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How tech titans became an influential donor class in San Francisco’s mayoral race
This year’s San Francisco mayoral race could signify an ideological shift in the historically liberal city. Only one of the race’s five candidates is running on a progressive agenda, and whoever wins will have to address a list of issues, including an affordable housing crisis and limited shelter capacity for the city’s ever-increasing homeless population.
The race has also brought out new donors who showed apathy toward the city’s politics in the past. San Francisco’s affluent tech executives are pouring millions of dollars into the race, hoping to influence who handles these issues and how.
About two decades ago, several Silicon Valley tech firms, motivated by financial incentives and the prospect of providing a more colorful city life for its millennial employees, relocated north to San Francisco.
As seen from Sausalito, the Transamerica building, once the tallest in San Francisco, is framed in one of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge near a taller Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
Now that the tech industry has fully settled into the city and artificial intelligence is showing signs of tremendous potential for its future, its leaders are becoming increasingly ambitious in molding how the city runs.
My colleague Hannah Wiley recently reported on why tech titans are stepping up to assert more influence in local politics and which candidates are benefiting from the donations.
The pandemic jump-started the tech industry’s involvement in San Francisco politics.
San Francisco’s downtown, which heavily relied on the city’s buzzing tech industry, became a ghost town during the pandemic. Office and school shutdowns created a ripple effect that struck restaurants and other businesses that depended on a bustling downtown.
As the city’s service economy fell, auto thefts, break-ins and homelessness soared with little police response.
The local government took a sudden turn toward a “very far left, sort of performative sort of politics, rather than looking at outcomes” during the pandemic, Chris Larsen, co-founder of crypto company Ripple and other startups who donated to the campaign of mayoral incumbent London Breed, told Hannah.
“It got to a point where, OK, enough is enough. … We gotta step in here. And it’s working.”
In February 2022, a cohort of advocacy groups backed by tech billionaires were able to successfully lead the recall of three school board members who prioritized renaming a third of the city’s public schools that honored historical figures they deemed problematic, instead of reopening classrooms.
Four months later, voters recalled Dist. Atty. Chesa Boudin, a reform advocate criticized for his progressive policies on sentencing and incarceration.
Motivated by the recalls and with ample money to spend, industry leaders decided to focus on the 2024 mayoral race, Keally McBride, a politics professor at the University of San Francisco, told Hannah.
Tech money is backing candidates with tougher stances on tent encampments, retail crime and how to address homelessness.
The tech money has overwhelmingly boosted the candidates that have emerged as front-runners: Breed; Levi Strauss heir and nonprofit executive Daniel Lurie; and venture capitalist and former member of the city’s Board of Supervisors Mark Farrell, who also served as interim mayor for six months in 2018.
All three are moderate Democrats who have campaigned on issues such as dismantling tent encampments and enacting harsher punishments for retail crime.
They also each have garnered support from the city’s tech industry leaders for their stances on how to lower crime rates and homelessness, and boost police power.
According to political experts, this is a sign that the industry is finally stepping into a more influential role in politics, rather than the apathetic role they played for years. And while the candidate with the most money doesn’t always win, the staggering amount of money flowing to the three candidates has helped them finance the ads and events that make their platforms more visible to voters.
Peter Leyden, a former managing editor of Wired magazine and founder of Reinvent Futures, sees this movement as “a realization that San Francisco is here to stay.”
“It is going to be the tech hub of the world for the foreseeable future,” he said. “If we’re going to be here … let’s remake it in a way that works.”
Today’s top stories
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles will pay $880 million in the largest-ever clergy sexual abuse settlement
- Attorneys for 1,353 people who allege that they suffered horrific abuse at the hands of local Catholic priests reached the settlement after months of negotiations with the archdiocese.
- The archdiocese had previously paid $740 million to victims in various settlements, so this settlement would put the total payout at over $1.5 billion.
Californians share how Kamala Harris affected their lives
- Harris made decisions as California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney that left a lasting effect on people in the Golden State, for better or worse.
