Tom Steyer has dug into his pocket and spent more than $130 million of his money trying to become the next governor of California.
He has paid tens of thousands of dollars to influencers as part of that, literally buying the support of their followers, and that has not always been on the up-and-up. The gubernatorial hopeful has also spent more than $300,000 to get Jane Fonda and her powerful PAC behind his campaign.
This is a man who says he wants to arrest ICE and defund the agency, yet he made millions after investing $90 million into a privately owned prison company that, today, houses illegal immigrants who are held in detention centers.
Even with that big spend, he has not been able to get to the top of polling, but he did accomplish something that will serve as a nice consolation prize: he has removed the two Republicans in the field from the front-running positions.
Tom Steyer has, for the most part, self-funded his entire campaign, spending somewhere between $132-147 million as of late April. Figures vary based on the report, but they all agree he had paid more than $130 million out of pocket, according to CalMatters.
Steyer is worth an estimated $2.4 billion, so while this is a hit, in the overall scheme of things, it will just be another line item on his tax return. Pay taxes or run for governor… it was not a hard decision.
His nest egg is on the back of Farallon Capital, a $20 billion hedge fund he co-founded in 1986.
In 2020, Steyer aimed at a higher office, running for president, and blowing through north of $252 million (some sources say it was as much as $318 million). He spent all that money and never made it out of South Carolina.
His spending spree continues in this race, as he is now threatening to outspend the 2010 campaign of Meg Whitman, which set the record in California with $176 million in campaign spending.
A small chunk of that money has come from his wife’s checkbook, having donated $30,000 to Jane Fonda’s PAC. Speaking of Fonda’s PAC…
In April, Jane Fonda and her climate PAC endorsed Steyer, with Fonda stating:
“Progressives like me trust Tom.”
According to a New York Post report, that endorsement did not come cheaply. In 2024, Steyer wrote a check to Fonda’s PAC for $250,000, and another $60,000 in 2026, for a total of $310,000. Add his wife’s donation to that, and it is a pretty nice haul for Fonda.
The PAC has a history of collecting big donations from billionaires who want to run for office, such as Michael Bloomberg, who donated $250,000 to the PAC. It has also received $500,000 from the Advocacy Action Fund.
It was clear Steyer was buying his way up the polling, which I will get to in just a second. But this was about more than just buying big-name endorsements. He was also working on social media to buy the support of influencers, some of whom may have bent the rules a bit.
For instance, he reportedly paid Carlos Eduardo Espina, who has more than 14 million followers, $100,000 for "strategic advice and campaign surrogacy,” reported the New York Post.
Espina never disclosed the relationship, as he is required to do for endorsements, while making dozens of posts and reels to promote Steyer.
There is also another interesting aspect of this particular connection. Prior to Steyer and Espina connecting, Steyer was endorsed by another rich California politician, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who stated:
“I’m proud to endorse Tom Steyer for Governor. Tom is for taxing billionaires like himself. He’s for getting all corporate money out of Sacramento. And he’s for passing single payer. We should have passed CalCare 8 years ago, that’s a cause I care deeply about. Tom has also been a bold leader on climate. We need a bold progressive agenda in California. That’s why I’m supporting Tom Steyer for governor.”
Khanna then connected Steyer with Espina, who got the big payday. At the very least, this smells like a five-day old fish, but that is for you to judge.
Steyer was paying $10 for promotional videos and relatable content promoting his campaign to random social media profiles.
He had also reportedly paid Isaiah Washington $10,000. Washington produced a video on Instagram that did disclose the financial nature of the relationship, but he also had one on TikTok that did not (it has since been deleted).
There are several more of these types of arrangements, which you can see in the table below, as well as Steyer’s other expenditures. These social media influencer payments, however, are now under investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC).
| Investment | Amount | What It Bought |
|---|---|---|
| Self-funded campaign spending | ~$180 million (and counting) | Most expensive gubernatorial campaign in California history. Still trailing Becerra in latest Emerson poll. |
| Jane Fonda Climate PAC | $310,000 (plus $30K from wife Kat Taylor) | Celebrity endorsement from Fonda. PAC also received $250K from Michael Bloomberg and $500K from Advocacy Action Fund. |
| Carlos Eduardo Espina (Texas-based influencer, 14-22M followers) | $100,000 | Dozens of undisclosed posts and reels promoting Steyer to Latino voters. Filed as "strategic advice and campaign surrogacy." Never disclosed the financial relationship. Named in FPPC complaint. |
| Isaiah Washington / "zaydante" (influencer) | $10,000 | Instagram video disclosed as paid partnership. TikTok version posted without disclosure — later deleted. Named in FPPC complaint. |
| Palette Media (influencer agency) | $5,000 | Agency works with Steyer campaign. Paid relationship with creators not disclosed to followers, per FPPC complainant Beatrice Gomberg. |
| Neesh Riaz / @neesh__me (influencer) | $2,812.50 | Appears to have deleted at least one Instagram reel promoting Steyer's campaign. |
| Jason Chu (influencer) | ~$2,000 | Paid for "online communications work" on behalf of the campaign, per Washington Post review of financial records. |
| Yegneh Mahfaher / @littleyeg (Iranian political commentator, 49K followers) | $1,500 | Interviewed Steyer about war and policy on Israel on March 14. |
| Foos Gone Wild (LA comedy account, 3.3M followers) | Undisclosed | Steyer appeared wearing a "deport all racists" shirt. Post liked 22,000 times. Financial arrangement unconfirmed but flagged by rival creator Jose Torres. |
| Additional unnamed creators | $10/video + bonuses | Sacramento Bee reported Steyer's team approached creators with offers for "casual, relatable" content. FPPC complaint alleges "perhaps dozens" of undisclosed paid posts. |
| Farallon Capital → CoreCivic (private prisons) | $90 million investment | Profited from private prisons housing ICE detainees — now runs on a platform to abolish ICE and jail the agents who detained them. Rep. Katie Porter: "If they're criminals, does that make the guy who invested $90M in their facilities an accessory?" |
| 2020 presidential campaign | $252-318 million | Finished third in South Carolina. Dropped out. Lost every other primary. |
| Total documented spending on this campaign alone exceeds $180 million. The FPPC is actively investigating whether Steyer's campaign failed to properly disclose payments to social media influencers. The influencer payments were routed through contractors, including Gusty Media and Palette Media. The FPPC complaint was filed by California influencers Beatrice Gomberg and Kaitlyn Hennessy, who documented similar-sounding videos with identical talking points appearing across multiple accounts.
