SAN FRANCISCO — In California, 2026 is suddenly becoming the year of the big tech flex.
Silicon Valley donors are unleashing tens of millions of dollars to reshape the power dynamics in this resolutely Democratic state, with strategists and others close to them promising a tsunami of in-state spending the likes of which California has never seen. They are marshaling unprecedented sums to win ballot measure fights, place allies in the state Legislature and ensure Gov. Gavin Newsom, a longtime ally, is succeeded by another tech-friendly governor.
A new committee, first reported here, will channel tech support for Matt Mahan, an industry-aligned candidate hailing from the heart of Silicon Valley who entered the race last week.
The series of interventions has been spurred by a broad sense that Democrats in office are endangering the state’s long-term business climate, as well as Sacramento’s expanding appetite for artificial intelligence regulation, a desire to counteract organized labor’s clout, and a collective fury over a proposed wealth tax on billionaires, according to interviews with a dozen tech company executives and industry operatives.
“The whole chess board has been thrown up in the air,” said Chris Larsen, a prominent crypto executive and San Francisco political benefactor who has put $5 million into a committee focused on legislative races. “Businesses are powerful in other places, but not in California. In California, the unions control Sacramento.”
Investors and executives in Silicon Valley, one of the state’s premier economic engines, have tended to focus their donations mostly on federal races or an occasional ballot initiative, while their companies eschewed the well-funded committees that other industries, like oil and real estate, have long used to try to mold the Legislature.
That’s changing this cycle. Over the past month alone, tech founders, investors and companies have come forward with at least $115 million to seed new efforts in California, funding committees not constrained by the dollar limits that apply to direct contributions to candidates.
The money is washing across the ballot, and it’s set to permeate the state’s wide-open governor’s race. Newsom’s departure at the end of 2026 will deprive the industry of a reliable ally who vetoed bills, like a union-backed curb on self-driving trucks and efforts to rein in AI, that were anathema to prominent companies.
One beneficiary is Mahan, a moderate Democrat and former startup founder who drew a rapturous response from tech players when he jumped into the race last week.
Tech donors are among the funders of a new, pro-Mahan independent expenditure committee attracting commitments from a range of industries, according to a person familiar with the effort — an infusion that could boost a mayor who’s never held statewide or federal office into contention while countering labor unions that have long viewed Mahan with animosity. The committee has already booked $1.4 million worth of airtime.
The flurry of activity has brought executives like Google co-founder Sergey Brin off the sidelines while impelling others who had been more involved, like Larsen, to turbocharge their spending.
Brin last gave money to a California ballot initiative in 2008 — when Newsom was San Francisco’s mayor, George W. Bush was president, and California was about to ban same-sex marriage — before bankrolling a ballot measure committee with $20 million this year, bolstered by another $15 million from corporate executives who largely work in tech. Larsen has spent heavily in recent years to yank deep-blue San Francisco to the center.
But Brin and Larsen share a common motivation: a health care union’s ballot initiative seeking to impose a one-time, 5 percent tax on the ultrarich. That proposal accelerated discussions within Larsen’s circle and among Brin’s group, which has so far collected $35 million but not yet taken a formal position on the wealth tax as it donated millions to a housing bond and an initiative to streamline permitting.
“We started (the committee) before this stupid, insane wealth tax,” said Larsen, who also gave $2 million to the effort Brin joined. “But the wealth tax — oh my God, what a gift. That woke up the sleeping giant.”
In recent weeks, Big Tech companies have dramatically ramped up their spending on state politics, seeding at least three new committees, in addition to Larsen’s, looking to spend on state legislative contests this year.
One will be run by a group of political operatives, including longtime Newsom adviser Nathan Click. Known as “California Leads,” its initial funding of more than $10 million comes entirely from Silicon Valley: Meta, Google and the venture capital firm of another Democratic megadonor and Newsom ally, Ron Conway. But the companies won’t be involved in picking candidates or shaping strategy, the super PAC claims.
