Steyer told The Times in 2019<\/a> after he launched a short-lived presidential campaign.<\/p>\nAsked to comment about the latest iteration of the controversy, Steyer\u2019s campaign pointed to comments he made in March at a town hall in San Francisco about how among the hundreds of thousands of companies his hedge fund invested in, the private prison company changed the course of his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a mistake, and I sold it over 20 years ago, thinking, not that it won\u2019t be profitable, it\u2019s just a mistake. I don\u2019t want to be in that business. But let me say this, it wasn\u2019t just a mistake,\u201d Steyer said. \u201cIt was also a big wake-up call that I was in the wrong place, that I was in a business that was taking me to places I absolutely didn\u2019t want to go. And there\u2019s a reason I walked away from that business and walked away from a ton of money, because I felt like that is not the life I want.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that he and his wife, Kat Taylor, have spent the past two decades pushing for rehabilitative justice \u2014 treatment instead of mass incarceration except for violent felons.<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I a perfect person? No, have I made mistakes? Yes,\u201d Steyer said. \u201cBut for those of you who like to read the Bible, there is a moment on the road to Damascus when someone makes a change, and I have made a big change, and I did it a long time ago, and I\u2019ve been pushing very, very hard the other way.\u201d <\/p>\n
Farallon also invested in fossil fuel projects, including an Australian coal mine that denuded thousands of acres of koala habitat and generated an enormous amount of carbon emissions.<\/p>\n
Steyer, who has a net worth of $2.4 billion according to Forbes, has painted himself as a reformed billionaire who walked away from Farallon because of angst about how he earned his fortune. He has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Democratic causes, notably efforts to fight climate change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is that is not where I think there is value, and that is not what I\u2019m seeking in my life,\u201d he said at a Sacramento town hall in March when retired state employee Gina Coates asked how, as a woman of color, she could believe his promises given his privilege as a wealthy white man.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of trusting me, let me say this, I left my business 14 years ago, and anybody who cared about money would not have done it,\u201d Steyer said.<\/p>\n
Steyer later said at the town hall that he left Farallon because he realized that he didn\u2019t want to remain on that path.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to have a meaningful life,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to stand with the people of this state and have actual prosperity. Twelve trillionaires and 40 million people who can\u2019t make rent is not success.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Steyer and his wife continue to receive significant income from the hedge fund, including millions of dollars in investments, holdings and various complicated transactions in 2024, according to a statement of economic interest and tax returns he was required to file with the California Secretary of State\u2019s office because of his gubernatorial run.<\/p>\n
A Steyer campaign spokesman said Steyer created guardrails to ensure that he does not profit off companies he morally disagrees with.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom has put in place an investment policy to ensure that he does not directly invest in fossil fuels, payday lending, or private prisons,\u201d spokesman Anthony York said. \u201cTo the extent he inadvertently incurs exposure to those industries through third-party managers or liquid legacy investments, Tom will donate all profits to charity.\u201d<\/p>\n
After leaving Farallon, Steyer became one of the nation\u2019s top Democratic donors. And he has used his wealth to fund his political ambitions. Steyer contributed nearly $342 million of his own money to his short-lived 2020 presidential campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission.<\/p>\n
In the 2026 governor\u2019s race, Steyer has donated nearly $112 million to his campaign as of Thursday, according to the California secretary of state\u2019s office. He has been an ubiquitous presence on the airwaves, including local news programs and campaign ads that aired during the \u201cPuppy Bowl\u201d on the Animal Planet channel on Super Bowl Sunday. In the past month, Steyer has aired more than 5,000 ads, according to iSpot, which tracks television commercials.<\/p>\n
California, home to 23.1 million registered voters, is home to some of the nation\u2019s most expensive media markets. And candidates, particularly those who are not well known, need to spend heavily on television advertising if they hope to have a successful campaign.<\/p>\n
But money is no guarantee of success. Billionaire Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief and formerly a longtime Republican donor, spent $144 million<\/a> of her money on her 2010 gubernatorial bid. That set a record for a candidate\u2019s contribution in a state race at the time, but Whitman lost to Jerry Brown by nearly 13 percentage points.<\/p>\nIn 1998, Democratic multimillionaire Al Checchi who had been the co-chair of Northwest Airlines spent $40 million of his wealth on an unsuccessful run for governor, also a record at the time.<\/p>\n
Steyer is one of the top three Democrats in the sprawling field to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. And his liberal positions are drawing the ire of powerful forces in Sacramento. On Tuesday , the state\u2019s Realtors donated $5 million to an independent expenditure committee opposing Steyer\u2019s bid.<\/p>\n
Taylor, who confronted Steyer at the San Diego town hall, said she had not planned to be so vocal. But as the event unfolded, she decided she had to speak, not only to Steyer but to the attendees. She and her compatriots gather every Sunday outside the Otay Mesa facility to raise money to help detainees buy food in the prison commissary and call their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy main issue is that he has gotten financial gain off of these people suffering,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental warrior Tom Steyer, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, is facing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[112662,7,2926,9,8,1804,39044,112659,50918,5180,8189,4263,592,112660,225,38107,112661,9560],"class_list":{"0":"post-253916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-billionaire-candidate","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-governor","11":"tag-california-headlines","12":"tag-california-news","13":"tag-company","14":"tag-detainee","15":"tag-farallon-capital","16":"tag-hedge-fund","17":"tag-investment","18":"tag-million","19":"tag-money","20":"tag-people","21":"tag-private-prison","22":"tag-state","23":"tag-steyer","24":"tag-town-hall-event","25":"tag-wealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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