San Francisco, CA
Tech titans flood San Francisco mayoral race with big-dollar donations – Washington Examiner
Tech titans are heavily invested in San Francisco’s mayoral race, flooding millions of dollars into the tight political contest with less than a month to go before the election.
Billionaires and millionaires, such as Camilo Acosta, are fed up with the city’s political system, which is often accused of prioritizing progressive ideology over common sense. The city has a homelessness, crime, drug, and theft problem that has seen little improvement over the years.
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Acosta, who founded a start-up sold to Meta in 2020, told the Los Angeles Times his office had been broken into and his laptops looted. Another time, a homeless man wandered into his office in the middle of a manic episode.
Police offered little to no help during both terrifying incidents, he said.
Frustrated with the path San Francisco is on, Acosta, who currently runs a $30-million fund that invests in artificial intelligence, is opening up his wallet in the hope that his contributions will help chart a new course.
Acosta is throwing his financial weight behind Daniel Lurie, a nonprofit executive and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, who is in the running against incumbent Democratic Mayor London Breed.
There are 13 candidates in the high-stakes race, but the top five include Breed, Lurie, former interim Mayor Mark Ferrell, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, and Supervisor Ahsha Safai.
In addition to addressing San Francisco’s decadeslong problems, including a lagging post-pandemic economic recovery, the city is ushering in a new area of AI, and the tech industry is paying attention.
This year’s campaign contributions by wealthy tech executives, venture capitalists, and others woven into the industry mark a notable shift in their eagerness to reshape local politics. Two decades ago, San Francisco courted major tech companies with financial incentives and promises of a more active environment. Now, with its roots in deep, big tech wants more say in how the city is managed.
“It used to be that all of us down in Silicon Valley, people thought of San Francisco as an old-fashioned town, not a technology town,” Russell Hancock, president and chief executive of the think-tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley, said, adding that the view has “changed significantly” and that San Francisco has became “a major epicenter.”
Here are some of the big names who have donated to San Francisco’s mayoral contest.
Jan Koum, worth $15.2 billion, backing Lurie
Koum, co-founder and retired CEO of WhatsApp, has contributed $500,000 to a committee supporting Lurie. Koum is fairly new to San Francisco politics but has previously spent generously on various Jewish or pro-Israeli causes and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
Chris Larsen, worth $3.1 billion, backing Breed
Larsen, a crypto billionaire, is ready to use his considerable clout and bank account to get Breed reelected.
Larsen, a self-made businessman and angel investor best known for co-founding Silicon Valley startup Ripple Labs, spent $750,000 before the March primary supporting two of Breed’s ballot measures that give law enforcement easy access to surveillance tools, such as drones and license plate readers, and another that demands accountability for welfare recipients.
He has also donated $600,000 to an independent committee backing Breed.
Tony Xu, worth $2.4 billion, backing Breed
Xu, a Chinese-American billionaire businessman, co-founded DoorDash with his friends at Stanford University in 2013. He led the company’s IPO in 2020, making him a billionaire at 36 years old.
Born in Nanjing, China, Xu immigrated to the United States when he was 5 years old.
He has given Breed’s camp $100,000.
Oleg Nodelman, worth at least $105 million, backing Lurie
Nodelman, founder of the biotech investment advisory firm EroR1, has given Laurie close to $500,000.
Before EcoR1, he was a portfolio manager at BVF Parkerts, one of the first hedge funds that invested in the biotech sector. He’s also a board member for three publicly traded companies focused on biotechnology.
Garrison Mason Morfit, net worth $75 million, backing Lurie
Morfit, CEO of ValueAct Holdings, gave $100,000 to “Believe in SF, Lurie for Mayor” PAC on Sept. 16.
ValueAct Capital is a San Francisco-based investment firm with more than $10 billion in assets under management. Morfit serves on the advisory council for Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and previously served on the board at Microsoft.
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Jonathan Gans, multimillionaire, backing Lurie
Gans, president of Ironwood Capital Management, has given Laurie $300,000.
He joined the firm in 1996 as a member of its Investment & Risks committee and is a trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco mayor says he convinced Trump in phone call not to surge federal agents to city
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie told CBS News Friday that he was able to convince President Trump in a phone call several months ago not to deploy federal agents to San Francisco.
In a live interview with “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil, Lurie, a moderate Democrat, said that the president called him while he was sitting in a car.
“I took the call, and his first question to me was, ‘How’s it going there?’” Lurie recounted.
In October, sources told CBS News that the president was planning to surge Border Patrol agents to San Francisco as part of the White House’s ongoing immigration crackdown that has seen it deploy federal immigration officers to cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans and most recently, Minneapolis.
At the time, the reports prompted pushback from California officials, including Lurie and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
However, shortly after that report, Mr. Trump announced that he had called off the plan to “surge” federal agents to San Francisco following a conversation with Lurie.
“I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post on Oct. 23. The president also noted that “friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge.”
“I told him what I would tell you,” Lurie said Friday of his October call with Mr. Trump. “San Francisco is a city on the rise, crime is at historic lows, all economic indicators are on the right direction, and our local law enforcement is doing an incredible job.”
Going back to the pandemic, San Francisco has often been the strong focus of criticism from Republican lawmakers over its struggles in combatting crime and homelessness. It was voter frustration over those issues that helped Lurie defeat incumbent London Breed in November 2024.
Lurie, however, acknowledged that the city still has “a lot of work to do.”
“I’m clear-eyed about our challenges still,” Lurie said. “In the daytime, we have really ended our drug markets. At night, we still struggle on some of the those blocks that you see.”
An heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune, Lurie also declined Friday to say whether he supports a proposed California ballot initiative that would institute a one-time 5% tax on the state’s billionaires.
“I stay laser-focused on what I can control, and that’s what’s happening here in San Francisco,” Lurie said. “I don’t get involved on what may or may not happen up in Sacramento, or frankly, for that matter, D.C.”
Thursday marks one year in office for San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie.
Lurie was elected in the 14th round of ranked choice voting in 2024, beating incumbent London Breed.
His campaign centered around public safety and revitalization of the city.
Mayor Lurie is also celebrating a significant drop in crime; late last week, the police chief said crime hit historic lows in 2025.
- Overall violent crime dropped 25% in the city, which includes the lowest homicide rate since the 1950s.
- Robberies are down 24%.
- Car break-ins are down 43%.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins spoke with NBC Bay Area about this accomplishment. Watch the full interview in the video player above.
San Francisco says traffic deaths plunged 42% last year.
While the city celebrates the numbers, leaders say there’s still a lot more work to do.
“We are so glad to see fewer of these tragedies on our streets last year, and I hope this is a turning point for this city,” said Marta Lindsey with Walk San Francisco.
Marta is cautiously optimistic as the city looks to build on its street safety efforts.
“The city has been doing more of the things we need on our streets, whether its speed cameras or daylighting or speed humps,” she said.
Viktorya Wise with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said there are many things the agency has been doing to ensure street safety is the focus, including adding speed cameras at 33 locations, and it’s paying off.
“Besides the visible speed cameras, we’re doing a lot of basic bread and butter work on our streets,” Wise said. “For example, we’re really data driven and focused on the high injury network.”
Late last year, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced the city’s street safety initiative.
“Bringing together all of the departments, all of the city family to collectively tackle the problem of street safety,” Wise said. “And all of us working together into the future, I’m very hopeful that we will continue this trend.”
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