Two of the super PACs are Meta’s own — a California-dedicated effort and a nonfederal committee planning to be active in multiple states. The social media behemoth has gone all-in on AI and furnished them with $65 million to elect state candidates it sees as favorable to that industry’s growth, as POLITICO first reported.
Unlike California Leads and Larsen’s committee, which will exclusively focus on the Legislature, Meta has not ruled out the possibility that its PACs could get involved in the race to elect California’s next governor.
In Sacramento, the cash injection and possibility of more money coming are already stirring speculation and anxiety over who could be targeted.
“It scares the shit out of me,” Josh Lowenthal, an Assembly Democrat and author of past bills to regulate social media, said at an event hosted by kids’ safety advocates.
“The alarm bells should be on for all of us. I'm trying to raise them as best as I can,” he added, warning it will take no more than three years “before this money is so far entrenched” that it results in a “generational” shift in the Legislature's makeup.
The panic is notable, considering the companies aren’t newcomers to California politics. Google and Meta give regularly to state political parties and campaigns. They’ve also expanded their lobbying presence in recent years as Sacramento increasingly looks to regulate the gig industry, social media and AI, hiring a former Brown Cabinet official and state senator to guide their efforts.
Another reason for some lawmakers’ concern is that the emerging AI industry, now inextricable from the state’s fiscal outlook, has proven less shy about flooding races with outside money. Legislators expect its growing influence to drive future spending to new heights.
At the same time, labor unions are upping the pressure. Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, is promising two dozen AI bills this year. Her group, joined by labor leaders from across the country, warned Newsom and any 2028 presidential hopeful on Wednesday that union support will hinge on candidates' willingness to protect jobs from AI and create constraints on the technology.
The pro-AI super PAC network Leading the Future has previewed plans for a California super PAC after a launch last summer. So far, it’s descended on congressional races elsewhere, using more than $100 million from Silicon Valley donors like VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Conway. The group is being led by the minds behind the crypto industry’s dominance during the 2024 cycle.
Josh Vlasto, a leader of Leading the Future and adviser to the crypto super PAC group Fairshake, said the network doesn’t have further specifics for California yet, but “everything is on the table.”
It’s a harder-charging approach than the Bay’s legacy tech titans have taken. The broader industry has often found itself on the defensive, trying to shape or bat down legislation after it’s been introduced.
“Silicon Valley has zero interest in Sacramento until there’s a bill that (messes) with them,” said Andrew Acosta, a Democratic political consultant. “Now all of a sudden they’re waking up.”
Some companies that were earlier to the game are outdoing themselves, too. Airbnb, which has in recent years deepened its involvement in state-level races in California and elsewhere, seeded its main committees with $17 million over 2025 — a more than eight-fold increase compared to last cycle. The home-sharing platform has promised more sizable contributions to local and state candidates that it believes will boost California’s tourism industry.
Coinbase, among tech’s most aggressive political spenders, has said it’s eyeing a “significant role” in the governor’s race.
And Uber, stung by a bruising battle that shifted from the Legislature to a 2020 ballot measure on which the company and its brethren spent more than $200 million, has since spent millions to elect sympathetic Democrats to the Legislature. Uber is also trying to get a measure on the November ballot and has dished out $12 million for the campaign.
Tech lobbyists routinely complain about the reach and volume of bills coming out of Sacramento. With Newsom forced out by term limits after this year, they’ll lose a leader most of them see as a reliable veto — or at least a willing dealmaker — when the industry’s nonstarters get through.
Against that backdrop, companies are finally executing plans they have considered for months, years after the cost and ugliness of Uber’s worker classification ballot fight left others in the industry reluctant to try their hand.
“There was some concern about not wanting to do that again unless it absolutely came to it,” Robert Singleton, who leads California policy for the tech-funded industry association Chamber of Progress, said in an interview. “But when you start seeing this mountain of legislation coming into California, the departure of Governor Newsom, the lack of congressional action, I think that heartburn’s finally subsided.”
And so, the political calculus is changing again.
“People are willing to wade back into the fray.”
Tyler Katzenberger contributed to this report.
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