A crypto billionaire is spending millions of dollars to reshape California politics and is ready to use his considerable clout and bank account to get embattled Democratic San Francisco Mayor London Breed reelected.
Chris Larsen — a self-made businessman and angel investor best known for co-founding Silicon Valley startup Ripple Labs, which facilitates international payments for banks using blockchain technology, and online mortgage lender E-Loan — has become a huge player in city politics.
The San Francisco native has been wielding the power of his checkbook to support initiatives he endorses, including two of Breed’s ballot measures that give law enforcement easy access to surveillance tools, such as drones and license plate readers, and another that demands accountability for welfare recipients.
Ahead of the March 5 election, Larsen spent $750,000 to support both measures, which quickly passed, and said he’s all-in on Breed in November.
“She’s taken this city through the most hellacious years,” Larsen told the San Francisco Standard, referencing Breed’s handling of the pandemic and fallout from the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, which led to three months of protests in the city. “The social justice protests, riots — whatever you want to call them — she held the city together.”
Despite Larsen’s unwavering support of Breed, she is facing an uphill battle.
San Francisco has not bounced back as quickly as other cities following the pandemic, businesses are fleeing the area following spikes in retail theft and violence, and Breed’s approval ratings have tanked.
Recent polls suggest Breed, who has pivoted to a tough-on-crime platform, would lose in a head-to-head with challenger Daniel Lurie, a Levi’s heir and nonprofit group founder. Not helping Breed’s situation is San Francisco’s persistent homelessness problem, a projected budget deficit, and a looming battle over labor negotiations that could upend any progress she is trying to make with voters.
Despite the challenges, Larsen remains committed and has not been shy about using his power to get Breed even more power.
“We need to get rid of the bureaucracy that’s holding everything back,” he said. “Give the mayor the power. And then, if they screw up, toss them out.”
Over the past decade, Larsen has dropped more than $3.6 million into San Francisco politics, on top of the millions he has spent on state and federal campaigns, with almost all of the money going toward Democrats. He has given generously to groups such as GrowSF, Abundant SF, and Neighbors for a Better San Francisco while spending big on housing, homelessness, and public transit measures.
It’s unknown how much he will spend on Breed’s reelection campaign, but he has been invested in her success for a while.
In 2021, he spent $42,000 to pay for her ethics fine and attorneys fees connected to gifts she received from people involved in a very public city-hall corruption scandal. Federal prosecutors claimed a handful of San Francisco officials accepted bribes and kickbacks from people looking for lucrative contracts with the city. Charges ranged from fraud to money laundering and exposed fraud and deceit at some of the highest levels of city government.
Larsen made national headlines after he funded hundreds of high-tech surveillance cameras in San Francisco to help fight crime. He also footed the bill for television ads to recruit more police officers and provided grants to retail associations to promote corridors that have seen big and small retailers leave the area. Larsen and Bob Fisher, a Gap board member, spent $4 million ahead of last year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit on a marketing campaign to promote the city and its accomplishments, which included blanketing the area with billboards.
One ad wanted people to remember that San Francisco was the “birthplace of the waterbed,” the “summer of love.” Another read: “The martini. The mai tai. And the Uber ride back home.”
Larsen has said that any shortcoming of Breed’s administration should be blamed on the board of supervisors he said is trying to blunt her tough-on-crime campaign. He also blamed the “far Left” for the toxicity in city politics but said tech titans and business owners like himself are starting to push for change and will “no longer be cowed into submission by progressive activists.”
He added that anything other than a second Breed term would spell doom for San Francisco.
Larsen said Lurie, whose mother wrote a $1 million check for his campaign, lacks the experience to deal with the “swamp” that he referred to as San Francisco politics.
Larsen also had some not-so-nice things to say about Mark Farrell, a venture capitalist who served as the interim mayor of San Francisco for six months in 2018 and said he returned to politics because he couldn’t stand by and watch the city crumble under Breed’s leadership. Farrell said if he is elected, he will clear homeless encampments within a year, fire the current police chief, and put more officers on the street to combat crime.
“Mark Farrell and his BS about he’s just going to come in and magically wave his wand, I mean, it’s Trump-like lying about that stuff,” Larsen said. “That guy is just an opportunist. He’ll say anything. Where was he during the pandemic, by the way?”
Larsen said he’s also losing his patience with progressives.
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“They want to label everybody ‘right-wing’ that opposes them,” he said. “But with a Mark Farrell, that is what you’re going to get. He’s basically a Republican running for mayor.”
Farrell’s campaign manager, Jade Tu, slammed Larsen for his comments, claiming the billionaire should be “ashamed of himself” for comparing Farrell, a lifelong Democrat, to former President Donald Trump.