the “minority population.” He outlined his passions, which include deforestation and commodities, and lamented that he couldn’t yet figure out an economical way to solve the affordable housing crisis.
“Without billionaires, who would fund our elections?” he asked the crowd. “These billionaires have worked their whole life for this wealth — sometimes multiple lifetimes.”
As the march made its way down Fillmore Street, curious onlookers heckled and booed when they realized that the protest was for — not against — billionaires. After all, they thought, why would the yacht-owners need the support of the plebeians?
Eyob, a 75-year-old retiree, also had trouble understanding the nature of the protest. He repeatedly lamented Trump, a billionaire himself, and the oligarchs he’s enabled, until it finally clicked.
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” he said, laughing. “[Trump] is not taking care of the low-income people who are struggling to live day to day.”
A man portraying a wealthy person participates in the March for Billionaires at Alta Plaza Park in San Francisco, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. Organizers behind the march oppose the Billionaire Tax Act, a proposed measure that aims to increase California’s healthcare funding by imposing a one-time 5% wealth tax on California residents with a net worth exceeding $1.1 billion. | Source: Manuel Orbegozo for The Standard
Some of the bystanders had more nuanced takes.
Traci Bell, a 54-year-old pharmacy technician, said she wasn’t going to knock anyone else’s hustle, including billionaires’, even if she couldn’t understand the motive for the protest.
Caroline McEntee, a freshman at the University of San Francisco, booed from the other side of Fillmore Street when she realized what the protest was all about.
“There’s so much more important things going on,” she said. “They have tons of money. I think they’ll live.”
Some had even less nuanced takes. A woman in her 20s, who declined to give her name, held up a sign calling for society to bring back the guillotine.
At one point, one of the jesters stole an organizer’s sign, after which Derik Kauffman, the main organizer for the event, threatened to call the cops.
Then, finally, with City Hall looming in the background, Kauffman took to the megaphone. Over the chorus of jesters, he tried his best to put his cause into a tagline the public would remember.
“Bernie Sanders has said that no one should be a billionaire,” he said. “Everyone should be a billionaire.”