California’s tech companies, the epicenter of the state’s economy, sent politicians a loud message this year: Back down from restrictive artificial intelligence regulation or they’ll leave.

The tactic appeared to have worked, activists said, because some politicians weakened or scrapped guardrails to mitigate AI’s biggest risks.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected a bill aimed at making companion chatbots safer for children after the tech industry fought it. In his veto message, the governor raised concerns about placing broad limits on AI, which has sparked a massive investment spree and created new billionaires overnight around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Assembly Bill 1064 would have barred companion chatbot operators from making these AI systems available to minors unless the chatbots weren’t “foreseeably capable” of certain conduct, including encouraging a child to engage in self-harm. Newsom said he supported the goal, but feared it would unintentionally bar minors from using AI tools and learning how to use technology safely.

“We cannot prepare our youth for a future where AI is ubiquitous by preventing their use of these tools altogether,” he wrote in his veto message.

The bill’s veto was a blow to child safety advocates who had pushed it through the state Legislature and a win for tech industry groups that fought it. In social media ads, groups such as TechNet had urged the public to tell the governor to veto the bill because it would harm innovation and lead to students falling behind in school.

Organizations trying to rein in the world’s largest tech companies as they advance the powerful technology say the tech industry has become more empowered at the national and state levels.

Meta, Google, OpenAI, Apple and other major tech companies have strengthened their relationships with the Trump administration. Companies are funding new organizations and political action committees to push back against state AI policy while pouring money into lobbying.

In Sacramento, AI companies have lobbied behind the scenes for more freedom. California’s massive pool of engineering talent, tech investors and companies make it an attractive place for the tech industry, but companies are letting policymakers know that other states are also interested in attracting those investments and jobs. Big Tech is particularly sensitive to regulations in the Golden State because so many companies are headquartered there and must abide by its rules.

“We believe California can strike a better balance between protecting consumers and enabling responsible technological growth,” Robert Boykin, TechNet’s executive director for California and the Southwest, said in a statement.

Common Sense Media founder and Chief Executive Jim Steyer said tech lobbyists put tremendous pressure on Newsom to veto AB 1064. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that rates and reviews technology and entertainment for families, sponsored the bill.

“They threaten to hurt the economy of California,” he said. “That’s the basic message from the tech companies.”

Advertising is among the tactics tech companies with deep pockets use to convince politicians to kill or weaken legislation. Even if the governor signs a bill, companies have at times sued to block new laws from taking effect.

“If you’re really trying to do something bold with tech policy, you have to jump over a lot of hurdles,” said David Evan Harris, senior policy advisor at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, which supported AB 1064. The group focuses on finding state-level solutions to threats that AI, disinformation and emerging technologies pose to democracy.

Tech companies have threatened to move their headquarters and jobs to other states or countries, a risk looming over politicians and regulators.

The California Chamber of Commerce, a broad-based business advocacy group that includes tech giants, launched a campaign this year that warned over-regulation could stifle innovation and hinder California.

“Making competition harder could cause California companies to expand elsewhere, costing the state’s economy billions,” the group said on its website.

From January to September, the California Chamber of Commerce spent $11.48 million lobbying California lawmakers and regulators on a variety of bills, filings to the California secretary of state show. During that period, Meta spent $4.13 million. A lobbying disclosure report shows that Meta paid the California Chamber of Commerce $3.1 million, making up the bulk of their spending. Google, which also paid TechNet and the California Chamber of Commerce, spent $2.39 million.

Amazon, Uber, DoorDash and other tech companies spent more than $1 million each. TechNet spent around $800,000.

The threat that California companies could move away has caught the attention of some politicians.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who has investigated tech companies over child safety concerns, indicated that despite initial concern, his office wouldn’t oppose ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s restructuring plans. The new structure gives OpenAI’s nonprofit parent a stake in its for-profit public benefit corporation and clears the way for OpenAI to list its shares.

