Fifteen billionaires have poured a total of $336 million into California and national politics so far this year, according to a new report released this week.
More than half of them come from the San Francisco Bay Area, where organizers gathered Thursday at the home of the second-largest single political donor in state elections, Ripple co-founder and angel investor Chris Larsen, to announce the report’s findings.
The analysis was published by California Common Good, which advocates for fully funding education and other social safety net services. It turns out that Larsen has personally donated about $28 million to various state and local races this year, boosting candidates like East Bay state Senate candidate Scott Sakakihara, a former Palantir employee, through his Grow California PAC.
He also tried to defeat local measures like San Francisco’s “overpaid CEO” tax, Proposition D, and was supported by venture capitalist Michael Moritz and a number of companies that would have been affected by the tax.
Ripple, Larsen’s cryptocurrency company, spent $56 million on state and federal elections, including about $5 million on Golden State Promise, a statewide PAC opposing California’s billionaire tax proposal — which still made it onto the November ballot — and $49 million on state PACs pushing a crypto-friendly agenda.
Combined with Ripple’s corporate donations, Larsen’s spending record in local, state and federal elections reached $93 million, according to the report.
Larsen’s personal donations at the state level were dwarfed only by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who individually spent $86 million on a variety of moderate, pro-business political action committees across California, largely in response to the proposed billionaire tax. He also spent $500,000 to oppose San Francisco’s CEO tax.
The report identifies Larsen, Brin and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz as the top four political donors to this year’s state and federal elections – and the lion’s share of all 15 billionaires combined. Combined, the four men were responsible for $209 million in personal spending this election cycle, a 147 percent increase over their spending in the entire 2023-24 election cycle.
Adding donations from their companies brings the total to $331 million, according to the report.
According to Forbes, there are an estimated 200 billionaires in California. The report focused on the top spenders but ignored those who spent heavily on their own campaigns or those of a relative.
The report’s methodology therefore says that former venture capitalist Tom Steyer was not on the list, even though he was politically active enough to spend more than $200 million running for governor. The same was true for billionaire Irwin Jacobs, who California Common Good said made the list but argued that much of his political spending was tied to his granddaughter’s congressional run in San Diego.
The report’s authors instead swapped Doordash CEO Tony Xu for Irwin. The full list: Larsen, Brin, Anna & Greg Brockman, Moritz, John Doerr, Reed Hastings, Patrick Collison, Tim Draper, Peter Thiel, Eric Schmidt, Ron Conway, Stewart Resnick and Xu.
Money spent does not necessarily translate into political influence. In 2024, Moritz spent millions on elections in San Francisco, with little effect. This year, Steyer failed to make it past the primary in the governor’s race, and millionaire Saikat Chakrabarti also failed to replace Nancy Pelosi.
Matt Mahan, Silicon Valley’s preferred gubernatorial candidate – who had raised more than $15 million from executives like Brin – failed to finish sixth in the June primary. As does her preferred challenger, South Bay Congressman Ro Khanna, Ethan Agarwal.
San Francisco is no stranger to concentrated wealth shaping City Hall, and big-spending people did well here in the last primary election. Major business interests of the past include real estate developer Walter Shorenstein, who for decades spent hundreds of millions buying and constructing tall buildings, preventing the San Francisco Giants from moving to Florida and cementing his reputation as a Democratic kingmaker in local and national politics.
A source close to Larsen said he and his wife Lyna Lam were not at home at the time of the demonstration. A spokesman for Larsen declined to comment on the rally or the report.
The report also said a network of political action committees had received millions from California billionaires and major corporations – noting that 20 had already raised a total of $289 million this year. That amount exceeds total PAC spending in the 2024 primary, the report said.
https://missionlocal.org/2026/07/meet-the-billionaires-behind-336m-explosion-of-money-in-california-politics-per-new-report/
