Inside tech billionaires' push to reshape San Francisco politics: 'a hostile takeover'

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Inside tech billionaires’ push to reshape San Francisco politics: ‘a hostile takeover’

Ali Winston, with graphics by Will Jarrett, of Mission Local
Mon 12 Feb 2024 12.00 GMT
Last modified on Mon 12 Feb 2024 13.34 GMT

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Still, the political-influence machine that tech billionaires and venture capitalists have recently built in San Francisco stands out for its size and ambition. A new analysis of campaign filings, non-profit records and political contributions by the Guardian and Mission Local reveals the extent of this network, which is using its financial and organizational muscle to push the famously progressive city into adopting policies that are tougher on crime and homelessness, and more favorable to business and housing construction.

In the past six years, prominent tech and venture capital leaders – including the hedge fund manager William Oberndorf, the billionaire investor Michael Moritz, the cryptocurrency booster Chris Larsen, the PayPal co-founder David Sacks, the Y Combinator CEO, Garry Tan, and the Pantheon CEO, Zachary Rosen – have invested at least $5.7m into reshaping San Francisco’s policies, according to the analysis of public data. Because not all of their donations are publicly disclosed, the sum of their contributions may be far higher.

In a solidly Democratic city, they have joined forces with traditional business and real estate elites in an effort to oust some of its most progressive leaders and undo its most progressive policies.

To achieve those goals, they have created a loose network of interlocking non-profits, dark money groups and political action committees – a framework colloquially known as a “grey money” network – that allows them to obscure the true scale of their involvement in San Francisco’s municipal politics.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/12/san-francisco-tech-billionaires-political-influence