The race for California’s governorship is already crowded. But one recent entrant is already drawing significant financial backing from Silicon Valley and major real estate interests: San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. He is polling at just 3% as of Feb. 19; however,  given the millions he’s received from the Astroturf Network, Mahan’s prospects are likely set to improve significantly. Mahan announced his candidacy on Jan. 29th earlier this year; and like clockwork, millions of dollars began to pour into his campaign from some of our state's wealthiest technocratic donors. 

Before reviewing the specifics of these donors it’s worth noting that, in California, individual contribution limits in a gubernatorial race cap out at $39,200; which is more than ten times the federal limit for congressional candidates. In just a month Mahan’s PAC has raised more than $6 million from 196 contributors, averaging $31,097 per donation. 

According to information filed with the state, the earliest contributions ($25,000 a piece) came from two executives at Apercen Ventures: Sarah Gray and Thomas van Loben Sels. If we turn our attention towards its relatively sparse website, Apercen Partners LLC is a tax consulting firm “offering high net-worth individual clients a full spectrum of income and multi-generational tax planning and compliance services.”

Apercen makes investments on behalf of its wealthy clientele, providing them with a level of privacy that without their support as a front organization they wouldn’t otherwise have. For example, in 2023, van Loben Sels bought a 6,000 sq. ft. house on the Malibu coast for a little more than $52 million. Similarly, in March 2024, van Loben Sels was connected to the $50.6 million purchase of a Fifth Avenue townhouse in New York through Wyoming-based trust A7P. He has purchased luxury properties for Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s first President Sean Parker and current Vice President Matt Cohler. Additionally, van Loben Sels is listed on tax documents for Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan’s Openness Foundation nonprofit. It’s unclear if van Loben Sels is exclusively a real estate interlocutor for Facebook executives or if he has any role in the nonprofit. 

Other Mahan donors have been reliable contributors to various right-wing  candidates and causes. Matthew Grimm, cofounder of weapons manufacturer Anduril, donated $10,000 the day Mahan launched his campaign. Prominent South Bay developer Eli Reinhard contributed the limit of $39,200 on the very same day. Reinhard and his wife Jeanette were sponsors of a counterterrorism and intelligence program at the Washington Institute, a conservative Washington, D.C. think tank. Y Combinator Chief Garry Tan, who recently founded Garry’s List to fund conservative efforts, also donated the legal limit as did Palantir cofounder and Trump supporter Joe Lonsdale. 

Mahan’s biggest contributors, those who donated the legal limit more than once, included billionaire tech investor Michael Moritz and his wife Harriett Heyman, who each contributed $39,200 twice in early February. Moritz was the financial backer behind now-defunct TogetherSF, a political pressure group that spent millions to promote right-wing candidates and ballot measures in San Francisco. 

Direct campaign contributions are distinct from independent expenditure committees. Legally, independent expenditure committees cannot coordinate with the campaign. Google founder Sergey Brin contributed the legal limit twice on Jan. 30 through his recently created independent expenditure committee, Deliver for California. Brin, provoked by the possibility of a statewide billionaire tax, recently announced he would spend $20 million to fund California ballot measures.

According to a late contribution form filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) on March 9, Brin upped the ante and cut a $1 million check to Mahan’s independent expenditure committee, Get California Back to Basics. Neil Mehta, founder of venture capital firm Greenoaks, donated $500,000 through Back to Basics. Mehta recently sparked displacement fears when he purchased eight buildings across three blocks in the Fillmore District for $40 million through limited liability companies. On its website, Moritz is listed as Back to Basics’ largest contributor.

In mid-February, the San Jose Spotlight reported that Mahan’s campaign received $1 million via Back to Basics from Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman, $400,000 from venture capitalist Leonard Baker and $843,000 from Republican investor William Oberndorf who was instrumental in the recall of progressive SF DA Chesa Boudin. 

Additional donors were David Crane and his wife Carla Crane who both donated the legal limit twice the day Mahan launched his campaign. Crane, a public policy lecturer at Stanford, co-founded a non-profit in 2011 called Govern For California (GFC) a dark money-funded organization which claims to counter “special interest” influence over California’s government. Which special interests, you might rightfully wonder? Primarily that of labor unions and their allies. 

To evade contribution limits, GFC has established shadow organizations across the state, which have  allowed them to make 13 separate contributions including two $39,200 donations from its San Francisco chapter. In total, GFC has funneled $293,000 into Mahan’s gubernatorial campaign, far in excess of the state firm limit on political contributions.

Given his backing from tech and real estate industries, it can be assumed that Mahan will pursue their agenda: Low taxes on those who can most afford to pay them, fierce opposition to labor unions, and a program of deregulation that will further pad their wallets at the expense of regular Californians.