🚨BREAKING🚨 A group called Concerned Citizens of San Francisco has filed allegations with the SF Inspector General claiming OpenAI evaded potentially $125m+ in SF taxes while converting from nonprofit to commercial enterprise. They’re pushing for a taxpayer lawsuit. 🧵

The concern is that unlike past booms, this wealth is highly concentrated, worsening SF's already stark inequality. The city has rebounded from busts before, but this time may leave a deeper, more permanent mark.

AI executives have also become major political donors: $65M this year alone, largely backing candidates who'll keep the industry unregulated. Some, like OpenAI's Greg Brockman, are major GOP donors, while Sam Altman has advised SF's mayor while lobbying for tax breaks.

Brokers say AI workers, some with $40K/month to spend, are outbidding everyone else. Past tech booms (2019 IPOs of Uber, Lyft, Airbnb) triggered a spike in evictions; many fear a repeat, only bigger.

That wealth is already reshaping SF's housing market: median home prices are up 10%+ (highest in the US), 1-bedroom rents have jumped about $1,000/mo, and 2-bedroom rents are up 26% to a record $6,020/mo.

The IPOs are expected to mint about 12,000 new millionaires. Even non-technical AI employees could see net worths top $10M. Base salaries in tech roles already hit $400K/year.

Anthropic and OpenAI are gearing up for IPOs (Anthropic in October, OpenAI early next year) that could value each company at over $1 trillion, more than Walmart. SF is bracing for its next tech gold rush. 🧶

Locally, Larsen helped defeat SF's "Overpaid CEO Tax" in June 2026 and has funded the SFPD's controversial surveillance program (RTIC) with nearly $10M, plus a promised $3M more.

Four billionaires — Chris Larsen, Sergey Brin, Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz — have put a combined $331M into candidates and PACs fighting the tax, a one-time 5% levy meant to fund public hospitals and services.

New report from California Common Good finds a huge jump in political spending by CA billionaires this election cycle: donations up 147% vs. 2023-24. The spending is aimed largely at defeating a proposed Billionaire Tax on the Nov 2026 ballot. 🧵

The bottom line is that what's framed as fixing housing affordability is, per our reporting, also a strategy for concentrating political control in the hands of a small group of ultra-wealthy donors, in SF and increasingly cities across the country.

The YIMBY label itself predates this network by decades and includes housing advocates with very different politics. But critics argue the moderate, tech-backed faction has hijacked that branding to mask an elite power grab as populist reform.

The "abundance" movement, pitched as a fix for the housing crisis by relaxing zoning rules, has become a stalking horse for tech billionaires to seize local political power under a pro-housing banner.🪡

Meanwhile, two new PACs, California Leads (backed by Google/Meta money) and Grow California (funded by Chris Larsen and Tim Draper) have been on the rise. Grow California quietly won 11 of 12 CA Assembly/Senate primaries by backing local SoCal politicians while downplaying their tech connections.

Silicon Valley money is reshaping California politics, but maybe not in the ways you'd expect. High-profile, tech-backed statewide bids (Mahan for Governor, Agarwal for the House of Reps) both flopped badly at the ballot box. Tech's brand has been shown to be toxic in big races.

Leaked documents obtained by The Phoenix Project and reported on by @revolvingdoorDC reveal how Zack Rosen, co-founder of California YIMBY and the Abundance Network, really feels about small-dollar political donors. It's not flattering.

These potential cuts were a political choice. Lurie opposed Prop D, a labor-backed measure that could have raised ~$300M/year by taxing corporations with overpaid execs, roughly the amount now being cut from services.

Meanwhile, police and sheriff's departments were largely spared. Officers are set to get a 14% raise over four years under an existing contract, even as around 550 city positions go unfilled or are cut elsewhere.

The People's Budget Coalition estimated 25k+ San Franciscans would lose essential services and 1.5k+ nonprofit/city workers would be laid off. Hardest hit would be public health programs with ~$57M of cuts including HIV/AIDS prevention services that support 7k+ residents.

SF Mayor Daniel Lurie was proposing budget cuts that hit the city's most vulnerable residents, even as the AI boom has minted new millionaires and deepened inequality. Critics said the budget revealed a shrinking role for government in maintaining the public good.

ICYMI: before the People’s Budget Coalition fought to restore 80% of budget cuts last week, Mayor Lurie’s budget was bleak. Although most of the cuts are restored, it’s important to remember that this is because of dedicated advocacy, not a change of heart by the administration🧵

But pushback is growing. Montana's Transparent Election Initiative (on Nov. ballot) would use state charter reform to block companies from funding local elections. If passed, it’d be among the first real legal challenges to Citizens United.

The Citizens United ruling struck down election contribution limits, treating political donations as free speech. The result has been that there are few campaign finance limits left. We've seen the fallout play out from SF politics to a $47M Senate race in Montana.

Billionaire money in US politics is exploding. In 2024, 300 billionaire families gave $3 billion in federal campaign contributions, nearly 1/5 of all donations. The cause? A 2010 Supreme Court decision called Citizens United v. FEC. 🧵

10. The Abundance ideology is the liberal answer to Marc Andreessen's Techno Optimist Manifesto.

9. Rosen believes that the current progressive political movement against the billionaire elite is a fundamental threat to American democracy.

8. Abundance Network sees themselves growing into a bottom-up national astroturfing force.

7. According to Rosen, POC-serving "Equity groups", "left" philanthropy that supports them, and organized labor are the enemies of progress.

6. Abundance Network really doesn't like grassroots campaigns with small dollar donations.

5. Wins to-date include "flipping" the SF Board of Supervisors, Democratic Party & Santa Monica City Council.