Tom Steyer, the hedge fund founder turned climate activist with an estimated net worth of $2.4bn, has built his campaign for governor of California around taxing the ultra-wealthy. Despite his billionaire status, Steyer is pitching himself as a different kind of rich candidate: one who wants people like him to pay far more in taxes.
Speaking at a campaign event in East Los Angeles, Steyer acknowledged public skepticism of billionaires. “People are very skeptical of billionaires because we’ve seen so many billionaires being selfish and arrogant,” he said, wearing a beige baseball cap embroidered with the words “class traitor”.
Steyer’s candidacy comes at a time of rising anti-elite populism in the US. A Harris Poll survey last year found that 53% of Americans believe billionaires threaten democracy, up 7 points from 2024. Nearly 80% said they would support a billionaire who “challenges unjust systems”.
California, home to more billionaires than any other US state, faces a deep affordability crisis. Voters are seeking a governor who will “upend the system”, according to Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. The union has endorsed Steyer alongside former congresswoman Katie Porter and former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Steyer is not alone in testing the Democratic Party’s appetite for a populist from the 1%. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Hyatt hotel chain heir, is running for a third term and is widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate. In San Francisco, centimillionaire tech entrepreneur Saikat Chakrabarti is self-funding a bid to succeed retiring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Wealthy Democrats have a long history, from Franklin Roosevelt to John F Kennedy, who framed their privilege as a responsibility to serve the public. As early voting begins for the 2 June primary, Steyer is racing to convince Californians that his “elect-the-rich-guy-to-eat-the-rich” candidacy is not a contradiction.
