Many people would say it’s unwise to trust a billionaire to overhaul the system that made them rich. Tom Steyer says he gets that.
“The skepticism and the anger at these people who have been so arrogant, so selfish, so full of themselves and so obnoxious—do I share that? Heck yes,” the billionaire climate activist said in an interview with HEATED last week. “Do I understand why people feel that way? How could you not?”
But Steyer, who is running a self-funded campaign for governor of California, argues that he is the billionaire to break the mold. He points to his early divestment from fossil fuels, his pledge to give away most of his fortune, and the hundreds of millions of dollars he’s spent trying to push climate policy and take on corporate power.
Our interview touches on a lot of topics: whether billionaires should exist at all, Steyer’s past investments in fossil fuels, the carbon footprint of billionaire investment portfolios, his proposal to break up California’s electric utility monopolies and lower electricity prices, the dark money campaigns already targeting him, and how he’d use the California governorship to push climate action nationwide. We also talk about our shared trip to the Athabasca tar sands in 2014.
You can watch our conversation at the top of this newsletter or on YouTube, or listen on all your podcast apps. If you’d prefer to read rather than listen, just scroll down for text and PDF transcripts.
HEATED podcast producer Tracy Wholf and I also recorded a short segment right after the interview reacting to what we heard. If you’d like to hear our off-the-cuff thoughts, I’ll be sending them out shortly in a subscribers-only newsletter. Make sure you’re a paid subscriber to get it!
Key moments from today’s show:
If you're short for time, and can’t read or listen to the full conversation, here are some key takeaways.
On welcoming billionaires to California: “If you come here and you want to [start/grow a business], I think that’s great. But you should be prepared to understand that you are not leaving everyone else behind. You did not create this on your own.”
On his previous fossil fuel investments: “The idea that, 25 years ago, we invested in fossil fuels—absolutely true. But I really had a conversion… I went from being somebody who was blithely investing in everything in the economy to, no, no, no, no, that’s not okay. And I need to leave billions of dollars on the table to make sure that I’m actually doing the right thing.”
On the Oxfam study showing billionaires have wildly carbon-intensive stock portfolios: “I don’t think that’s true of my portfolio, because my portfolio is focused actually on the technologies of moving us away from fossil fuels, and away from emissions and to a net zero world.” (More on Steyer’s investment business, Galvanize).
On whether he’d commit to an independent climate audit of his entire stock portfolio: “Well, I think that—look, if this is the bulk of my portfolio, this has to be dramatically negative.”
On his proposal to break up electric utility monopolies in the state: (This part you just have to listen to because it’s not succinctly quotable. You can also read about his plan, and its critics, here.)
On accepting campaign money from electric utilities (like Gavin Newsom): “I would never do that. I’m not taking corporate PAC money. I’m not taking money from people who want something for me to not tell the truth. … To a very large extent, I’m saying to Californians, I can’t be bought.”
On why his campaign launch video didn’t mention climate change: “Because when I talk about electricity, I’m talking about climate. When I talk about wildfires and insurance, I’m talking about climate. When I’m talking about technology growth and inventing the future in California and building the companies about it, I’m talking about climate. I’m trying to talk about climate in terms of the way that people experience it, which is either costs or health and job creation. …
I’m always talking about climate. I’m never describing it as climate. I’m trying to put it in human terms because people are experiencing the world as human beings and they can understand this is cheaper and it’s a better deal for us and we can drop electricity prices. Those are the things that people can hear. And once you get too scientific, too disconnected from their day to day, people are so pressed and so stressed that it’s very hard for most people to hear that, honestly.”On why he’s running himself, not just funding another candidate: “This is not an ego trip. I don’t think I’m doing this all by myself. I think I want to be part of a group of people, which clearly include you and your listeners, making changes that are necessary to actually get the outcomes that are necessary.”
HEATED’s previous coverage of billionaires:
In case you’re wondering where my skepticism comes from.
