Can a billionaire fix California?

Many people would say it’s unwise to trust a billionaire to overhaul the system that made them rich. Tom Steyer says he gets that. “The skepticism and the anger at these people who have been so arrogant, so selfish, so full of themselves and so obnoxious—do I share that? Heck yes,” the billionaire climate activist said in an interview with HEATED last week. “Do I understand why people feel that way? How could you not?” But Steyer, who is running a self-funded campaign for governor of California, argues that he is the billionaire to break the mold. He points to his early divestment from fossil fuels, his pledge to give away most of his fortune, and the hundreds of millions of dollars he’s spent trying to push climate policy and take on corporate power. Our interview touches on a lot of topics: whether billionaires should exist at all, Steyer’s past investments in fossil fuels, the carbon footprint of billionaire investment portfolios, his proposal to break up California’s electric utility monopolies and lower electricity prices, the dark money campaigns already targeting him, and how he’d use the California governorship to push climate action nationwide. We also talk about our shared trip to the Athabasca tar sands in 2014. You can watch our conversation at the top of this newsletter or on YouTube, or listen on all your podcast apps. If you’d prefer to read rather than listen, just scroll down for text and PDF transcripts. HEATED podcast producer Tracy Wholf and I also recorded a short segment right after the interview reacting to what we heard. If you’d like to hear our off-the-cuff thoughts, I’ll be sending them out shortly in a subscribers-only newsletter. Make sure you’re a paid subscriber to get it! If you're short for time, and can’t read or listen to the full conversation, here are some key takeaways. On welcoming billionaires to California: “If you come here and you want to [start/grow a business], I think that’s great. But you should be prepared to understand that you are not leaving everyone else behind. You did not create this on your own.” On his previous fossil fuel investments: “The idea that, 25 years ago, we invested in fossil fuels—absolutely true. But I really had a conversion… I went from being somebody who was blithely investing in everything in the economy to, no, no, no, no, that’s not okay. And I need to leave billions of dollars on the table to make sure that I’m actually doing the right thing.” On the Oxfam study showing billionaires have wildly carbon-intensive stock portfolios: “I don’t think that’s true of my portfolio, because my portfolio is focused actually on the technologies of moving us away from fossil fuels, and away from emissions and to a net zero world.” (More on Steyer’s investment business, Galvanize). On whether he’d commit to an independent climate audit of his entire stock portfolio: “Well, I think that—look, if this is the bulk of my portfolio, this has to be dramatically negative.” On his proposal to break up electric utility monopolies in the state: (This part you just have to listen to because it’s not succinctly quotable. You can also read about his plan, and its critics, here.) On accepting campaign money from electric utilities (like Gavin Newsom): “I would never do that. I’m not taking corporate PAC money. I’m not taking money from people who want something for me to not tell the truth. … To a very large extent, I’m saying to Californians, I can’t be bought.” On why his campaign launch video didn’t mention climate change: “Because when I talk about electricity, I’m talking about climate. When I talk about wildfires and insurance, I’m talking about climate. When I’m talking about technology growth and inventing the future in California and building the companies about it, I’m talking about climate. I’m trying to talk about climate in terms of the way that people experience it, which is either costs or health and job creation. … I’m always talking about climate. I’m never describing it as climate. I’m trying to put it in human terms because people are experiencing the world as human beings and they can understand this is cheaper and it’s a better deal for us and we can drop electricity prices. Those are the things that people can hear. And once you get too scientific, too disconnected from their day to day, people are so pressed and so stressed that it’s very hard for most people to hear that, honestly.”On why he’s running himself, not just funding another candidate: “This is not an ego trip. I don’t think I’m doing this all by myself. I think I want to be part of a group of people, which clearly include you and your listeners, making changes that are necessary to actually get the outcomes that are necessary.” In case you’re wondering where my skepticism comes from. Bill Gates is no friend to the climate. November 2019 Why I’m skeptical of Jeff Bezos’s $10 billion climate pledge. February 2020 Bezos breaks his climate pledge. September 2020 The stealth climate villains of 2020 (all billionaires). December 2020 Climate billionaires are our modern-day Columbuses. October 2021, repub October 2023 The climate case against Elon Musk. November 2022 Elon Musk’s climate censorship. April 2023 Surprise! Billionaires aren’t solving climate change. November 2023 Nobel Prize-winning economist calls for climate tax on billionaires. April 2024 Behind the billionaire climate tax. April 2024 Elon Musk’s PAC is powered by coal. November 2024 You already know Elon Musk. You need to know Harold Hamm. February 2025 The Senate is about to destroy clean energy to give tax cuts to billionaires. June 2025 (Full PDF transcript) Emily Atkin: Today I’m interviewing Tom Steyer, the climate activist billionaire who’s running to be the next governor of California. Before we get into it, here’s a quick summary of Tom’s platform: populism and affordability, single-payer health care, abolishing ICE, building a million affordable homes in four years, and holding a special election to raise corporate taxes. Despite being a billionaire himself, Politico has called Tom “the most vocal candidate in the race about the need to raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy.” He’s also been endorsed by key unions, including the California Nurses Association, United Domestic Workers Union, and school employees. Now, I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t have a problem with Tom’s platform. But one of the reasons I wanted to interview him is that I am deeply skeptical of the idea that a billionaire can be trusted to solve structural problems like wealth inequality and climate chaos. That skepticism comes from my entire lived experience as a reporter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve covered billionaires promising to be climate champions, only to watch those promises fall apart. And there’s a simple reason for that: billionaires generally do not want to change the system that made them rich. To expect a billionaire to dismantle the system that concentrates wealth and power in their hands — the one that lets corporations buy politicians, and externalize the costs of pollution onto workers and communities — is a little like asking someone sitting at the top of the world’s tallest tree to saw off the branch they’re sitting on. But I want to be fair. Tom has probably done more than any other billionaire to break that mold. He’s spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars not just on climate causes, but specifically on trying to beat back the corporate influence that makes climate action so hard to achieve in the first place. So I think we can hear him out. There’s also something happening in this election that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before: fossil fuel interests are actively going after a billionaire — Tom — for his proposal to break up electric utilities in the state in order to lower Californians’ electric bills. So I wanted to give him a chance to talk about that too. After I grilled him on his own structural power first, of course. I also…