How 15 Individuals Are Working to Reshape a State of 40 Million

INTRODUCTION

In just the 16 months since Trump was reelected, the collective fortune and wealth of California’s 225 billionaires has grown by $570.8 billion, or 36.2%.¹ Many of these billionaires are now weaponizing those gains against California’s working families, with a dramatic uptick in their political spending to support a pro-corporate and big-tech agenda that is often explicitly in opposition to consumer protections, worker organizing and progressive taxation.

During this same period, the combination of Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires and unlawful tariffs have saddled 80% of California residents–four out of five people–with an average increase of $880 in higher costs this year.

This report is an analysis of the top 15 California-affiliated billionaires and certain big corporations infusing money into politics this midterm and the specific footprint they have on races in California. We examine their giving, the giving of their affiliated corporations and the web of federal and state political action committees that have been created to consolidate resources and influence top of ticket federal and statewide races and down ballot California assembly and senate contests.

Key Takeaways

• The top 15 political donors from among California’s 225 billionaires have alone contributed a combined $275 million into the 2026 California state and federal elections so far.

• California’s top political spenders are billionaires

• Sergey Brin

• Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz investors in AI, crypto, bio-tech and defense tech, are the largest donors in the country at $115 million², with a portion of those resources directed towards 13 California Democratic and Republican candidate races. This is almost double the $63 million they spent in 2024.

• Chris Larsen

• In the highest spending State Assembly Race, AD 67 (Orange County & Los Angeles County), $9.9 million was aligned against labor leader and community-backed candidate Ada Briceño, 6.6 times more than the $1.5 million spent to support her. The amount of money spent this primary was 3 times more than the last contested race in 2022.

• An analysis of twenty corporate-backed California Political Action Committee’s (PAC’s) receiving significant billionaire and corporate contributions have raised a collective $289 million
  already this year, dwarfing spending in the 2024 primary elections.

• In addition to the political contributions being made directly by these billionaires, the corporations that they are directly affiliated with are also often contributing large sums to the same political causes, compounding their influence

• A web of major corporate Political Action Committees (PACs) at the state and federal level are receiving millions from California billionaires and big corporations, further facilitating the aggregation of their political spending and power.

The 15 Billionaires Seeking to Reshape California

⚑ Add affiliated corporations giving

California’s Biggest Spenders

Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google who is still on the board of directors and is a controlling shareholder,³, dwarfed every other billionaire in state-level contributions - contributing $85 million to a host of PACs in the state.⁴ While Brin did not contribute directly to federal candidates in California or any of the major AI federal PACs, he has this cycle contributed $443,000 to the Republican National Committee. Brin’s largest contribution in the state was directed towards his Building a Better California committee - $82 million - that is laser focused on defeating the Billionaire Ballot measure through direct opposition and through a series of counter-ballot measures to undercut the initiative. He also contributed $500,000 to the Overpaid CEO Tax ballot measure in San Francisco. Brin fled the state at the end of last year, moving his residence to a $2 million estate on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe ahead of the deadline that would qualify him for the California billionaire tax should it pass in November.

These propositions that are on the ballot meant to undermine the Billionaire tax are backed through various committees linked to Building a Better California. The three measures would require state audits of programs funded by new taxes, a measure that would prevent new taxes on personal property to offset the wealth tax and a measure that would expedite environmental reviews of most housing, transportation, water, health and clean energy projects to speed up permitting and limit the court’s ability to stop or delay developments.

Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz, the co-founders of one of the most prominent venture capital funds in the Silicon Valley and larger backers of AI, crypto, bio-tech and defense tech, are currently the largest donors in the country, having given $115 million⁵ to date during the 2025-26 election cycle. Combined, they also have the second largest footprint in California politics - $74 million - in state and federal contributions.

Chris Larsen, chairperson for the crypto company Ripple, is the second largest donor to state elections, having given $30 million in local, state and federal elections. Adding in contributions directly from Ripple, ups the combined footprint of Larsen and Ripple to $85.6M - that includes $6m in contributions to CA PACs and $49.6M in giving to a series of federal PACs laser focused on a Crypto and AI-friendly legislative agenda at the federal level.

