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from Jeanne KuangCalMatters
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Even as he watches one after another of his state’s tech titans head to the White House to seek the favor of President Donald Trump, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday he has no displeasure with the industry’s rightward movement — mostly.
“It’s very situational with a lot of these guys,” he said when asked about tech businessmen going to “the other side.” “They are and they’re not … I don’t see it as as much of a change as maybe others.”
His comments at the New York Times Financial Summit highlighted the governor’s balancing act with the tech industry, even as his relationship with major businesses has been strained by Trump this year. Although he blasted law firms and universities for “selling” the Trump administration’s demands this year — even threatening to withdraw government funding from California universities signing certain agreements with the president – Newsom walks a finer line when it comes to technology.
“I think it’s a little more, I don’t want to say the word transactional, but it’s fiduciary,” he said of tech leaders’ decisions to mock Trump.
Newsom, who was mayor of San Francisco in the 2000s, has long been close to tech leaders. As governor he relies on the huge profits of the industry to keep a huge state budget balanced. As a possible presidential candidate in 2028, he may find Silicon Valley’s deep-pocketed donors useful.
The relationship has made Newsom a reliable politician in the industry’s corner as lawmakers in his own party increasingly push for regulations on social media and its effects on children, the use of environmental resources by data centers and the spread of artificial intelligence in the workplace, the connections between teens and everyday life.
While Newsom has signed some of these bills, particularly those in which advocates have negotiated with tech companies, he has also vetoed several out of concern that over-regulation a nascent industry would drive him out of the country. And he is categorically opposed proposed wealth tax this would undoubtedly touch the technical executives.
Tech titans are closing in on Trump
That was the case this year, despite Silicon Valley’s growing fondness for Trump, whom Newsom criticized for threatening industries with tariffs to extract concessions and demanding loyalty from private business executives. The relationship has affected California in many ways, from Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s aggressive pursuit of federal layoffs and spending cuts earlier this year to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s proposal for Trump to send the National Guard to San Francisco, sparking a nervous few days in October as the president moved to launch an immigration crackdown there. Benioff later retracted his statements and Trump said he backed down after speaking with him and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
Peter Leroy-Muñoz, senior vice president of the industry group Bay Area Council, praised Newsom for nevertheless understanding “the value of the innovation produced by our member companies.”
“While the governor may not always agree with innovation companies and how they choose to operate or behave, at the end of the day, the governor recognizes that we all have a stake in California’s success, and so not severing ties or undermining these industry players is in the long-term success of the Golden State,” Leroy-Muñoz said last month.
“There must be levels of ethics that are required of these leaders.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom, referring to tech leaders making deals with Trump
Still, Newsom leveled some criticism at the industry’s relationship with Trump on Wednesday, calling it a “self-dealing” that the president’s AI and crypto czar David Sachs, along with many other investors and chip makers, have is reportedly in line for a profit from Trump’s AI directives.
“There should be levels of ethics that are required of these leaders,” he said. “This whole ecosystem benefits from that. California benefits from that. But I don’t think it’s healthy for capitalism.”
And he called out Apple CEO Tim Cook’s ability to make a deal with Trump you get a tariff exemption for critical parts of the iPhone supply chain “by definition, crony capitalism.”
“What about the farmers and ranchers in California, what about all the small businesses that can’t pick up the phone and get a waiver on their rates?” Newsom said. “It breaks my heart.”
But he acknowledged that Cook serves his shareholders: “Do I resent it? Yes. Do I resent him? Not so much.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.