Leftist billionaires are an odd lot. Having accumulated great wealth through capitalism, they donate enormous sums to organizations committed to socialism. George Soros and the lesser-known Neville Singham epitomize this type, though mercifully without seeking public office. Tom Steyer, a former San Francisco-based hedge fund executive with an estimated net worth of around $2 billion, however, is seeking public office. Steyer, who ran for president in 2020, wants to be California’s next governor. As of mid-April, he’d already spent $132 million toward that goal, far more than any of his opponents. That might pay off in the June 2 Democratic primary, especially with ex-Congressman Eric Swalwell having dropped out. As one will see later, Steyer and Soros often contribute to the same causes.
Tom Steyer doesn’t lack for endorsements. Groups such as California Environmental Voters, Abundant Housing LA, and the California state chapters of the Service Employees International Union and National Nurses United, and individuals such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., have announced their support. More indicative of the size and enthusiasm of Steyer’s base, however, is Our Revolution, a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit that grew out of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. The group’s website declares: “Our Revolution was founded by Bernie Sanders as an independent organization to take on corporate power, elect progressives, and fight for a government that works for all of us – not the billionaire class.” Elsewhere, the site declares:
Tom Steyer has stepped forward with a platform that is clearly aligned with the priorities of our movement – single-payer healthcare, taxing extreme wealth, bold climate action, and getting money out of politics. He didn’t just seek our endorsement – he engaged directly with our organizers and demonstrated a real commitment to a people-first agenda.
Reading this standard populist-Left boilerplate, it is hard to avoid noticing the irony of an anti-billionaire organization casting its lot with a billionaire – and under the guise of “getting money out of politics.” Not to worry. Our Revolution has an answer for that: “Yes, Tom Steyer is a billionaire. But it matters what he is doing with that power: pushing for taxes on the wealthy, expanding universal programs, and dismantling corporate influence in our politics.” In other words, Steyer is a good billionaire, not an evil one like Donald Trump.
Steyer speaks the group’s language. “Our Revolution has done the hard, essential work of organizing and empowering progressive voters for a decade,” he states. “I’m honored to receive this endorsement, and as Governor, I’ll work tirelessly to realize our shared vision of a California that works for working people.” That vision includes a single-payer (i.e., government monopoly) health care system that would eliminate insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Such a plan would be funded by – what else? – higher taxes on “the rich.”
Now 68, Thomas Fahr Steyer grew up in an affluent part of Manhattan, “born to the manor,” as the adage would have it. His father, a partner with New York legal powerhouse Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, early in his career had been an assistant prosecutor in the Nuremberg war crimes trials. His mother was a remedial reading instructor at the Brooklyn detention center. Young Tom was primed for success. He graduated with honors from Phillips Exeter Academy, Yale, and then Stanford, where he received his M.B.A. After working for several years in various investment houses, including Goldman Sachs, he founded a San Francisco hedge fund in 1986 called Farallon Capital, providing $15 million in seed money. Over the next quarter-century, assets under management grew to $20 billion, especially via buyouts of financially distressed enterprises. Private corrections facilities and coal mines were among the major investments.
Steyer left Farallon in 2012 to expand upon his philanthropy. The effort already had been underway. In 2010, Steyer and his wife, Kathryn “Kat” Taylor, had signed onto Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ global philanthropy, The Giving Pledge. The following year, the couple founded Advanced Energy Economy, a lobbying group advocating transformation to a “green” economy. During that period, the Steyers also started up a computer distribution and literacy enterprise, a community development bank, and a sustainable agriculture project.
Good intentions aside, Tom Steyer in relatively short order became a paymaster for Leftist activism, especially in the context of the Democratic Party. According to the transparency monitoring group Open Secrets, Steyer, mainly with outside money, donated a combined $312.4 million to Democratic candidates and organizations during the election cycles of 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020. The donations since then have sharply dropped, but not because of a loss of interest in politics, as his candidacy for California governor demonstrates.
Steyer’s defining project is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, NextGen America, and its affiliated “527” Super PAC known as the NextGen Climate Action Committee. He formed NextGen America in 2013 as a way of registering and mobilizing young adult voters in support of radical approaches to renewable energy, climate change, immigration and other issues. The NextGen Climate Action Committee spent over $19 million in support of Democratic candidates during the 2014 election cycle, upping that to over $25 million in seven battleground states during the 2016 cycle. These figures would pale before NextGen’s $123 million in campaign contributions in the 2018 election cycle, of which a staggering $40 million went to an anti-Trump initiative called Need to Impeach. Given that about three-fifths of the 22 House of Representatives candidates backed by NextGen during that latter cycle were victorious, it is fair to say that those wins aided in the House’s impeachment of Trump on two charges in December 2019.
Another multibillionaire-funded outfit also has donated large sums to the NextGen project. That would be George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. The OSF “grants past” Web page indicates three contributions totaling $1.35 million. Two of them went to NextGen Climate Action in 2022 and 2023, respectively, for $1 million and $250,000. Another $100,000 had been sent to a related outfit, the Fund for Educational Excellence, in 2020.