In addition to the massive amount of money Ripple is wielding at the federal level, Chris Larsen is a significant and involved player in San Francisco and sharply increasing his footprint in state races. Larsen was a major contributor to Kamala Harris in 2024, and he and his wife have given $120 million through the Lam-Larsen Climate Change Foundation.⁶ His political giving has most often been regulatory aligned this cycle - tending to give to more moderate, business-friendly Democrats.

Larsen has been very outspoken about his critiques of labor this cycle. His largest endeavor in the state - the Grow California PAC is focused on trying to “empower business-friendly Democrats and Republicans” who can serve as a “counterforce” to the labor movement according to one of its founders.⁷ While the most high profile fights for Larsen have been around the local San Francisco Overpaid CEO tax and the state Billionaire tax ballot measure - he has been quietly aligning money with other tech and corporate money across state legislative races - stacking his money to against defeat labor and community-backed candidates.

Ripple also donated $4.9 million in digital tokens to Trump's inauguration committee, making it the second-largest contributor to that event.⁸ Following its inauguration donation, Ripple ultimately settled the Securities Exchange Commission’s lawsuit for a $125 million fine — a fraction of the $2 billion the SEC had sought.⁹

Pullout on San Francisco & Larsen. Larsen has poured $2.9 million alone into the San Francisco Municipal elections. The defeat of San Francisco Measure D, the overpaid executive tax, was a key priority for Larsen in the June primary elections. The tax would have hiked taxes on companies whose CEO’s make 100 times more than the median worker and would have generated $200-300 million for the city. Larsen was the largest individual donor to the campaign against the measure having contributed $700,000 to the Yes on C, No on D campaign directly, and then another $500,000 that was contributed to a committee, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, that also gave $700k to the Yes on C, No on D campaign.

Chris Larsen told an audience of San Francisco business leaders that they needed to put up a tougher fight against labor unions and proposed taxes targeting billionaires. “We have to stop this antibusiness bulls— that we’ve been living with for far too long,i. Businesses are driving the revenue that pays for everything in this city – and it’s not just small business,” Larsen said. ”We have to realize big business makes this city work.” Larsen added,
“All of us have to be prepared for a permanent political fight. “We’ve got to start fighting on par with the unions when they propose these absolutely stupid propositions like this crazy CEO tax.”¹⁰

The Web of Corporate & Billionaire-Backed Political Action Committees (PACs)

The billionaires and corporations have aligned and in many cases consolidated their power across industries this cycle - raising and spending at extreme levels heading into the June 2026 primaries. So far corporate-backed PACs accumulated a significant war chest spending across statewide, legislative and congressional races.

 California’s Corporate PACs

California’s billionaires and corporations have raised a collective $289million into California’s corporate and billionaire-backed state PACs already this year among the major PACs we analyzed.¹¹ While we don’t have a comparable analysis for 2024, according to a Cal Matters report in 2024, total spending by corporate and labor-funded committees was $46.5 million during the 2024 primary, putting the $253 million raised so far this year significantly higher,

California’s Billionaire & Corporate PACs

State - Data pulled from California Secretary of State June 2026

California’s Largest Corporate PACs California’s Leading PACs ⚑ (realizing we need to beef up this language a bit)

Building a Better California ⚑ (Add data from below)
Sergey Brin’s Building a Better California has raised the most resources outside of gubernatorial focused PACs.

Grow California
The Grow California PAC raised $20 million, all of it from two billionaires – Chris Larsen from Ripple ($15 million) and Tim Draper ($5 million).

Meta & Google
According to Politico, Meta is deepening its political presence in California, starting with launching its own super PAC last year, Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (Meta) California and loading it with $20 million. The PAC has stated that it would support candidates who favor “light-touch AI rules.”¹²

The California Leads PAC has raised $10 million this election cycle - $5 million from Google and $5 million from Meta.

