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Khanna Hits Back as Silicon Valley Oligarchs Threaten Primary Challenge Over California Billionaires Tax
"We cannot have a nation with extreme concentration of wealth in a few places, but where... healthcare, childcare, housing, education is unaffordable," the San Francisco lawmaker said.
Dec 28, 2025
US Rep. Ro Khanna defended California's proposed tax on extreme wealth Saturday after a pair of prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists threatened to launch a primary bid for his California House seat.
The proposal, which advocates are gathering signatures to place on the ballot in 2026, would impose a one-time 5% tax on those with net worths over $1 billion to recoup about $90 billion in Medicaid funds stripped from the state by this year’s Republican budget law. The roughly 200 billionaires affected would have five years to pay the tax.
While higher taxes on the superrich are overwhelmingly popular with Americans, the proposal has rankled many of California’s wealthiest residents, as well as California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said earlier this month that he’s “adamantly” against the measure.
On Friday, the New York Times reported that two of the valley's biggest powerbrokers—venture capitalist and top Trump administration ally Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Larry Page—were threatening to reduce their ties to California in response to the tax proposal.
This has been a common refrain from elites faced with proposed tax increases, though data suggests they rarely follow through on their threats to bail on cities and states, even when those hikes are implemented. Meanwhile, the American Prospect has pointed out that the one-time tax would still apply to those who moved out of the Golden State.
Khanna (D-Calif.), who is both a member of the House's progressive faction and a longtime darling of the tech sector, has increasingly sparred with industry leaders in recent years over their reactionary stances on labor rights, regulation, and taxation.
In a post on X, the congressman reacted with derision at the threats of billionaire flight: "Peter Thiel is leaving California if we pass a 1% tax on billionaires for five years to pay for healthcare for the working class facing steep Medicaid cuts. I echo what [former President Franklin D. Roosevelt] said with sarcasm of economic royalists when they threatened to leave, 'I will miss them very much.'"
Casado, who donated to Khanna’s 2024 reelection campaign according to OpenSecrets, complained that “Ro has done a speed run, alienating every moderate I know who has supported him, including myself.”
"Beyond being totally out of touch with [the moderate] faction of his base, he’s devolved into an obnoxious jerk," Casado continued. "At least that makes voting him the fuck out all the more gratifying."
Casado's post received a reply from another former Khanna donor, Garry Tan, the CEO of the tech startup accelerator Y Combinator.
"Time to primary him," Tan said of Khanna.
Tan, a self-described centrist Democrat, has never run for office before. But he is notorious for his social media tirades against local progressives in San Francisco and was one of the top financial backers of the corporate-led push to oust the city's liberal former district attorney, Chesa Boudin, in 2022.
Casado replied: "Count me in. Happy to be involved at any level."
Progressive commentator Krystal Ball marveled that “Tech oligarchs are now openly conspiring against Ro Khanna because he dared to back a modest wealth tax.”
So far, neither Casado nor Tan has hinted at any concrete plans to challenge Khanna in 2026. If they did, defeating him would likely be a tall order—since his sophomore election in 2018, a primary challenger has never come within 30 points of unseating him.
But Khanna still felt the need to respond to the brooding tech royals. He noted that he has "supported a modest wealth tax since the day I ran in 2016," which prompted another angry retort from Casado, who accused the congressman of "antagonizing the people who made your district the amazing place it is" with a tax on billionaires.
Khanna hit back at his critics with a lengthy defense of not just the wealth tax, but his conception of what he calls "pro-innovation progressivism."
"My district is $18 trillion, nearly one-third of the US stock market in a 50-mile radius. We have five companies with a market cap over $1 trillion," Khanna said. "If I can stand up for a billionaire tax, this is not a hard position for 434 other [House] members or 100 senators."
"The seminal innovation in tech is done by thousands, often with public funds," Khanna continued. "Yes, we need entrepreneurs to commercialize disruptive innovation... But the idea that they would not start companies to make billions, or take advantage of an innovation cluster, if there is a 1-2% tax on their staggering wealth defies common sense and economic theory."
"We cannot have a nation with extreme concentration of wealth in a few places, but where 70% of Americans believe the American dream is dead and healthcare, childcare, housing, education is unaffordable," he concluded. "What will stifle American innovation, what will make us fall behind China, is if we see further political dysfunction and social unrest, if we fail to cultivate the talent in every American and in every city and town... So, yes, a billionaire tax is good for American innovation, which depends on a strong and thriving American democracy."