Sources: NY Post, CalMatters, ABC10, CBS8, Washington Post, Sacramento Bee, WeAreMitu, New York Times, Fox News, Hoodline, Mission Local, Business Insider, Forbes. Campaign finance records via Form 460 filings (through April 18, 2026). |
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When Steyer was asked about the payments, he responded:
"We pay them for doing work. They choose what to do. They endorse us because they believe in our platform."
When pushed for clarification on whether his campaign was directing the content, his team chose not to respond.
To be clear, per California law, all paid political content must be disclosed in the post. This is governed under the Political Reform Act of 1974. These are the specific provisions the FPPC complaint alleges were violated:
This is far from where the controversy ends for Steyer, however, as one of his key platform issues has also come under scrutiny, which we will get into after we take a look at the impact Steyer’s money has had on this race.
In August 2025, Steyer was not even on the radar (via 270ToWin), as Porter and Steve Hilton, a Republican, were the dominant frontrunners of the race. Another poll was taken in October, and Hilton had surged to the lead, Porter in second, but now Chad Bianco, another Republican, has surged to third place. Again, Steyer was not even on the radar at this point.
It was around this time that Porter’s campaign started to implode after a couple of damaging videos were revealed, pushing Bianco into the lead, with Porter now two points behind in a November poll. So, in back-to-back polls, there was a Republican leader.
By December, Porter had imploded, and former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) entered the race, but Bianco and Hilton were still leading, with Swalwell now tied for second.
Enter the endorsement and influencer campaigns, and by February 2026, Steyer went from a nobody to finally getting a grip, sitting at 9%, now in fourth place overall, and the second Democrat in the top four.
By April, Swalwell had dropped out due to salacious allegations, Porter was still on oxygen, and Steyer had climbed into the top three, with Becerra topping the field at 19%, and Hilton and Steyer tied for second at 17%.
In a SurveyUSA poll in May, Steyer was now sitting solidly in second place at 18% behind Steve Hilton (20%).
After the collapse of Porter and the Swalwell scandal, this was a primary that appeared to be headed to a double Republican runoff, but now Steyer is solidly in the mix. Even if he does not finish in the top two, it opens the door to Becerra; the money clearly worked to remove at least one Republican from contention, which he surely will accept as a consolation prize.
The attention to Steyer also naturally brought more attention to the Democrat Party as a whole, which we see via the dramatic rise in Becerra’s campaign.
In fact, I am looking at the May 9-10 Emerson Poll on the New York Times right now, and it has Becerra and Steyer running one and two, separated by only a point, with Hilton now in third, and Bianco dropping all the way down to fifth place behind Katie Porter.
Steyer had made it a point that he wants to go after ICE agents. He posted his five-point plan on “How California Can Put ICE in Jail” on X. In part, he wrote:
“I’ve made it clear: ICE must be abolished. ICE is acting like a criminal organization, carrying out indiscriminate racial profiling and using violence, intimidation, terrorism, and the murder of Americans to extend Trump’s rule by fear.”
Yet, under Steyer’s guidance, his hedge fund had invested about $90 million in Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic).
This is a privately owned and operated prison system, which includes ICE detention facilities. By the way, they just happen to have one operating in California.
Katie Porter, another candidate in the race, called Steyer out for this when he was touting his ICE plan, stating:
"If they're criminals, does that make the guy who invested $90M in their facilities an accessory?"
Steyer has called the investment a “mistake” and claims to have sold off his stake more than two decades ago.
Another rival candidate, Tony Thurmond, hit Steyer on this as well, saying that his fortune was "partly built on industries that contradict his current political messaging.”
Politicians will say whatever they have to to win these days, so we have to look at their actions. Say what you want about Trump, but I can play a tape from 40 years ago, and Trump was spewing the same policy rhetoric he is today.
Forty years ago, Tom Steyer was making millions off of a private prison system that is now housing illegal immigrants. If anyone peels back this onion, they will find a completely different man in the center of it than the one we are seeing run for office today.
He is a chameleon of convenience, nothing more. Some might call that a fraud, or, at the very least, an opportunist.
I may not live in California, but I surely want to make sure the people pulling the handle there are pulling for someone who is transparent and real. Rest assured, that man is not Tom Steyer.