California Business Roundtable
The California Business Roundtable Issues PAC touts itself as “the most powerful statewide business voice at the ballot box advocating for pro-business policies” that align with our vision for economic growth and prosperity in the state.” ¹³

The PAC has raised over $12 million this election cycle so far. More than half of its financial support has come from billionaires. The largest donor was Palantir co-founder and Chairperson, Peter Thiel, who contributed $3 million which he stated was to fight back against the Billionaire Tax.

• Peter Thiel - $3 million
• Eric Shmidt - $1.5 million
• Chris Larsen - $750,000
• John Hering - $500,000
• Douglas Leone and Patricia Perkins - Leone - $500,000
• Diego Berdakin - $100,000
• James Simonoff - $100,000

Federal Corporate PACs

At the federal level, Caliofornis’s fifteen biggest political spending billionaires and their corporations contributed $188 million to federal PACs. The leading federal PACs are being driven largely by tech moguls and their affiliated corporations. These billionaires are carefully executing a power plan by weaving together a web of PACs that allow them to give across the aisle. They are funding business friendly Republicans and Democrats committed to supporting crypto, AI and a business friendly environment while also masking their giving and expenditures to support safer, more progressive Democrats who they would like to win the support of in the future, should Congress switch hands in 2027. This structure of giving has allowed corporations and billionaires to fill the coffers of elected officials with some measured distance between individual giving and corporate giving on both sides of the aisle.

California Billionaire Footprint on the Federal PACs

Federal

Key Federal PACs with a Footprint in California

Fairshake
Fairshake PAC is the cryptocurrency industry’s most powerful political action committee, formed to both aid allied candidates and punish candidates who will not back a crypto-friendly agenda. The PAC has built a significant warchest - the same players are aggregating their money in the golden state - to move the same set of policies, where possible, from the ground up in states. The goal is to build crypto as a monetary alternative to current monetary systems with a parallel financial system that sidesteps the consumer protections and oversight rules

“We are building an aggressive, targeted strategy for next year to ensure that pro-crypto voices are heard in key races across the country,” Fairshake spokesperson said in July 2025.

Fairshake and its two affiliated PACs — Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress — have raised $109 million since Election Day in 2024 and $52 million during just the first half of this year. Protect Progress is Fairshake’s Democratic-leaning PAC, and Defend American Jobs is its Republican leaning arm. The PAC’s donors include major California players:

• Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz who each gave $11.9 million
• Ripple Labs gave $48 million
• Coinbase gave $33.9 million

Leading the Future
A group of Silicon Valley billionaires founded the Leading the Future super PAC to support candidates from both parties who shared the billionaires of a national AI regulatory framework, rather than state-by-state sets of laws. The group’s news release announcing the launch of the fund said, “With more than $100 million in initial funding already committed, LTF is the first comprehensive, bipartisan effort by the AI industry to organize political support and elect pro-Innovation candidates at scale.”

• Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of the venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz each gave $25 million .
• Their firm Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, gave $50 million to the PAC
• Greg Brockman, co-founder of OpenAi, and his wife Anna gave a total of $25 million

Leading the Future has two affiliates – its Democratic-focused super PAC, Think Big, and its Republican counterpart, American Mission. Lonsdale Enterprises, the private investment entity owned by billionaire and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, gave $250,000 to the American Mission PAC.

Appendix 2 The Ballot Measures

Restricting Local Tax Measures

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has collected enough signatures to have a measure placed on the November ballot that they call the Save Prop 13 Initiative - but was pulled last minute ahead of the ballot deadline. The measure would have limited local governments’ability to fund schools, affordable housing, and public services by putting a cap on real estate transfer tax rates and requiring local tax ballot measures to receive approval by two-thirds of voters, rather than the current simple majority of more than 50%,

The California Business Roundtable Issues PAC has contributed $9.8 million to Californians to Restore Local Taxpayers' Right to Vote on Taxes, which is the committee behind the ballot measure, and $771,000 to Protect Prop 13, a project of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

The California Business Roundtable Issues PAC has raised over $1 million this election cycle. Billionaires accounted for at least $6 million of this.

