DAVOS, Switzerland — Gov. Gavin Newsom emphatically rejected the idea that California is a liability for Democrats wooing voters with an alternative to President Donald Trump’s America.
Appearing onstage (opens in new tab) Thursday during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Newsom said, “I’m proud of my state” and ticked off a list of statistics, including the percentage of global research and development located in California. It’s a potential preview of his strategy should he run for president, as is expected, for rebuffing critiques of California as an out-of-touch liberal la-la land with ineffective governance.
Trump and his allies have portrayed Newsom as a pretty boy from a failing state — U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday in Davos that Newsom “strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken (opens in new tab),” referring to the fictional serial killer from “American Psycho” and Barbie’s hunky counterpart. “He is too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know anything.” And some analysts have noted that Newsom’s chances as a presidential candidate could ultimately come down to a referendum on how U.S. voters feel about California.
“You’re in the midst of an enormous economic boom right now, and yet the state is on one hand running deficits and, on the other, not always delivering services — from education to healthcare — that your citizens are delighted with,” Ben Smith, Semafor’s editor-in-chief, said during the onstage interview with Newsom. “How are voters looking at California, looking at New York, looking at Chicago, supposed to say, ‘Yeah, this is the model that we want’?”
“We have more Fortune 500 companies than any other state in America,” replied Newsom. “More scientists, engineers, more Nobel laureates in my state than any state in America, the finest system of higher public education in the world. We have 18% of the world’s R&D — China, 22%; Germany, 21%; California, 18% of the world’s R&D. We’re the center of the universe as it relates to AI.”
Many California CEOs were indeed represented in Davos, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi.
Newsom said not enough U.S. leaders are standing up to Trump, who addressed Davos attendees Wednesday. “We can lose our republic as we know it,” said Newsom. “It’s why I came here to Davos, to call it out.”
Newsom on Wednesday was blocked from speaking (opens in new tab) at the USA House pavilion in Davos. “California was just denied at the USA House. Last we checked, California is part of USA,” Newsom wrote on X (opens in new tab). His office said (opens in new tab) pressure from the White House and the State Department led to the cancellation of his appearance at a fireside chat hosted by Fortune magazine.