Bill Gates is no friend to the climate. November 2019
Why I’m skeptical of Jeff Bezos’s $10 billion climate pledge. February 2020
Bezos breaks his climate pledge. September 2020
The stealth climate villains of 2020 (all billionaires). December 2020
Climate billionaires are our modern-day Columbuses. October 2021, repub October 2023
The climate case against Elon Musk. November 2022
Elon Musk’s climate censorship. April 2023
Surprise! Billionaires aren’t solving climate change. November 2023
Nobel Prize-winning economist calls for climate tax on billionaires. April 2024
Behind the billionaire climate tax. April 2024
Elon Musk’s PAC is powered by coal. November 2024
You already know Elon Musk. You need to know Harold Hamm. February 2025
The Senate is about to destroy clean energy to give tax cuts to billionaires. June 2025
Text transcript
(Full PDF transcript)
Emily Atkin:
Today I’m interviewing Tom Steyer, the climate activist billionaire who’s running to be the next governor of California.
Before we get into it, here’s a quick summary of Tom’s platform: populism and affordability, single-payer health care, abolishing ICE, building a million affordable homes in four years, and holding a special election to raise corporate taxes.
Despite being a billionaire himself, Politico has called Tom “the most vocal candidate in the race about the need to raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy.” He’s also been endorsed by key unions, including the California Nurses Association, United Domestic Workers Union, and school employees.
Now, I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t have a problem with Tom’s platform. But one of the reasons I wanted to interview him is that I am deeply skeptical of the idea that a billionaire can be trusted to solve structural problems like wealth inequality and climate chaos.
That skepticism comes from my entire lived experience as a reporter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve covered billionaires promising to be climate champions, only to watch those promises fall apart. And there’s a simple reason for that: billionaires generally do not want to change the system that made them rich.
To expect a billionaire to dismantle the system that concentrates wealth and power in their hands — the one that lets corporations buy politicians, and externalize the costs of pollution onto workers and communities — is a little like asking someone sitting at the top of the world’s tallest tree to saw off the branch they’re sitting on.
But I want to be fair. Tom has probably done more than any other billionaire to break that mold. He’s spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars not just on climate causes, but specifically on trying to beat back the corporate influence that makes climate action so hard to achieve in the first place. So I think we can hear him out.
There’s also something happening in this election that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before: fossil fuel interests are actively going after a billionaire — Tom — for his proposal to break up electric utilities in the state in order to lower Californians’ electric bills. So I wanted to give him a chance to talk about that too. After I grilled him on his own structural power first, of course.
I also wanted to talk with Tom about how he plans to use the California governorship for climate action nationally, and why his campaign launch video didn’t mention climate change at all.
His answers are the kind of things listeners could probably argue about for hours, and I hope you do in the comments.
So here’s our conversation.
Emily Atkin:
Tom Steyer, welcome to the show.
Tom Steyer:
Emily, thank you so much for having me on.
Emily:
Let’s get right into it. I’ve made no secret over the years of my deep skepticism of the billionaire class. So I’m going to ask you something a lot of my listeners are probably thinking, even if maybe nobody has said it to your face: Do you think it is ethical that you exist?
Tom:
Look, the implication is: Is there something wrong with somebody who starts a business, that business grows over a long period of time, creates something valuable, and they own part of it — and that part ends up being worth more than a billion dollars? In my opinion, no.
But let me say this: if you want to come to California — and people come from all over the world and all over the United States to start businesses here, because this is the best place to start a business and grow a business — there’s an ecosystem here to support that. It’s been built up over decades. This state has been built by working people. It continues to run because of working people.
So if you want to come here and start something, great. The sky’s the limit. But you are now part of a community, a state, an ecosystem that you did not create, but from which you benefit. You have to be a good citizen.
That means understanding you did not make your own money. You are not self-made. This system is the result of hundreds of years of people fighting and dying to build it.
So if you come here and take advantage of everybody else’s work and sacrifice and then think you did it all by yourself, that’s not fair.
Emily:
So it sounds like you’re saying it’s ethical for billionaires to exist, but it’s not ethical for them to exist and not pay their fair share. Is that fair?
Tom:
Absolutely. And they need to think of themselves as part of a whole system, including all 40 million people in the state of California. I’m for prosperity, but I’m for shared prosperity — not leaving people behind. That is a huge part of what this campaign is about.
Emily:
I ask because there’s a version of a California voter who actually likes what you stand for on climate, on inequality, on all of it. But those voters have also spent the last decade being told by billionaires that they were going to solve all their problems — that Elon was going to electrify transportation, that Bezos was going to fix health care — and it hasn’t panned out.
