Tom Steyer spent over $200 million of his own money to land third in the California governor’s race and Silicon Valley favorite Matt Mahan’s billionaire-backed campaign put him in sixth place. But in San Francisco, the moguls did just fine.
Every billionaire, multi-millionaire or big business that paid out enough to become a top-20 donor to San Francisco’s primary won their contests:
- Chris Larsen, the crypto billionaire and No. 1 donor to the June races, helped beat back Prop. D, the “Overpaid CEO” tax, with a $700,000 spend; he also helped pass Prop. A (the earthquake bond) and Prop. B (term limits).
- Michael Moritz, a tech venture capitalist and the financier of the San Francisco Standard, gave $625,000 to tank Prop. D and $250,000 to elect Alan Wong in District 4, alongside funds for Prop. B.
- Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, the realtor- and tech-backed interest group that’s long interceded in city races, put $860,000 into killing Prop. D, and a token $5,000 into Prop. B.
- Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder who has reportedly taken a sharp turn to the right, put in another $500,000 to successfully beat back the Overpaid CEO tax.
- And a host of businesses and wealthy individuals — from San Francisco-based companies like Visa and the Gap to DoorDash CEO Tony Xu to the SF Believes PAC bankrolled by Mayor Daniel Lurie’s allies — all spent six-figure sums on measures that won. The bulk of the group’s spending went to defeating the Overpaid CEO tax.
Of note: Moritz did however lose out in the governor race. He contributed a total of $3 million to Matt Mahan’s campaign, which fell flat by election day.
The lone exception in San Francisco was Saikat Chakrabarti, the self-stylized class traitor who shelled out more than $10 million in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to replace Nancy Pelosi: He lost to Connie Chan and, as of the latest totals, received only 18 percent of the vote to her 30 percent…