Bonta blessed the restructuring partly because of OpenAI’s pledge to stay in the state.

“Safety will be prioritized, as well as a commitment that OpenAI will remain right here in California,” he said in a statement last week. The AG’s office, which supervises charitable trusts and ensures these assets are used for public benefit, had been investigating OpenAI’s restructuring plan over the last year and a half.

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said he’s glad to stay in California.

“California is my home, and I love it here, and when I talked to Attorney General Bonta two weeks ago I made clear that we were not going to do what those other companies do and threaten to leave if sued,” he posted on X.

Critics — which included some tech leaders such as Elon Musk, Meta and former OpenAI executives as well as nonprofits and foundations — have raised concerns about OpenAI’s restructuring plan. Some warned it would allow startups to exploit charitable tax exemptions and let OpenAI prioritize financial gain over public good.

Lawmakers and advocacy groups say it’s been a mixed year for tech regulation. The governor signed Assembly Bill 56, which requires platforms to display labels for minors that warn about social media’s mental health harms. Another piece of signed legislation, Senate Bill 53, aims to make AI developers more transparent about safety risks and offers more whistleblower protections.

The governor also signed a bill that requires chatbot operators to have procedures to prevent the production of suicide or self-harm content. But advocacy groups, including Common Sense Media, removed their support for Senate Bill 243 because they said the tech industry pushed for changes that weakened its protections.

Newsom vetoed other legislation that the tech industry opposed, including Senate Bill 7, which requires employers to notify workers before deploying an “automated decision system” in hiring, promotions and other employment decisions.

Called the “No Robo Bosses Act,” the legislation didn’t clear the governor, who thought it was too broad.

“A lot of nuance was demonstrated in the lawmaking process about the balance between ensuring meaningful protections while also encouraging innovation,” said Julia Powles, a professor and executive director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law & Policy.

The battle over AI safety is far from over. Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), who co-wrote AB 1064, said she plans to revive the legislation.

Child safety is an issue that both Democrats and Republicans are examining after parents sued AI companies such as OpenAI and Character.AI for allegedly contributing to their children’s suicides.

“The harm that these chatbots are causing feels so fast and furious, public and real that I thought we would have a different outcome,” Bauer-Kahan said. “It’s always fascinating to me when the outcome of policy feels to be disconnected from what I believe the public wants.”

Steyer from Common Sense Media said a new ballot initiative includes the AI safety protections that Newsom vetoed.

“That was a setback, but not an overall defeat,” he said about the veto of AB 1064. “This is a David and Goliath situation, and we are David.”

Unionized Starbucks baristas have voted overwhelmingly to authorize their leaders to call a strike as soon as next week if the coffee giant doesn’t make new proposals or they don’t see real progress in contract talks.

The authorization was approved by 92% of those who voted, Starbucks Workers United said Wednesday morning.

Michelle Eisen, a spokesperson for the union and a former Starbucks worker of 15 years, said the vote follows six months of Starbucks failing to offer new proposals to address workers’ staffing concerns.

The union said baristas were prepared to strike if a contract is not finalized by Nov. 13.

“Union baristas mean business and are ready to do whatever it takes to win a fair contract,” Eisen said in a statement. “If Starbucks keeps stonewalling, they should expect to see their business grind to a halt. The ball is in Starbucks’ court.”

Starbucks did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Starbucks Workers United represents 12,000 workers at some 650 coffee shops. Their membership represents about 5% of Starbucks’ U.S. workforce, according to the company.

The strike authorization vote, just before the critical holiday season, comes as the coffee giant has contended with flat or declining sales in some U.S. stores this year.

Hopes that the two sides would be able to hammer out a deal had been high since early last year, when Starbucks — which had previously been accused by federal regulators of unlawfully firing workers — pledged publicly to work with the union.

But contract talks broke down in December. In February, federal mediators were brought in to resolve the dispute, but little progress was made.

In April, the union voted to reject the coffee chain’s latest proposal that guaranteed annual raises would not fall below 2%.

