These billionaire winners—and losers—of the failed California recall election
California Governor Gavin Newsom and the largest donor to his recall effort, Netflix cofounder and CEO Reed Hastings.alifornia Governor Gavin Newsom’s victory in the state’s September 14 recall election was helped by the overwhelming support of billionaires. Of the 28 billionaire donors thatidentified who donated to the recall’s largest campaign finance committees, 26 supported keeping Newsom in office. Together these donors poured $9.2 million into two committees opposing the recall .
Among the largest donors opposing the recall: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings , Connie Ballmer, who is married to Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer , and Priscilla Chan, the wife of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg . Some of these donors gave even more to Newsom’s own gubernatorial campaign committee—contributions not tallied in this article.
“Many of California's billionaires come from the technology sector,” Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, told. “They see Democrats as more sympathetic to science and international trade. They are leery of Republican positions on social issues and immigration.” Still, a couple of billionaire supporters of the recall did hail from Silicon Valley, too. Chamath Palihapitiya, the founder of VC firm Social Capital, gave $200,000 to two committees supporting the recall efforts, and Douglas Leone, who is a managing partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, gave $50,000 to one of the committees supporting the recall.
Here’s a closer look at the donors—billionaires and their spouses—that Forbes found, according to a review of state filings of committees that raised at least $1 million in the recall efforts.
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