![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/larsen.webp.jpeg\")
Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple Labs, in San Francisco.\n(Bryan Banducci\/Bloomberg)\u00a0<\/p>\n
By Eliyahu Kamisher, Bloomberg<\/p>\n
Chris Larsen didn\u2019t start out rich. He was born in San Francisco, the son of an aircraft mechanic and a freelance illustrator. After starting a string of successful companies and amassing a $13 billion fortune, he\u2019s become the face of a billionaires\u2019 revolt.<\/p>\n
Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple Labs, in San Francisco.
\n(Bryan Banducci\/Bloomberg)\u00a0<\/p>\n
In June, voters in San Francisco will decide whether to impose an eight-fold increase\u00a0to a\u00a0gross-receipts tax on any large company doing business in the city where the highest paid executive\u00a0earns 100 times or more than their median employee. Fighting the union-backed proposal, along with a separate push for a California wealth tax, has thrust Larsen into a head-on clash with labor.<\/p>\n
\u201cLabor correctly has determined that business is weak and they won\u2019t stand up to them,\u201d Larsen said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s the same calculation here in San Francisco, that we just don\u2019t have the guts to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The\u00a0so-called Overpaid CEO Act\u00a0would generate\u00a0more than\u00a0$250\u00a0million a year, according to an official estimate,\u00a0making up for some of President Donald Trump\u2019s spending cuts and helping close the city\u2019s structural deficit, supporters say. Companies ranging from major technology firms such as\u00a0Salesforce Inc.\u00a0to retail giants like Target Corp. and Gap Inc.\u00a0could be subject to the levy.<\/p>\n
Scott Mann, a spokesperson for the campaign backing the measure, said if businesses can afford large pay packages for top executives, they should be able to send more money to city coffers. \u201cWhat we\u2019re witnessing now is the billionaires\u2019 vision for California,\u201d said Mann. \u201cThey are essentially willing to defund public services to protect their own wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larsen and other entrepreneurs, unnerved by the election of democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York and increasing calls across the US for taxes on wealth, fear that the measure could undo efforts to make San Francisco more business-friendly. They\u2019re backing a competing measure to lower the tax, which was approved by voters in 2020 and scaled back four years later as San Francisco sought to coax back business\u00a0activity that fled during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
In 2024, voters elected a new mayor, Democrat Daniel Lurie, who is an heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune. Lurie\u2019s centrism earned accolades from business groups and executives like\u00a0JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon\u00a0and Blackstone Inc.\u2019s Jonathan Gray\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and\u00a0Lurie wanted union\u00a0and business leaders to make peace over the CEO tax.\u00a0Three days before Christmas, he called key players to Room 201 at City Hall and demanded they compromise. He spoke for about 15 minutes and then left the warring sides to hash out an accord.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made his pitch, then he asked us basically to work it out,\u201d said Wade Rose, who leads a business coalition called Advance SF and attended the sit-down. The meeting became testy, Rose said. \u201cIt just wasn\u2019t going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less than a month later, the two sides gathered again, this time at the sleek offices of Larsen\u2019s cryptocurrency company, Ripple. (Ripple, which is a private company that doesn\u2019t disclose CEO compensation, declined to comment on whether they would be subject to the tax.) The meeting was brokered by Louis Giraudo, a well-known lawyer and businessman whose family popularized San Francisco sourdough.<\/p>\n
Giraudo urged the labor leaders to \u201crealize that you can talk to these people and get something done,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone really wanted a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Giraudo\u2019s diplomatic touch, those talks also fizzled \u2014\u00a0to the dismay of\u00a0Larsen, who had cast himself as a local-born everyman eager for a truce.\u00a0Larsen aired his frustration at a gala at the Fairmont Hotel\u00a0where he was inducted into a San Francisco business hall of fame, taking a place alongside\u00a0real estate magnate Walter Shorenstein and finance luminary Charles Schwab.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to be prepared, all of us, for a permanent political fight,\u201d Larsen said at the event.\u00a0Businesses have got \u201cto fight on par with the unions when they are proposing stupid, job-killing ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larsen\u2019s politics defy easy classification. A major Democratic donor who backed Kamala Harris, he is beloved by climate activists for his support of their causes. Ripple also donated $4.9 million to Trump\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n
