Tech billionaires are spending millions to reshape California’s Legislature

In Anaheim, voters marveled on Nextdoor or Facebook at the flood of political marketing they endured in May. The state Assembly race in District 67 felt different, they said. There were more mailers, texts, phone calls, streaming ads and digital ads than usual.

In fact, independent expenditures in that race totaled $10 million — more than triple what was spent last time the seat was open.

About 98% of that money went to ensure Mark Pulido, backed by tech giants, was elected, instead of former hotel worker and union local president, Ada Briceño — both Democrats. It worked. Pulido is now facing Republican Paulo Morales this fall.

Who had that much money to spend, and why? Answers to such questions often are obscured by a web of political action committees, called PACs.

In this contest, multiple tech-oriented PACs such as Grow California and California Leads — plus PACs backed by Airbnb and Uber — contributed the most. 

Grow California, founded by crypto billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, spent $2.6 million in independent expenditures supporting Pulido and $1.5 million in independent expenditures opposing Briceño. California Leads, which received $5 million each from Meta and Google, spent $1.2 million in independent expenditures supporting Pulido. Airbnb, which has seen much local opposition from Anaheim residents upset about short-term rentals, also spent $1.2 million supporting him.

The stakes are high, as are the payoffs. The billionaires behind these PACs have seen exponential growth in personal and corporate wealth under this presidency and are going shopping with those new resources.

A handpicked California Legislature is on their wishlist.  

Elections in California are increasing in cost and decreasing in transparency. California Common Good had a hunch it was an increasingly small group of billionaires driving this change. We published our findings in a report, “The Explosion of Corporate Billionaire Money in California Politics,” mapping filings from relevant local, state and federal agencies and connecting the dots between obscurely named PACs and the individuals and corporations funding them.

The combined individual spending of California’s top four billionaire political spenders — Sergey Brin, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and Larsen — and their corporate political spending in federal and California elections has so far totaled $331 million this cycle, by our count.

That represents a 147% increase over their spending in the entire 2023-24 election cycle. One billionaire, Brin, together with the company he co-founded, Google, increased their political spending 3,000%. 

The shopping spree continues, and there are still a few more weeks until Election Day.⁠

The billionaires’ rhetoric would have us believe that their prolific spending is to protect the economic interests of our state by opposing the proposed one-time, 5% wealth tax on billionaires on the ballot in November. It’s much more. 

Early in the second Trump administration, tech billionaires lobbied Congress for a measure that would have prohibited all 50 states from passing any regulation dealing with artificial intelligence for 10 years. As details of the measure became clear, bipartisan opposition emerged. Tech lost that fight and turned its attention to critical states like California. 

California will likely lead on AI regulation, setting the bar for other states and the federal government. State legislatures could also undermine federal-level regulation, including the GENIUS Act, a law passed last year to bolster the cryptocurrency industry.  

Meta was the first to act. After the bill failure in Washington, Meta announced it would infuse money into California politics through such state PACs as Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across California. 

That PAC has stated it would support candidates who favor “light-touch AI rules.”⁠ If it can’t win favorable regulation for data center construction, AI usage and related issues at the federal level, the goal is to lock it in at the state level.  

In California, unions and the nurses, teachers, firefighters and other workers they represent historically have elected candidates to state government and have been a strong political force. That has led to rigorous workplace standards, higher minimum wages and policies that benefit communities, including food assistance, healthcare, public schools and libraries. 

The tech billionaires do not share that same vision for the state. In their version of the future they call the shots. They decide which neighborhood gets a data center, and they decide what children have access to online. 

Whether you’re in Anaheim or Fresno, San Jose or San Diego, it is essential to decipher the political mail you receive and make informed decisions at the ballot box. Billionaires such as Peter Thiel or Mark Zuckerberg may be behind the political marketing materials you get.