“Steyer pulls no punches when he talks about taxing the wealth of the tech elite, holding the tech industry accountable, and using the power of the state so that working-class Californians are not left behind by the AI revolution”
CALIFORNIA — As corporate interests and Big Tech billionaires pour millions into stopping his campaign, The Nation is highlighting Tom Steyer’s closing argument: California needs a governor who is willing to take on the corporations driving up costs and rigging the economy for working people.
In a new interview, Steyer details his plans to tax extreme wealth, hold Big Tech accountable, protect workers from AI-driven job displacement, and ensure working Californians — not corporations — benefit from its boom.
In stark contrast, a flood of corporate money is backing Xavier Becerra from industries including Big Tech, fossil fuels, healthcare, and utilities — underscoring the stakes in the final days of the race.
Excerpts of the full piece are below. Read the full The Nation article here:
[...] Tom Steyer is mounting a gubernatorial campaign that argues “the people who stand to profit the most from this technology shouldn’t be making the rules about how it is used. Otherwise, the AI era will be another boom for billionaires—and a bust for everyone else.”
[...] Steyer, a long-time advocate on climate issues and a billionaire who knows his way around Silicon Valley, has emerged as the major progressive Democratic contender ahead of Tuesday’s intense open primary for the most powerful governorship in the nation. Polls show that Steyer… has a good chance of being one of the two candidates who get through the primary and go on to face one another in November. And AI policy is a key part of his agenda.
Steyer pulls no punches when he talks about taxing the wealth of the tech elite, holding the industry accountable, and using the power of the state so that working-class Californians are not left behind by the AI revolution. “Globalization displaced millions of workers, with no plan for what comes next,” he says. “We can’t allow that history to repeat itself in the AI era.”
[...] Steyer has developed a bold, comprehensive plan to “make sure that all Californians benefit from AI.” He wants to provide smart job protections for workers and to retrain those who are displaced by AI. He also wants to ask voters to approve the creation of the Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund. As his campaign explains, the fund would serve as “a dedicated investment vehicle funded by a ‘token tax’ on corporate AI use—a fraction of a cent for every unit of data processed by Big Tech.”
[...] The clarity of this message helps to explain why Khanna and unions that are increasingly concerned about AI have backed Steyer. His other progressive stances—as a billionaire who wants to tax billionaires, and an enthusiastic supporter Medicare For All, building affordable housing and making education affordable for every Californian— Reps. Lateefah Simon and Jared Huffman.
Predictably, Steyer has also attracted desperate opposition from free-spending political action committees favored by the healthcare, utility, fossil fuel, and AI industries. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, for instance, recently steered $950,000 into a political action committee that backs Xavier Becerra, a former California attorney general, member of Congress, and Biden Cabinet member who has emerged as the favorite of corporate interests in the race for governor.
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