Tom Steyer is running for governor. He has billions. He wants to tax people with billions. This is his plan. Or at least the version of the plan he sells in interviews. It sounds great until you hear him say it.
WIRED covers tech, policy, chaos. Steyer fits that mold. A hedge fund titan turned climate activist. He left his firm, Farallon Capital, in 2012. Now he spends over $130 million running for California governor. He calls himself a class traitor. He backs the Billionaire Tax Act. Silicon Valley hates this. Peter Thiel is fleeing. Sergey Brin is looking at other states.
Steyer’s posture is interesting. He wants to be the pro-billionaire governor who taxes them into poverty? Can it be done? Is he immune to corporate influence while funding his own war chest? These are the questions. He answers them by avoiding the corners of the room.
I felt his reluctance. He dances around the lines. Thin lines. In California politics, there is nowhere to stand but the edge.
From Hedge Funds to Melting Ice
Steyer says his change wasn’t political at first. It was emotional. Desperation. He feared a life with no meaning. Just numbers on spreadsheets. Who cares about numbers? Not him anymore.
He went to Alaska in 2006. Wanted to see the wild before Europe ruined it. Instead, he saw ice turning to valleys. That changed everything.
“It was one thing to read about climate change… but another to physically see where there was once a mountain of ice, now just a valley.”
He didn’t just leave Farallon for climate. He left because the old world felt hollow. He wanted America to lead. Not just in profit. In righteousness.
“Let’s do it, man. Let’s be Americans.” He says it like a slogan from the 80s.
He views climate as the ultimate business opportunity. Clean energy. New companies. Leading the world. Meanwhile, President Trump? He is failing on a gargantuan scale. Steyer compares the administration to people desperate to keep using whale oil. It’s nuts, he says.
The Ghost of Farallon
Here is the rub. His critics point to the past. Farallon Capital. Fossil fuels. A New York Times piece questioned his clean hands.
Steyer insists he divested all oil and gas ties in 2012 when he left. What remains are residual buildings. Real estate. Nothing more. He couldn’t force the firm to change direction immediately. Too many employees relying on the income. Too much trust from pension funds. He had to ensure a clean break. A responsible one.
“I felt somewhat desperate,” he admitted. To change how he lived. How he invested. He realized the blind faith in capitalism had cracks. Spectacular ones.
Is Capitalism The Enemy? Or Just Broken?
Does capitalism still work for him? Sort of.
He cites Warren Buffett. Capitalism drives material advantage. It produces goods and services unlike any other system. That part holds true.
But the rest? The assumption that all wealth is good? That breaks down.
“I haven’t rejected it,” he says of the market engine. “But it’s also the case that it isn’t always true.”
When it fails, it fails badly. He had to live differently. Invest differently. Because the idea that “progress = capitalism” is no longer a blanket pass for every outcome.
Some progressives argue billionaires shouldn’t exist. That the scale itself is immoral. Steyer pushes back. He argues California exists on ideas. On imagination.
If you have an idea that changes the world? Do we cap it? Do we punish the incentive? No.
He respects the builders. But he hates the extractors. The ones who come to California. Build something massive. Rip off the workers. Avoid taxes. Claim the whole system is “theirs.”
That offends him. Deeply.
“You could have gone to 191 other countries,” Steyer notes. “You came here.”
Because the ecosystem works. Rule of law. Freedom. Skilled labor. Low wages for the skilled labor, perhaps. But the result is shared prosperity? He believes it should be. Inequality now exceeds the Gilded Age levels. Visible on the streets of San Francisco.
So, yes to innovation. No to exploitation. It’s a nuanced stance. Or perhaps a contradictory one. He wants to keep the billionaires close while taxing them hard.
Will it work? Probably not.