The Steyer-Soros donation overlap was even more pronounced in a Super PAC known as State Victory Action. Founded in 2018, the Raleigh-N.C.-based outfit raises funds for Democratic candidates in state elections. The group entered the fray with lavish seed money from multiple sources. George Soros personally donated $4.25 million, while Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action Committee provided a hefty $3.5 million. Other large donors were hedge fund executive David Sussman ($2.5 million), the State Engagement Fund ($2.65 million), the Service Employees International Union ($1 million) and billionaire real estate heiress Amy Goldman Fowler ($1 million). Cumulatively, through March 2026, the largest donors have been the State Engagement Fund ($8.35 million), which is a creation of the left-of-center Democracy Alliance; the Strategic Victory Fund ($6.1 million); and the Strategic Victory Fund IE PAC ($4.5 million). These three sources add up to about $19 million.
The Steyer-Soros connection, then, is less one of collaboration or a conspiracy than a consequence of a shared worldview, one defined by egalitarianism, multiculturalism, and environmental doomsday rhetoric. The paths of the two also crossed face to face once their donations had come to the attention of President Barack Obama. In February 2014, Steyer and Soros met with presidential counselor John Podesta for a White House lunch. The visitor log revealed that the meeting occurred shortly after Steyer had publicly committed himself to donating upward of $100 million for the 2014 election cycle. The topic at hand was global climate change, specifically, the United Nations-sponsored climate summit in New York scheduled for later that year and the UN climate treaty talks in Paris set for 2015.
Tom Steyer’s exposure to progressive politics at the highest level speeded up his transformation into a politician in his own right. He became adept in delivering Leftist sound bites. Republicans in 2018 who supported President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, Steyer declared, were “a group of very rich, very entitled white men.” Much more recently, during the current campaign for governor, he blamed “corporate special interests” for driving up the cost of living in California. He also called for shutting down U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), a “criminal organization.”
If there was one campaign that served as a prototype for Tom Steyer’s political ambitions, it was Andrew Gillum’s 2018 run for Florida governor. Formerly the mayor of Tallahassee, Gillum seemed the perfect candidate – young, black and progressive. And he established a platform to appeal to socialist activists. He supported, among things, Medicare for All, a $15 an hour minimum wage, and an increase in public school spending to be paid for by $1 billion in additional taxes on corporations.
Steyer was ready with his checkbook. He donated $800,000 to Gillum’s primary campaign and another $5 million to his general election campaign. George Soros and family members were also ready. They donated at least $1.3 million to the Gillum campaign via a PAC called Forward Florida. It was a tight race; the Republican candidate (and a far superior one at that), Ron DeSantis, defeated Gillum that November by less than a half-percentage point. Had Gillum won, Florida, now with 30 Electoral College votes, most likely would not be the “red” state it is today.
Money buys access to power. But it doesn’t necessarily buy an election, in California or anywhere else. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman spent over $175 million as a Republican candidate for California governor in 2010 yet lost in the general election to Jerry Brown by 54 percent to 41 percent. Billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso in 2022 spent over $100 million running for mayor of Los Angeles, eventually losing in the general election to former Congresswoman Karen Bass by 55 percent to 45 percent. Former New York City Mayor and multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion of his own money as a Democratic candidate for president in 2020 but dropped out of the race after Super Tuesday. And our current man of the hour, Tom Steyer, shelled out around $350 million in that 2020 race before ending his campaign after a poor showing in the South Carolina primary.
The current California governor’s race involves multiple candidates in both parties, but with no clear frontrunner. If opinion polls are any guide, Tom Steyer is competitive. In a poll conducted by Survey USA, London-born media commentator Steve Hilton led all candidates with 20 percent, with Steyer close behind at 18 percent, followed by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco at 12 percent and former Congressman/Biden-era Health & Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra at 10 percent. Hilton and Bianco are Republicans; Becerra is a Democrat. In somewhat less favorable news to Steyer, a survey conducted by research firm Evitarus indicated Hilton and Becerra tied at 18 percent, followed by Bianco at 14 percent and Steyer at 12 percent.
When incumbent two-term California Governor Gavin Newsom leaves office in January, it is almost given that he’ll run for president. Frankly, it’s hard to think of any positive achievements of his. Yet to his credit, he has shown a willingness to pull back from radical nostrums when the political winds haven’t blown in his direction. That was the case last October when Newsom vetoed five separate bills that would have supported the activities of a newly-created slavery reparations office. And it’s still the case given his open opposition to the proposed Billionaire Tax Act, set for a voter referendum in November. (For the record, Steyer thinks this one-time, five percent tax on high-net-worth Californians “doesn’t go far enough.”)
Tom Steyer has a more zealous base than Newsom and appears less swayed by political pressure. He’s a Bernie Bro, after all. Equally distressing, if elected governor, he likely would continue funding his favored nonprofit groups. A sitting governor typically is allowed to make such donations, though state laws vary with respect to issues such as ethics, reporting requirements, tax status, dollar limits and fund sources. Win or lose, Steyer’s informal partnership with the Soros network appears unbreakable. One hopes that in a few years California will cut its ties to both.
Carl F. Horowitz is an NLPC senior fellow.