Since then, the union has regularly asked the company to return to the bargaining table, but has been met with silence for months, Eisen has said.

Unionized workers have also taken issue with recent store closures that have affected dozens of California stores, and new policies such as the updated uniform and requirements for handwritten messages on coffee cups that they say create bigger workloads. They say these policies have been implemented without proper bargaining, and are among the reasons workers are gearing up for a strike.

The company has maintained that the union is to blame for stalled contract talks by walking away from negotiations last winter.

Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said last month that “allegations by Workers United have all previously been debunked and are without merit.”

“Our commitment to bargaining with Workers United and reaching agreements has not changed,” Anderson said.

Duane Roberts made millions off a food he was initially wholly ignorant of: the humble burrito.

It was the 1950s, and his family owned a small meat wholesaler called the Butcher Boy that sold patties to local restaurants, including one of the first operating McDonald’s, a location in San Bernardino.

As the fast-food chain and other burger joints grew in popularity, the family brainstormed other products they could manufacture, Roberts recalled in a 2007 interview with the Orange County Register.

A butcher who worked at the company, whom Roberts described as having Hispanic heritage, made a suggestion: “Why don’t you make a burrito?”

“I loved Mexican food, but I had no idea what a burrito was,” Roberts told the Register, saying he was more familiar with enchiladas and tacos.

But the entrepreneurial Roberts went on to turn that seed of an idea into a bean and beef burrito that could be sold frozen and then deep-fried.

Roberts, who would parlay his business success into a prominent role in Inland Empire Republican politics and attain local fame as owner of the historic Mission Inn, died Saturday, according to his family. He was 88.

The story goes that the Riverside businessman experimented in the kitchen for two days straight to get the burrito right. Its sales helped expand the family business from one plant with 60 workers to six plants with 1,400 workers.

Roberts made millions off the product when he sold the company to Central Soya Inc. in 1980. At the time, the company was generating $80 million in annual sales and producing 1 million burritos each day.

His wife, Kelly J. Roberts, said in a statement that her husband was a “visionary entrepreneur, devoted husband, and a man whose heart and generosity forever shaped [their] family and community.” She said he died peacefully in his sleep.

She described Roberts as a “proud American” who served in the United States military and was a “staunch supporter” of the Republican Party.

“[H]e believed passionately in the principles of hard work, perseverance and opportunity, values that guided both his business ventures and his life,” she said.

Roberts hosted a reelection fundraiser for then-President George W. Bush in 2003, and his wife was President Trump’s pick for ambassador to Slovenia during Trump’s first term — although she later pulled herself out of the running, Politico reported.

The businessman, who grew up in Riverside, is also known for saving the historic Mission Inn from the brink of demolition.

The hotel — which hosted both the marriage of the Nixons and the honeymoon of the Reagans — closed for a major overhaul in 1985, but the renovation dragged on, and then the hotel market collapsed. Roberts swept in offering $15.6 million, a steal when compared with the $55 million spent on the renovation, financed by Chemical Bank.

The bank acquiesced, however, fearing more losses. Roberts reopened the Mission Inn in 1992.

“How the Mission Inn was saved is the happy tale of a city’s heart restarted,” former Times reporter Daniel Akst wrote after its reopening. “But it’s also an object lesson in what you can do if you’re solvent — and clever — during the worst recession in Southern California since the 1930s.”

Roberts had a sentimental attachment to the hotel, as his meat company had sometimes entertained clients there. His mother also loved the ornate architecture.

“I like beautiful old things. The Mission Inn is the fabric that binds the community together. It’s a heart-welling thing to own. Some people have sports teams, I have my Mission Inn,” he told the Register in 2007.

Roberts and his wife have been longtime residents of Laguna Beach, but earlier this year they purchased a $48.5-million Palm Beach estate, the latest example of wealthy Californians and Trump fans flocking to Florida.

He is survived by his wife and his stepchildren Doug and Casey.