• Peter Thiel ($3 million)
• Eric Schmidt ($1.5 million)
• Chris Larsen ($750,000)
• John Hering ($500,000)
• Douglas Leone and Patricia Perkins-Leone ($500,000)
• James Simonoff ($100,000)
• Diego Berdakin ($100,00)

The Billionaire Tax: Stacking up their money to protect their wealth

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) - United Healthcare Workers West has led the effort for a ballot measure to levy a one-time 5% tax on California residents whose net worth exceeds $1 billion in order to make up for the deep cuts that the Trump administration has made to Medicaid.

The state’s billionaires have been spending millions of dollars to counter this effort, contributing to the California Business Roundtable, which is leading the effort to defeat the measure, and to two PACs.²⁴ The California Business Roundtable has received massive donations from Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel and other billionaires.

Google co-founder and director Sergey Brin, who is the third richest person in the U.S. with a net worth of $237 billion, according to Forbes, ²⁵ has contributed $82 million to the Building a Better California PAC which was set up to counter the proposed Billionaire Tax. The PAC is working to get two of its own initiatives on the November ballot. One of the initiatives would bar new taxes on the types of financial assets that the billionaire tax is targeting. The other initiative contains a provision about how tax revenue can be spent that is in direct conflict with the wealth tax, and which could override that tax. If voters approve competing measures on the same subject, the one with more “yes” votes wins.²⁶

Building a Better California has raised $118 million, all of it from billionaires.

BUILDING A BETTER CALIFORNIA

Chris Larsen and Ripple Labs have given the Golden State Promise PAC $10 million, almost the entire budget to date. The California Business Roundtable has made the only other contribution - $450,000. The PAC was founded to combat the billionaire tax and has been airing attack ads.²⁷

The California Governor’s Race

California’s billionaires and large corporations had two main objectives with their political contributions for the Governor’s race – supporting Matt Mahon and opposing Tom Steyer.

Supporting Matt Mahan

Matt Mahan is a relative newcomer to politics. He was elected to the San Jose City Council in 2020 and mayor in 2022.²⁸

Mahan is a centrist Democrat who has been a critic of Governor Gavin Newsom and has been at odds with other members of the party. For instance, Mahan was a vocal supporter of Proposition 36, which was backed by police, prosecutors, and Republicans to increase penalties for some drug and theft offenses and require some defendants to enter treatment programs.²⁹ Mahan had also spoken out against the proposed billionaire tax.³⁰

The California Back to Basics PAC raised $27 million to support Mahan. At least two dozen billionaires were major donors to the PAC.

CALIFORNIA BACK TO BASICS SUPPORTING MATT MAHAN

The Deliver for California PAC raised $3.2 million to support Matt Mahan. Billionaire donors included:

DELIVER FOR CALIFORNIA - MATT MAHAN FOR GOVERNOR

At least 30 billionaires contributed the maximum of $78,400 to Mahan’s campaign.

Opposing Tom Steyer

The California is Not for Sale, No on Steyer PAC raised $37 million to oppose Tom Steyer’s race for Governor. The two largest donors were other PACs - Californians for Resilient and Affordable Energy ($13.6 million) and the JobsPAC ($15.2 million), sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce.

Californians for Resilient and Affordable Energy was funded almost exclusively by Pacific Gas & Electric, which contributed $13.5 million. Californians pay the second highest electricity rates in the U.S. after Hawaii, and those rates have grown faster than the national average. Steyer announced that he would appoint reform-minded regulators to oversee PG\&E and other utilities. Steyer said these regulators would cut utility profits and consumers would get a 25% rate cut.³¹

Pacific Gas & Electric was the largest donor to the JobsPAC, giving $2.4 million. The next two largest donors to the PAC were also utility companies – Southern California Edison’s parent company, Edison International ($2.2 million) and Sempra Energy ($2.2 million). Sempra is the parent company of Southern California Gas Company and San Diego Gas & Electric.

Billionaire Sergei Brin, co-founder and board member of Alphabet/Google, gave $ 2million to JobsPAC.

Other large donors to the JobsPAC were: Meta ($2 million); California Apartment Association ($890,000); Airbnb ($500,000), Uber ($500,000), Davits ($250,000), and Google ($250,000).

