Tom Steyer Enters California Race, Vows to Make Corporations “Pay Their Fair Share” Again
Climate activist Tom Steyer launches a California Governor bid focused on affordability, housing reform, and corporate accountability.
Billionaire Environmentalist and Democratic Megadonor Tom Steyer, 68, formally launched his campaign for California Governor on November 19, 2025, positioning himself as a populist outsider ready to confront corporate influence and soaring living costs in the nation's most populous state. In a video announcement, Steyer decried how "the Californians who make this state run are being run over by the cost of living," vowing to force corporations to "pay their fair share" through tax reforms, housing expansions, and utility deregulation. His entry into the wide-open 2026 race to succeed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom—following a $12 million personal investment in the successful Proposition 50 redistricting measure—signals a high-stakes bid likely to escalate fundraising, drawing on Steyer's estimated $2.1 billion fortune from hedge fund management. Steyer, who self-funded a $340 million 2020 presidential run that fizzled after South Carolina, now faces a crowded field of Democrats, including Rep.
Katie Porter, ex-Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and State Controller Betty Yee, alongside Republicans like Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco. Early X reactions mix optimism from progressives hailing his climate bona fides with scepticism over his billionaire status in a blue state grappling with homelessness and inequality.
Born Thomas Fahr Steyer on June 27, 1957, in New York City to a prosecutor father, Roy Steyer—who worked on the Nuremberg Trials—and remedial reading teacher mother, Marnie, Steyer grew up emphasising education and public service in a family of three brothers. He attended elite prep schools like Phillips Exeter Academy before earning a B.A. summa cum laude in economics and political science from Yale University, where he captained the soccer team, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Launching his career on Wall Street, Steyer founded Farallon Capital Management in 1986, growing it into a $20 billion hedge fund powerhouse by 2012, when he stepped down to pivot toward philanthropy and activism. That shift birthed NextGen America, his youth-focused PAC mobilising voters on climate, healthcare, and education, which has spent over $200 million since 2016; he also co-founded the nonprofit Beneficial State Bank in 2007 with his wife, reinvesting profits into underserved communities across California, Oregon, and Washington. A vocal Trump impeachment advocate who ran anti-Trump ads in 2017, Steyer's green credentials include opposing a 2010 ballot measure to repeal California's climate law and funding weather station networks for climate data.
Steyer's personal life is anchored by his 1986 marriage to Kathryn "Kat" Taylor, a Harvard track captain and Stanford law/MBA alum whom he met during marathon training, in a ceremony blending Presbyterian and Jewish traditions. The couple, who signed the Giving Pledge in 2010 to donate the majority of their wealth, share four grown children: sons Samuel "Sam" Taylor, a Harvard math grad and lacrosse player now in finance; Charles Augustus "Gus", a Yale economics alum involved in social ventures; Henry Hume, pursuing environmental policy; and daughter Evelyn Hoover "Evi", an artist and advocate.
They operate the 1,800-acre TomKat Ranch near Pescadero, a regenerative agriculture showcase promoting sustainable farming and healthy food programmes, reflecting Taylor's bohemian ethos—she boasts six tattoos and serves on interfaith councils. Steyer's brother Jim, a Stanford professor and civil rights attorney, founded Common Sense Media to safeguard kids from tech harms, collaborating recently with ex-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on anti-AI initiatives; older sibling Hume practices law in New York. Family summers at Adirondack camps instilled Steyer's outdoorsy zeal, fuelling joint ventures like OneRoof, Inc., which brought broadband to rural India and Mexico.
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Steyer's gubernatorial platform echoes New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's progressive blueprint, promising to erect 1 million affordable homes in four years via streamlined permitting and tax incentives, slash energy bills by dismantling utility monopolies and boosting competition, and offer free preschool and community college. He also pledges to ban corporate PAC donations in state elections, citing his track record of closing tax loopholes and hiking tobacco levies for healthcare. Critics, however, spotlight Farallon's past coal and migrant detention investments as hypocritical for a climate hawk, potentially fodder for rivals in a primary where Steyer's self-funding—mirroring his 2020 flop—could alienate grassroots donors.
On X, supporters like activists praise his "relentless optimism" for tackling Sacramento's "broken system", while detractors decry him as a "self-serving billionaire" akin to Newsom. As California median home prices near $900,000, Steyer's bid tests whether his wealth can translate to votes in a race projected to cost over $500 million.
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