So for that voter specifically, the billionaire-skeptical one, what’s your argument for why they should trust you?
Tom:
Let me address that. The skepticism and the anger at these people who have been so arrogant, so selfish, so full of themselves, so obnoxious — do I share that? Heck yes. Heck yes. Do I understand why people feel that way? How could you not?
I will say this: almost 20 years ago, my wife and I took a pledge to give away the bulk of our money while we’re alive. I will not die a billionaire. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.
And for basically the last 14 years, I’ve been working full-time as an advocate for economic and environmental justice, for working people in this state who I think have been on the short end of the stick for 45 years. There’s math and data to show that’s true.
So to a very large extent, what I’m running on is that I’m the person who will get results — not just talk about it, but get it done.
Emily:
I also want to give you an opportunity to address another reason my audience might be skeptical of you, because I have a very climate-focused audience, very focused on accountability for Big Oil and fossil fuels.
Another reason they might be skeptical is that you have a history of investing in fossil fuels. So how do you answer somebody who says they don’t want to trust you on climate because of the way your wealth was built?
Tom:
Well, it wasn’t built on fossil fuels. It was built on everything, including fossil fuels. My awareness of this happened somewhere in the mid-2000s, and by 2012, when I left my business, I had completely divested from fossil fuels.
And I’ve spent decades working on this problem. That was, I think, way ahead of everybody else.
In fact, the big reason I walked away from my business — which was incredibly profitable and has continued to be incredibly profitable without me — is that I felt I was in a business focused on profits and results without awareness of the second-order effects. And I decided we were never going to invest in fossil fuels again.
That has been a rule in my life for 15 years. I’ve been working on climate for a really long time. This is not something I decided to do because I’m running for governor.
So yes, 25 years ago we invested in fossil fuels. Absolutely true. But I had a conversion in terms of understanding what was going on. I went from being someone blithely investing across the economy to saying: no, that’s not okay. And I need to leave billions of dollars on the table to do the right thing.
Emily:
And we want people to have conversions, right? We don’t want people to never change their minds.
And I don’t know if you remember this, but I’ll give you credit here for being somebody who’s been doing this for a long time. Back in 2014, I was a 24-year-old reporter, and you went on a trip to the Canadian tar sands—
Tom:
God, I remember that so clearly.
Emily:
—to talk with Indigenous communities affected by tar sands development, because that was really the height of the Keystone XL pipeline fight—
Tom:
Which I was strongly fighting against, and which we did stop.
Emily:
—and there was an extra spot on your plane.
Tom:
Was that you?
Emily:
That was me. I was the reporter who came with you to report on it.
Tom:
My God, Emily. That was such an epic trip for me.
Emily:
It really was. It was a trip that made me fall in love with climate and environmental reporting — getting to talk to communities affected downstream by oil development.
Tom:
It was incredible. I went up there so people couldn’t say, “You’re just some jerk running your mouth who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” And what we saw looked like the mountains of the moon.
They were creating a massive amount of runoff after mining and refining the oil, and they put it in these tailings ponds with gravel on the bottom. So it went right into the water system. All of the toxicity in that slurry went right into the water system, and it was a cancer cluster.
Every fish, every deer, every drop of water had massive amounts of toxicity in it. I was just like, my God.
Emily:
Yeah. I remember talking to people about how their way of life was being taken away from them — their hunting, their fishing — because of the pollution from those tailings ponds.
I remember someone getting teary-eyed talking about how fishing wasn’t just a source of sustenance; it was part of the culture they wanted to pass down to their kids. And they couldn’t do that anymore. It was really painful.
Tom:
It was incredibly painful. I’d gone to Alaska in 2006 to see what the land and animals and birds and fish looked like before Europeans showed up. And then we went there and saw what happened when industry arrived and devastated the people who had been living there.
I could go on about how heart-wrenching that was.
Emily:
I know. We should get back to your campaign, but I did want to acknowledge that we’ve both been here on this issue for a long time — for me, 10 years; for you, even longer.
But I do have one more question in this billionaire section, and then I promise we’ll get to your proposal.
Tom:
That’s okay. These are absolutely fair questions, and I’m not defensive about them. I had a conversion experience. I’m glad it happened. It needed to happen, and I took a different path.
Emily:
Right, and I appreciate that.