Insurance Commissioner’s Race

Opposing Jane Kim

The JobsPAC, sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, spent $1.5 million on independent expenditures, opposing Jane Kim. Kim is a former county supervisor in San Francisco, who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, and was the California director for the Working Families Party. Kim’s proposals include “universal coverage for climate-related disasters for all residents, capping insurance company CEO pay and excessive industry profits, and guaranteeing healthcare for every child” in the state.³²

Supporting Ben Allen

Chris Larsen, the chairman and co-founder of Ripple, gave $1 million to the Californians for an Affordable Future PAC, which has spent $991,000 in independent expenditures supporting Ben Allen.

Billionaires who have contributed the max of $9,800 to Allen’s campaign include Bill and Susan Bloomfield, Rick Caruso, Chris Larsen, and Andrew and Jaime Schwartzberg,

The California Legislative Races

During California's June primary, billionaires and corporate PACs strategically concentrated their independent expenditures in a set of open legislative races, backing business-friendly candidates while spending aggressively against labor and community-supported alternatives. Tech companies were the most significant new force, spending at levels far exceeding any previous cycle. In the races they chose, corporate and billionaire-backed candidates outspent their opponents by as much as 10 to 1.

Here are the state races that were flooded with the most corporate and billionaire-backed money/contributions.

AD 67 Assembly District 67

Los Angeles and Orange Counties

Billionaires spent millions in the District 67 race to support Cerritos Councilmember Mark Pulido and defeat UNITE HERE Local 11 co-president Ada Briceno, who is the former head of the Orange County Democratic Party.

Grow California, the PAC founded by crypto billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, spent $2.6 million in independent expenditures supporting Pulido and $1.5 million opposing Briceno.

California Leads PAC, which received $5 million from both Meta and Google, spent $1.2 million in independent expenditures supporting Pulido.

JobsPAC spent $373,000 opposing Ada Briceno.

AD 68 Assembly District 68

Orange County

California Assembly District 68 exemplifies the dramatic shift this cycle in outside spending by corporate and billionaire interests. Outside corporate interests spent 5 times what the first place Democratic candidate David Penaloza spent and 10 times the amount of money second place Democratic candidate Jessie Lopez spent.

Democratic Santa Ana City Councilmembers Jessie Lopez and David Penaloza are advancing to the November general election;

Grow California, the PAC founded by crypto billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, put over $2 million into the race - $1.1 million in independent expenditures opposing Lopez and $916,000 supporting Penaloza.

California Leads spent $1.2 million for Penaloza and JobsPAC spent $114,000.

“This race is about the future of California - whether we answer to corporations and insiders or to the hard-working people we’re elected to serve,” Lopez said.¹⁴

AD 35 Assembly District 35

Bakersfield

Billionaires put their financial support into electing Bakersfield City Council member Andrae Gonzales and defeating Ana Palacio, an emergency room nurse who was backed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Four times more money was spent to back Gonzales over Palacio who finished third.

SEIU backed Palacio, saying “it is time for change” and noted that the establishment leadership “had led us to where we’re at today,” with Bakersfield having “some of the worst outcomes for health, some of the least access to services and some of the worst environmental conditions,” resulting in shorting life expectancy.¹⁵

Meta and Google each gave $5 million to the California Leads PAC, which spent $1.6 million in independent expenditures to support Gonzales,

Meta’s PAC Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (META) California spent $350,000 on independent expenditures supporting Gonzales.

JobsPAC spent $342,000 in independent expenditures opposing Ana Palacio.

AD 12 Assembly District 12

Marin and Sonoma Counties

Rohnert Park City Council member Jackie Elwald and Marin County supervisor Eric Lucan advanced from the June primary to the November general election.

The billionaires are committed to electing Lucan and defeating Elwald, who is backed by labor and progressive groups.

Grow California, the PAC founded by crypto billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, poured more than a million dollars into the race. The political committee spent over $750,000 running a constant stream of attack ads against Elwald and $307,000 in support of Lucan.

