Silicon Valley's $25M Bet on Matt Mahan for California Governor Falls Flat in Polls
May 7, 2026 - 1:00 pm
Silicon Valley has poured more than $25 million into backing San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan as the next California governor. Donors include tech giants like Sergey Brin, Reed Hastings, and Steve Huffman. Yet, with less than four weeks to go until the June 2 primary, Mahan polls at a meager 4%.
This campaign is emblematic of Silicon Valley's broader attempt to reshape California politics, including funding a proposed $500 million endowment and opposing a billionaire wealth tax ballot measure. But despite their financial might, it seems political influence doesn't come as easily to them as market share does in the tech world.
The Candidate: From Harvard to Tech Pioneer
Matt Mahan's story reads like a Silicon Valley product development meeting gone well. He graduated from Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg and joined Facebook early on, rising through the ranks at Causes, one of Facebook’s earliest apps. He later co-founded Brigade, a civic engagement platform, which was acquired by Pinterest. In 2022, he became the mayor of San Jose.
He announced his gubernatorial candidacy in January 2026 and quickly raised $14 million directly, outpacing all other candidates except billionaire climate investor Tom Steyer. But outside San Jose, a separate committee called California Back to Basics has spent nearly $20 million introducing Mahan to voters through advertisements, including a $1.5 million Super Bowl ad.
The Race and Silicon Valley's Influence
While Mahan’s campaign has seen significant financial support, particularly from individual donors like Brin, Hastings, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, he still lags behind Steyer, who has self-funded over $147 million for his campaign. This highlights a key difference between market share and political influence—the latter doesn't appear to be as responsive to capital injection.