- Meanwhile, courts could be crucial if the presidential election is close. Here are three legal disputes that might reach the Supreme Court.
Los Angeles leaders face a choice on the city’s homelessness problem: Double down or change strategies
- Mayor Karen Bass and other officials find themselves at a crossroad after a new city report estimated it would cost $21.7 billion to end homelessness in a decade in Los Angeles.
- Homelessness and housing experts are split between some who said the report presents a realistic picture of costs and others who argued it revealed a need for less expensive strategies.
- There are about 45,000 people who are homeless in the city of Los Angeles, according to the most recent point-in-time count of the homeless population.
SpaceX sued California regulators, alleging an anti-Musk bias in rejecting the company’s plan to increase rocket launches
- SpaceX accused state regulators of “egregiously and unlawfully overreaching its authority” and of engaging in “naked political discrimination” against billionaire owner Elon Musk.
- Tensions have been building between SpaceX and the California Coastal Commission, where members have cited Musk’s political posts on X and raised concerns about his companies’ labor record.
What else is going on
- Relatives of Erik and Lyle Menendez pleaded for the brothers to be resentenced for their parents’ killings.
- Sean “Diddy” Combs choked an intern and put a UCLA staffer in headlock during a brawl, document alleges.
- A man who was arrested outside a Trump rally in Coachella for bringing two loaded guns to the event sued the Riverside County sheriff.
- Amazon and Google look to nuclear power to fuel their data centers and AI initiatives.
- Los Angeles seeks to speed up sidewalk repairs and other infrastructure improvements before the 2028 Olympics.
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- Columnist Gustavo Arellano talks to Latinos across the Southwest about their hopes, fears and dreams this election year.
- Trump’s threats against California are dismissed as bluster, but there’s cause for concern, columnist Mark Z. Barabak writes.
- Trump wants Helene victims to fear and doubt FEMA, but their experience is contradicting him, columnist Robin Abcarian writes.
- It’s time to take out Iran’s nuclear sites, writes Uriel Heilman, a journalist living in Israel.
This morning’s must reads
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
A rural lifestyle is threatened by warehouses that are crucial to America’s online shopping habit. Riverside County leaders are reviewing a dozen requests that would rezone portions of rural residential land in Mead Valley, a move that could upset the balance between maintaining solitude for residents and shouldering a disproportionate share of warehouses.
Other must reads
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].
For your downtime
A mixed plate of tacos including one with calamari, pork and short rib, left to right, at Kogi BBQ.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
Going out
Staying in
A question for you: What’s your favorite restaurant in California?
Raymond writes: “Casa Garcia in my childhood hometown of Pico Rivera has the best nachos!! They started off as a small pickup station right by the Target store off of Whittier and Paramount and is now a delicious go-to, sit-down restaurant right by the Cinépolis theater!”
Margaret Solari writes: “Taix French Restaurant originally located at 321 Commercial St. I had family and friends who worked there. Celebrities often ate there such as Doris Day and Arlene Dahl. Remember, family style dining, and private booths. It is now at a different location, but I remember it from the 1950s.”
And Drew H. writes: “I stand with Walt Disney (for once) — his favorite restaurant, where a table is named after him, is the storied 102 year-old Tam O’Shanter, the Scottish-themed prime rib specialist in Atwater Village. I was there the other night, as I am every time I visit L.A. — it’s just the most warmhearted, terrific place!”
What’s your favorite restaurant? Feel free to email us at [email protected], and your response might be included in the newsletter this week.
And finally.. your photo of the day
The burrowing owl stands just 7 to 10 inches high and is the only owl species to nest underground.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Today’s great photo is from staff photographer Carolyn Cole of a Western burrowing owl, which moved one step closer to being designated as an endangered species in California.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Ryan Fonseca, reporter
Defne Karabatur, fellow
Andrew Campa, Sunday reporter
Hunter Clauss, multiplatform editor
Christian Orozco, assistant editor
Stephanie Chavez, deputy metro editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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