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'Stuck and Confused' Waymo Robotaxis Snarl San Francisco Traffic During Massive Blackout
"During a disaster... Waymos would be blocking evacuation routes. Hard to believe no one asked these questions, until you realize that good governance is suspended when billionaires knock on the door," said one observer.
Dec 21, 2025
A citywide Pacific Gas & Electric power outage Saturday in San Francisco paralyzed Waymo autonomous taxis, exacerbating traffic chaos and prompting a fleet-wide shutdown—and calls for more robust robotaxi regulation.
Around 130,000 San Francisco homes and businesses went dark due to an afternoon fire at a PG&E substation in the city's South of Market neighborhood. While most PG&E customers had their electricity restored by around 9:00 pm, more than 20,000 rate-payers remained without power on Sunday morning, according to the San Francisco Standard.
The blackout left traffic lights inoperable, rendering much of Waymo's fleet of around 300 robotaxis "stuck and confused," as one local resident put it, as cascading failures left groups of as many as half a dozen of the robotaxis immobile. In some cases, the stopped vehicles nearly caused collisions.
On a walk across San Francisco on Saturday night prior to the fleet grounding at around 7:00 pm, this reporter saw numerous Waymos stuck on streets or in intersections, while others seemed to surrender, pulling or even backing out of intersections and parking themselves where they could.
Bad look for Waymo. Lots of reports out of SF where the power outage caused its robotaxis to stop in traffic, causing jams.
On the other side, the Tesla robotaxi fleet (& personal FSD users) continued the service without hiccups.
Not clear if Waymo vehicles themselves are… pic.twitter.com/DexuAh0Bpt
— Jaan of the EVwire.com ⚡ (@TheEVuniverse) December 21, 2025
"There are a lot of unique road scenarios on the roads I can see being hard to anticipate and you just hope your software can manage it. 'What if we lose contact with all our cars due to a power outage' is something you should have a meeting and a plan about ahead of time," Fast Company digital editor Morgan Clendaniel—a self-described "big Waymo guy"—said Sunday on Bluesky.
Clendaniel called the blackout "a predictable scenario [Waymo] should have planned for, when clearly they had no plan, because 'they all just stop' is not a plan and is not viable for city roads in an emergency."
Waymo—which is owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google—said it is "focused on keeping our riders safe and ensuring emergency personnel have the clear access they need to do their work.”
Oakland Observer founder and publisher Jaime Omar Yassin said on X, "as others have noted, during a disaster with a consequent power outage, Waymos would be blocking evacuation routes. Hard to believe no one asked these questions, until you realize that good governance is suspended when billionaires knock on the door."
"Waymo's problems are known to anyone paying attention," he added. "At a recent anti-[Department of Homeland Security] protest that occurred coincidentally not far from a Waymo depot, vehicles simply left [the] depot and jammed [the] street behind a police van far from [the] protest that wasn't blocking traffic."
Waymo came to dominate the San Francisco robotaxi market after the California Public Utilities Commission suspended the permit of leading competitor Cruise to operate driverless taxis over public safety concerns following an October 2023 incident in which a pedestrian was critically injured when a Cruise car dragged her 20 feet after she was struck by a human-driven vehicle. The CPUC accused Cruise of covering up the details of the accident.
Some California officials have called for more robust regulation of robotaxis like Waymo. But last year, a bill introduced by state Sen. Dave Cortese (D-15) that would have empowered county and municipal governments "to protect the public through local governance of autonomous vehicles" failed to pass after it was watered down amid pressure from industry lobbyists.
In San Francisco, progressive District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder said during a press conference last month after a Waymo ran over and killed a beloved Mission District bodega cat named KitKat that while Waymo "may treat our communities as laboratories and human beings and our animals as data points, we in the Mission do not."
Waymo claimed that KitKat "darted" under its car, but security camera video footage corroborated witness claims to Mission Local that the cat had been sitting in front of the vehicle for as long as eight seconds before it was crushed.
Fielder lamented that "the fate of autonomous vehicles has been decided behind closed doors in Sacramento, largely by politicians in the pocket of big tech and tech billionaires."
The first-term supervisor—San Francisco's title for city council members—is circulating a petition "calling on the California State Legislature and [Gov. Gavin Newsom] to give counties the right to vote on whether autonomous vehicles can operate in their areas."
"This would let local communities make decisions that reflect their needs and safety concerns, while also addressing state worries about intercity consistency," Fielder wrote.
