If Willie Brown was mayor-as-king then Daniel Lurie is mayor-as-CEO. During his time in office, Brown bestowed favors on courtiers who had spent decades vying for his goodwill. Lurie is doing the same with the business leaders he has warmly welcomed into his  inner circle.

Both Brown and Lurie subscribe to an undemocratic vision of governance in a city in which the mayor already enjoys substantial power. Not only does San Francisco’s mayor control the city’s purse strings — the Board of Supervisors can pass legislation, but cannot fund it — he also hires and fires department heads and controls appointments to most city commissions.

Lurie signaled his intentions early. Within weeks, the heads of the city’s transportation, public health, planning and police departments were shown the door. He also removed Max Carter-Oberstone, an outspoken appointee to the city’s Police Commission, with the approval of the Board of Supervisors. 

Then he commenced the real work, lobbying the Board for significant changes to existing legislation that would shift more power to the mayor. Among his requests was the passage of a Fentanyl Emergency Ordinance that called for eliminating board oversight on some contracts. He urged changes to Proposition C, a business tax passed by voters in 2018 to fund homeless services and permanent supportive housing.

In the case of Prop C, Lurie again asked to reduce board oversight on spending. Originally, a board supermajority was required for any expenditure of $19 million or more that did not adhere to the law’s strict guidelines. The mayor wanted to spend Prop C money as he wished — without restrictions —  but settled for the board-proposed compromise. Lurie had campaigned on his record on homelessness, but once in office he had governed as if making his rich friends richer is more important than helping San Francisco’s most needy.

Lurie is still in the early stages of a honeymoon being granted by a Board of Supervisors that had grown weary of the fractious relationship it had with his predecessor, London Breed, as well as a media that has been all but uncritical. He also benefits from a slim conservative majority on the Board granted to him by San Francisco voters in the November 2024 election.

A compliant Board of Supervisors has allowed Lurie to model his tenure after that of New York City's former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Lurie and Bloomberg have much in common: Both are billionaires who self-funded their campaigns, although whereas Bloomberg worked for his money, Lurie made his money the old-fashioned way: by inheriting it. Each appears more comfortable in boardrooms than the rough-and-tumble world of politics. It should come as no surprise, then, that Lurie has brought on Dan Doctoroff, Bloomberg's deputy mayor, a former chief executive of Bloomberg LP and Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of tech giant Alphabet, as an advisor.

As might be expected of a CEO, Lurie is preoccupied with the city’s return-on-investment. To that end, he has looked to privatize public resources like MTA and parks. At the same time, he appears to consider money spent on vulnerable San Franciscans as nothing more than a drain on city coffers. With the Board of Supervisors complicity, Lurie slashed $171 million in nonprofit funding, starving the organizations that serve struggling residents. The mayor, whose only job before taking office was running a nonprofit, has bragged about holding them financially accountable, boasting that he has cut "more nonprofits than anyone I ran against, anyone that’s been mayor before."

Lurie has introduced another Bloomberg innovation. The Downtown Development Corp., a quasi-public agency modeled on the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a post-9/11 rebuilding project. Although the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. was funded with public money, it reflected Bloomberg’s corporate priorities. A report from Good Jobs First, which supports corporate and government accountability in economic development, lambasted the organization saying it had prioritized big businesses over the needs  of the low- and middle-income residents. It raised ethical concerns, noting its decision to grant funds to organizations tied to members of its board of directors. 

Lurie’s Downtown Development Corp. board includes David Stiepleman, co-president of investment firm Sixth Street, Chris Larsen, chair of crypto firm Ripple, Bob Fisher, chair of the Gap Inc., Meg Whitman, former chief executive of HP and eBay, and now a director of Zipcar. Whitman, an unsuccessful GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2010, once sat on the board of Goldman Sachs when it was revealed that she had received shares in several of the firm’s public offerings. She resigned, but denied any wrongdoing. Larsen spent more than $1 million in the November 2024 election, alone, in an attempt to move the city rightward although none of that money went toward the Lurie campaign.

The mayor’s coziness with the city’s powerful business interests promises to lead to the kind of pay-to-play politics that he promised to eradicate. Already, there are whiffs of potential scandals that could tarnish his tenure. His decision to allow concert promoter Another Planet Entertainment, a contributor to his lavish inaugural, to stage a three-day anniversary party for the Grateful Dead in Golden Gate Park may have violated state law. In addition, it betrayed the entire gestalt of the Dead by charging people to see the legendary band play in Golden Gate Park, the site of many free concerts.

When Lurie won the mayoral election, he crowed that "San Francisco is open for business." The ramifications of that statement should be deeply troubling to all, but the business leaders who have become close to the Mayor.