Elwald said, ‘They haven’t seen anything yet. They spent a million dollars but they couldn’t stop me, they couldn’t stop our movement.”¹⁶

(ADD a sentence that in addition to the highest spending above

AD 31 Assembly District 31

Fresno

Meta and Google each gave $5 million to the California Leads PAC, which spent $964,000 in independent expenditures to support Fresno City Councilmember Annalisa Perea.

Meta’s PAC Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (META) California spent $377,000 on independent expenditures supporting Perea.

AD 36 Assembly District 36

Bakersfield

Billionaires backed Republican Assemblymember Jeff Gonzalez and Democratic Imperial City Councilmember Ida Obezo-Martinez, who are both supporters of data centers.¹⁷

Grow California, the PAC founded by crypto billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, spent $818,000 in independent expenditures supporting Obeso-Martinez. JobsPAC made $246,000 in independent expenditures for Gonzalez.

AD 51 Assembly District 51

Los Angeles

Meta’s PAC Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (META) California spent $281,000 on independent expenditures supporting the incumbent Rick Zbur.

AD 65 Assembly District 65

Los Angeles County

Billionaires spent millions as they went all in on their support for Compton Unified School District Board trustee Ayana Davis and their opposition to Fatima Iqbal-Zubair, the former chair of the California Democratic Party’ Progress Caucus.

Grow California, the PAC founded by crypto billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, spent $1.4 million in independent expenditures supporting Davis and $638,000 opposing Iqbal-Zubair.

Meta and Google each gave $5 million to the California Leads PAC, which spent $1 million in independent expenditures for Davis.

JobsPAC spent $292,000 in independent expenditures opposing Iqbal-Zubair.

AD 80 Assembly District 80

San Diego Area

Meta’s PAC Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (META) California spent $276,000 on independent expenditures supporting David Alvarez.

The California State Senate

SD 10 Senate District 10

East Bay

Scott Sakakihara is a former Palantir executive. Political action committees tied to Meta and tech billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper have spent over $2 million supporting his campaign.

Meta’s PAC Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (META) California spent $1.3 million on mailers and digital ads supporting Sakahira.

Grow California, the PAC founded by crypto billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, spent over $1 million on ads, consulting, and research for Sakakihara. Meta bought mailers and digital ads totaling over $966,000. Larsen and Draper’s Grow California PAC spent over $1 million in ads, consulting, and research.¹⁸

JobsPAC spent $294,000 in independent expenditures opposing another candidate Anne Kepner, an attorney who has represented consumers against large corporations. “My interpretation is, by the millions being spent trying to buy this seat, that I’m perceived as a threat,” Kepner said. “That’s exactly the problem, and the reason I’m running,” adding “sometimes I think we’re defined by our enemies.”¹⁹
(Note: I need to rework this image so that it is less blurry)

SD 24 Senate District 24

Los Angeles County

Grow California, the PAC founded by crypto billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, spent $2.2 million to defeat West Hollywood City Councilmember John Erickson. Erickson, who was the top vote getter in the primary, said, “The outcome of this election is a clear example of how dark money cannot buy elections.”²⁰

JobsPAC spent $1.2 million to beat Dr. Sion Roy. A statewide coalition of labor and Asian American and Pacific Islander advocacy groups criticized campaign mailers sent by the PAC as racially charged political attacks. The coalition said the mailers contained a “racist dog whistle” by depicting Roy in ultra-high contract imagery to darken his skin.²¹

SD 26 Senate District 26

Los Angeles

Grow California, the PAC founded by crypto billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, spent over $1 million to defeat housing attorney Sara Hernandez.

SD 40 Senate District 40

San Diego area

California Leads spent $1.3 million to elect San Marcos City Councilmember Ed Musgrove.

JobsPAC spent $350,000 to defeat businesswoman Kristie Bruce-Lane.

