Remember 2019–2020, when a hedge-fund billionaire who made part of his fortune investing in coal and oil decided he was suddenly the planet’s moral conscience and spent $350 million trying to buy the Democratic presidential nomination? That same asshole just announced he’s running for California governor in 2026.
Tom Steyer is back, and he’s bringing the same playbook:
- Flood the airwaves with his own money (he once dropped $120 million on a single primary season)
- Lecture Californians about “corporate greed” while sitting on a $2 billion personal fortune
- Pretend the tax loophole he “closed” in 2012 wasn’t a carefully crafted giveaway to in-state corporations that crushed out-of-state competitors.
- Act like he’s the only one who’s ever “taken on Big Oil,” even though he literally owned stakes in Indonesian coal mines and Australian tar-sands projects while running Farallon Capital.
California already has sky-high taxes, rolling blackouts, and the highest poverty rate in America when you adjust for cost of living. The last thing we need is another self-funded vanity candidate who thinks governing is just another impact-investing deal.
Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge fund manager turned climate activist and now 2026 California gubernatorial candidate, describes himself as a progressive capitalist, as if such divergent ideologies can co-exist.
He is an elite (Yale, Stanford) self-promoting hypocrite who billions were amassed billions through investments in coal and fossil fuels, only to become a leading anti-climate-change advocate after cashing out of his hedge fund, Farallon Capital.
Hypocrisy in Climate Activism: Profiting from Fossil Fuels While Fighting Them
Steyer has amassed billions through investments in coal and fossil fuels, only to become a leading anti-climate-change advocate after cashing out. Farallon, which he co-founded in 1986 and led until 2012, funneled money into coal mines and power plants across Asia and Australia, projects that environmentalists protested for destroying habitats and emitting massive carbon emissions.
Data Privacy Violations and Campaign Tactics
During his 2020 presidential bid, Steyer’s “Need to Impeach” super PAC (which spent $40M+ on anti-Trump ads) was accused of misleading users into sharing personal data under the guise of an impeachment petition, then using it for campaign fundraising. Critics, including journalists, called it a “sham” to game DNC debate rules and scam voters. Separately, his team was accused of stealing data from Kamala Harris’s campaign without repercussions from the DNC. He self-funded over $200M into the race but earned zero delegates, with left-leaning media dismissing him as an unqualified “billionaire trying to buy an election.”
Offshore Tax Schemes and Elite Hypocrisy
In 2000, Steyer wrote to investors about routing money through an offshore entity to dodge U.S. taxes, a typical hedge fund tactic but at odds with his calls for higher taxes on the wealthy. He’s also named in the 2016 Panama Papers for offshore dealings.
Consider The Lies in Steyer’s Campaign Commercial
The richest people in America think that they earned everything themselves. Bullshit, man. That’s so ridiculous.
There’s a reason everybody comes here to start businesses, because this is the place that invents the future. I never want to lose that spark. I’m Tom Steyer.
I wanted to build a business here that was worth billions of dollars, and I walked away from it because I wanted to give back to California. I’ve taken on out-of-state corporations that refuse to pay their California taxes. I’ve taken on the oil companies.
[OCS: Primarily by funding progressive communist democrat ballot proposition campaigns.]
I’ve taken on the tobacco companies. We’ve raised billions of dollars for Californian citizens without charging Californian citizens a nickel. Every day I was drugged by numbers.
So let’s get down to brass tacks. Californians deserve a life they can afford, but the Californians who make this state run are being run over by the cost of labor. We need to get back to business, and that means making corporations pay their fair share again.
[OCS: It is a fact the the progressive communist democrat uni-party is controlled by the public and private labor unions who negotiate with their bought-and-paid-for representatives to continue looting the State Treasury. It is also a fact that corporations do not pay taxes, the pass along any tax as the cost of doing business to their investors (lower return on investment), employees (lower wages), ratepayers (higher utility costs), and consumers.]
Californians deserve a top-10 education state. They deserve to be able to afford to live in a decent house. I will launch the largest drive to build homes that you can afford in the history of California.
[OCS: It is a fact that California’s education system no longer educates, it indoctrinates. The system is controlled by the unions who dominate California politics. Fact: Housing is crippled by burdensome zoning and building restrictions, zealous communist environmentalists, and restrictions on rental prices.]
We have the second highest electricity rates in the country. If we break up the monopolistic power utilities, we’re going to unleash a complete wave of innovation and drop our sky-high energy prices. This is about disrupting the way people think so we can get a completely different and much better outcome for the people of California.
[OCS: It is a fact that California’s utilities are controlled by corrupt politicians, who are in turned controlled by lobbyists.]
I’m saying we have a broken government. It’s been bought by corporations, and my question is, who do you think is going to change that? Sacramento politicians are afraid to change up this system. I’m not.
[OCS: Yes, we have a broken government, a uni-party run by the ham-fisted, corrupt, progressive communist democrats. Steyer will be the Governor, the Sacramento politicians will remain corrupt progressive communist democrat politicians.]
They’re going to hate this. Bring it on. I’m Tom Steyer, and I’m running for governor.
[OCS: They hate you, not the corrupt system you claim, falsely, to be able to change.]
Bottom Line
Steyer is both unlikable and unqualified, suggesting that his wealth enables him to be independent of special interests, which are the backbone of the Democratic Party.
His attempt to capitalize (pun intended) on the “affordability” as his key theme is pure bullshit, as he comes from a wealthy family and has never been affected by the progressive communist democrat policies he promotes.
We tried the billionaire-saves-California experiment once before. His name was Arnold. Then we tried the billionaire-who-talks-like-a-progressive experiment. His name was Newsom.
Tom Steyer isn’t the solution. He’s the sequel nobody asked for.
California deserves better than a hedge-fund climate warrior who discovered the principles right after cashing out.
Tom Steyer is nothing more than a thinner version of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.
We are so screwed.
— Steve