Other local progressives pointed to the citywide blackout as more proof that PG&E—whose reputation has been battered by incidents like the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people in Butte County and led to the company pleading guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter—should be publicly run, as progressive advocacy groups have urged for years.
The San Francisco power outage is absolutely unacceptable. There are still people & businesses in SF that don’t have power. I can’t imagine what this is like for the elderly & people with disabilities. PG&E should not be a private company.
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— Nadia Rahman 駱雯 (@nadiarahman.bsky.social) December 21, 2025 at 10:35 AM
"Sacramento and Palo Alto don’t have PG&E, they have public power," progressive Democratic congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti said Sunday on X. "They pay about half as much as us in utility bills and do not have weekend-long power outages. We could have that in San Francisco."
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'Long-Overdue': Pelosi to Retire After Four Decades in Congress
Pelosi's progressive challenger called it the start of a "generational shift" in the Democratic Party.
Nov 06, 2025
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling it quits after nearly four decades in Congress. On Thursday, the longtime Democratic leader announced that her 20th term in Congress will be her last and that she will not run for reelection in 2026.
"For decades, I've cherished the privilege of representing our magnificent city in the United States Congress," Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a video tribute to her constituents in San Francisco. "That is why I want you, my fellow San Franciscans, to be the first to know I will not be seeking reelection to Congress. With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative."
The departure of the 85-year-old Pelosi, the first and only woman to ever hold the speaker's gavel, comes at a critical crossroads for the Democratic Party, when the brand of corporate-friendly centrism she came to embody faces a crisis of credibility after failing to withstand the return of President Donald Trump, and an increasingly muscular progressive flank seeks to reshape the party in its image.
"Starting out as a progressive, Pelosi has steadily drifted to the center over the decades, coinciding with her rise up the party ranks, the gradual rise of her net worth, and even San Francisco’s transformation into an unaffordable playground for the rich," wrote Branko Marcetic in Jacobin when she stepped down from the role as the Democratic leader in 2022.
Once a proponent of universal healthcare, Pelosi will likely be remembered as one of the foremost obstacles to achieving Medicare for All, which she fought tooth and nail to block, with the support of the health insurance industry, during her final four years as speaker.
As the climate crisis grows more urgent and increasingly destructive, Pelosi will be remembered as the person who derided the nascent "Green New Deal" effort to transition America's economy toward renewables as "the green dream or whatever they call it."
As the Democratic Party's base reckons with its near-total shift against Israel following more than two years of genocide in Gaza, Pelosi—who previously backed funding for the Iraq War against the grassroots of her party—will be remembered as the person who, suggested that Democrats protesting for a ceasefire were spreading “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s message” and should be investigated by the FBI.
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rampages through American cities—including her beloved San Francisco—tormenting immigrants and citizens alike, Pelosi will be remembered for her role bending to Republican demands during the last government shutdown in 2019, to hand the agency more funding as part of a power play against the progressive "Squad" members who wanted to see the agency abolished or defunded.
And at a time when Americans struggle with a surging cost of living, Pelosi will be remembered as one of the people who profited most from her position at the heights of power. In 2024, she and her husband raked in more than $38 million from stock trading, more than any other member of Congress in either party, and remained a persistent defender of the humble elected representative's right to use their immense wealth of insider knowledge for personal gain.
Pelosi's retirement announcement comes at a moment when the Democratic establishment, particularly its congressional leaders—Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Pelosi's successor, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)—face historic unpopularity with their own voters.
A survey published by Pew Research at the beginning of October found that 59% of self-identified Democrats disapprove of the job their leaders are doing. A previous poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that Democrats believe there was a large gulf between their governing priorities, like universal healthcare, affordable childcare, and higher taxes on the rich, and those of the party.
Pelosi's announcement comes just two days after the most significant triumph in decades for the progressive movement she tried to crush, with the democratic socialist state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani being comfortably elected as New York City's next mayor despite Pelosi's refusal to endorse.
"This is an appropriate response to Mamdani’s win," New Republic writer Indigo Oliver said of Pelosi's retirement on social media. "Chuck Schumer should follow Pelosi’s lead."
Even prior to her retirement becoming official, momentum was building behind a more progressive candidate to take Pelosi's seat as well: Saikat Chakrabarti, the former chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who some have described as a "clone" of Mamdani, though he too has been met with criticism for his coziness with San Francisco's powerful tech sector.
"Pelosi’s retirement marks the end of an era in San Francisco politics and the beginning of a long-overdue generational shift," said an email from the Chakrabarti campaign.
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