The California Federal Races
⚑ Add same description

CD 11 Congressional District 11

San Francisco

Independent expenditures opposing Saikat Chakrabarti
Abundant Future: $957,881
Donors to Scott Weiner:
Chris Larsen: $7,000
Garry Tan: $3,500
Sam Altman: $3,300 — note: only D donation this cycle

CD 22 Congressional District 22

Kings, Tulare, Kern County

Donors to David Valadao
Nicole Luckey (wife of Anduril’s Palmer Luckey): $7,000
Laura Arnold: $3,500
Harlan Crow: $3,500
Stephen Schwarzman (Blackstone): $3,500
Space Exploration Tech Corp Pac: $10,000
Google Netpac: $5,000
Amazon PAC: $2,500

CD 23 Congressional District 23

San Bernardino County (including parts of Kern & Los Angeles)

Donors to Jay Obernolte
Ben Horowitz: $7,000
Marc Andreessen: $7,000
Alex Karp: $3,500
Independent expenditures supporting Jay Obernolte
American Mission: $259,682

CD 48 Congressional District 48

San Diego County

Donors to Darrell Issa
Elon Musk: $6,600
Space Exploration Technologies Corp PAC: $10,000
Google Netpac: $5,000
Amazon PAC: $5,000
Meta Platforms, Inc PAC: $2,500
Donors to Jim Desmond
Palmer Luckey (Anduril): $3,500
Independent expenditures supporting Ammar Campa-Najjar
Serving CA: $291,388
Independent expenditures opposing Marni von Wilpert
Serving CA: $653,454

Conclusion

This election cycle has seen an unprecedented amount of resources flowing into federal and California elections. Major billionaires like Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who had previously not made a single contribution since 2010 in California state elections, has already contributed over $85 million in California this cycle. While California’s billionaires have said that part of what has spurred their giving is to push back against specific tax measures aimed at CEO and billionaire wealth in the state, this unprecedented giving is actually part of a national trend of mega-donors throwing their resources into congressional and state-races during an administration under which they have openly been able to buy power and advance a pro-billionaire and pro-business agenda.

In California, attempts by the billionaires and corporations to purchase power at our legislature transcends party affiliation, seeking to leverage more moderate, business friendly Democrats in addition to Republican candidates. Tech billionaires are joining forces with traditional corporate players in the state like oil and gas, the utilities and energy and the real estate industry and apartment association and together have made it very clear that they will continue to push back against any state and local regulations to curb taxes on wealth and to curb their freedom to do business including restrictions that protect communities, tenants, workers and our children.

The tech moguls are flooding money into these elections in California and across the country, paving a path towards unfettered AI and crypto at the federal level, while seeking to solidify a California state legislature that will not undercut new federal rules around crypto (the GENIUS and CLARITY Acts) and will scale back existing regulation on AI and push for expansion.

The cost to communities will mean the proliferation of data centers at the cost to utility affordability, the climate, water and sustainability, with no safeguards for workers and our children. This will also mean exponential and unregulated accumulation of wealth that will impact affordability at our state level and the gutting of our public services through corporate and billionaire tax breaks.

Appendix 1 The Political Action Committees - California

The California Business Roundtable is made up of CEOs and senior executives from the state’s largest employers. It says that its Issues PAC is “the most powerful statewide business voice at the ballot box advocating for pro-business policies that align with our vision for economic growth and prosperity in the state.” ²²

The PAC has raised over $11 million this election cycle. More than half of its financial support has come from billionaires. The largest donor was Palantir co-founder and Chairperson, Peter Thiel, who contributed $3 million which he stated was to fight back against the Billionaire Tax.

• Peter Thiel - $3 million
• Eric Shmidt - $1.5 million
• Chris Larsen - $750,000
• John Hering - $500,000
• Douglas Leone and Patricia Perkins - Leone - $500,000
• Diego Berdakin - $100,000
• James Simonoff - $100,000

The California Leads PAC has raised $10 million this election cycle - $5 million from Google and $5 million from Meta.

According to Politico, Meta is deepening its political presence in California, starting with launching its own super PAC last year, Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (Meta) California and loading it with $20 million. The PAC will support candidates who favor “light-touch AI rules.”²³

The Grow California PAC raised $20 million, all of it from two billionaires – Chris Larsen from Ripple ($15 million) and Tim Draper ($5 million).