In the current environment, \u201cyou better be having unlikely allies,\u201d Larsen said, arguing that he wants to pull both Republicans and Democrats toward\u00a0the center. But the entrepreneur has been especially forceful in opposing progressive groups and unions he says want to treat business leaders as punching bags.<\/p>\n
Since 2025, Larsen and his company have funneled more than $19.6 million into groups that support pro-business politics, lawmakers and ballot measures. With fellow crypto billionaire Tim Draper, he started a political group\u00a0to help elect\u00a0centrist Democrats and Republicans to the California statehouse.<\/p>\n
Progressive leaders have used Larsen\u2019s public comments to stir up their supporters. A video of Larsen calling for business to \u201cstop being so meek and so weak,\u201d and to \u201cfight on par with the unions\u201d was shared widely by labor groups.<\/p>\n
Officials concerned about San Francisco\u2019s affordability have been critical of Larsen and other business interests they see as refusing to address the city\u2019s economic strains.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf billionaires can afford to peel off millions\u00a0to involve themselves in local politics they can afford to pay these taxes,\u201d said Aaron Peskin, a former member of the city\u2019s Board of Supervisors. He believes\u00a0Larsen\u2019s influx of money will have a short-lived impact once\u00a0\u201cSan Francisco wakes up to the fact that\u00a0people who are buying favors from Trump\u2019s authoritarian administration are trying to have their way here.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Lurie, the tax fight amounts to a rupture of the labor-corporate peace and \u201copen for business\u201d message his election was supposed to represent. The new mayor promised to bridge the divide between the Bay Area\u2019s business community and its working class in a lasting fashion, but now, some business leaders fear the city is backsliding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis tax coming on the horizon seems like a throwback from an earlier era in San Francisco politics,\u201d said Jay Cheng, who until last week led a group called\u00a0Neighbors for a Better San Francisco\u00a0that has raised $10 million to oppose the CEO tax and progressive candidates. \u201cThe signal it sends to business is that nothing has really changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lurie said in a statement that the tax fight is a \u201cclear sign of a broken system that rewards insiders at the expense of everyday San Franciscans.\u201d He has lashed out at both labor and business, arguing that neither side\u2019s efforts will improve the city\u2019s economic outlook.\u00a0Lurie is supporting a November ballot measure that would make it harder to place similar initiatives before voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot be complacent about our recovery, and dueling proposals that produce longer, more confusing ballots reward division over consensus,\u201d\u00a0Lurie said.<\/p>\n
Some of the players involved said Lurie is still trying to figure out how to balance competing prerogatives without damaging his relationships.\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s new to this,\u201d\u00a0said Rose, the Advance SF leader.<\/p>\n
A person familiar with Lurie\u2019s thinking said the mayor is trying to maintain his relationship with the city\u2019s largest unions, who he needs to back other priorities from reforming San Francisco\u2019s arcane city charter to backing a real estate tax to fund the local transit authority. Those ties were strained after Lurie laid off more than 100 city workers this month, with more potential cuts looming, as he seeks to close San Francisco\u2019s deficit.<\/p>\n
Larsen, meanwhile, isn\u2019t backing down.<\/p>\n
Through mid-April, he had poured about $700,000 into fighting the executive\u00a0tax, according to campaign filings, and along with his wife, the philanthropist Lyna Lam, gave\u00a0$2 million to a committee supporting Lurie\u2019s efforts to \u201cclean up city hall\u201d by empowering the mayor and making it more difficult to get initiatives on the ballot.<\/p>\n
Larsen has\u00a0spent hundreds of thousands\u00a0more to support a sales tax to fund local transit and an infrastructure bond, both priorities for Lurie. And he has given more than $10 million to fund city street sweepings, Christmas-tree lightings, police-surveillance cameras and other civic projects.<\/p>\n
Nationally, he has emerged as a defender of businesses that he feels have been unfairly targeted by politicians, regardless of party.\u00a0He has backed an ad campaign against US\u00a0Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, over his opposition to clean energy-subsidies. Roy, undeterred by the ad push, has vowed to double down on\u00a0his anti-green agenda.<\/p>\n
Larsen, whose father was a union member, said he wants San Francisco labor\u00a0leaders to know he isn\u2019t an \u201carrogant billionaire who\u2019s\u00a0looking down on them,\u201d\u00a0and respects their effectiveness.\u00a0\u201cThere needs to be a lot more dialogue,\u201d\u00a0he said in a conference room at Ripple\u2019s offices. At the same time, Larsen said he won\u2019t shrink from confrontation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fine if things are uncomfortable,\u201d\u00a0Larsen said, leaning back in\u00a0his chair. \u201cI like conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n