So just to be clear: you divested from fossil fuels a while ago, and you’ve spent a lot of your accumulated wealth on climate causes. At the same time, though, it’s my understanding that an investment portfolio of your size is still massively carbon-intensive, no matter the level of fossil fuel exposure.
I was reading a 2022 Oxfam report — which I’m happy to share with you — that found the average billionaire’s investment portfolio generates around 3 million tons of CO2 a year, which is more than 300 times greater than what comes from private jets and yachts, which is what most people think of when they think of billionaire carbon emissions.
So I wanted to know: do you know the carbon intensity of your investment portfolio?
Tom:
Let me address that.
I started an investment business called Galvanize Climate Solutions, which is totally focused on the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. It is 100 percent the opposite of what you’re talking about: technologies and businesses that enable us to get to net zero.
So when you say “the typical billionaire,” let’s be clear: I’m not the typical billionaire.
I think this is the leading investment platform in the world for investing in the energy transition. And that’s the point I want to make: the economics are dramatically behind the transition.
The transition is happening because, as I wrote in my book Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War, it’s better for people right now. Clean energy is cheaper. EVs are faster. All of these things are better. We’re not asking people to eat their gruel and sacrifice. We’re saying: this is here right now, and it’s simply a better deal.
Fossil fuels are a loser.
So in answer to your question, I don’t think that’s true of my portfolio, because my portfolio is focused on the technologies that move us away from fossil fuels, away from emissions, and toward a net-zero world.
Emily:
Have you ever done an audit of the carbon intensity of your portfolio? Would you consider doing one?
Tom:
Well, if this is the bulk of my portfolio, it has to be dramatically negative. We’re not just investing in technologies to reduce emissions; we’re investing in technologies that can enable sequestration at the gigaton level this decade.
Emily:
I think this is a good transition from fossil fuels and solar to another powerful class that deserves scrutiny: electric utilities and your proposal surrounding them.
Californians are paying some of the highest electricity rates in the country. The three major investor-owned utilities have raised rates between 80 and 110 percent over the last decade. You’re promising to cut California’s electricity bills by 25 percent by breaking up the utility monopolies PG&E, Southern California Edison, and SDG&E.
So I want to give you a chance to make that case directly to our listeners, because it is a bold promise. How does your proposal actually work?
Tom:
I’ll answer that, but let me just say: Californians pay twice as much for electricity as the average of the rest of the country. If I cut electric costs by 25 percent, we’re still paying 50 percent more than the rest of the country.
So when people say it’s a bold promise, it’s actually not that bold. Paying 50 percent more than everyone else still doesn’t sound like a great outcome to me.
Emily:
Ha. Hey, you said it.
Tom:
The real issue here is monopoly. These are three legal monopolies. Most places don’t have this kind of arrangement.
People think utilities make money by charging for electricity and then pocketing the difference after their costs. That’s not how it works. They make a capital expenditure — say a new pole or a new grid upgrade — the Public Utilities Commission accepts it as part of the rate base, and then they get a guaranteed return on that investment.
Their return is based on a rate base the PUC allows, plus a guaranteed return of about 10 percent.
So if you and I are running an electric utility and we have a problem we can solve with either a $100 million facility or a $200 million facility, what happens? In a competitive system, we’d want the $100 million facility. But in this system, we’d rather build the $200 million one, because 10 percent of $200 million is better than 10 percent of $100 million.
There’s a huge incentive to make bigger investments, because they’re a monopoly. And when that raises electricity prices? Well, too bad. If you want electricity, you have no choice.
Emily:
So you’re saying those investments are not always necessary? Because it’s also my understanding that there are a lot of things the utilities do need to invest in, especially in California.
Tom:
Totally. There are necessary investments. The question is: do we do them the cheapest possible way or the most expensive possible way?
Take wildfire prevention. Of course it has to be done. But if the system rewards the most expensive option, that’s what they’re going to choose.
So there are two things we need to do. One is change the incentives. The PUC has to stop encouraging and permitting this kind of behavior. That’s the first thing, and we can do it quickly.
The second is that we actually need to introduce competition. Right now the utility can basically say, “You don’t like it? Tough. You have no legal choice.”
Emily:
I like what I hear when I hear, “I’m going to take on the utilities, I’m going to lower the bills, I’m going to break them up.” My instinct is: how are they going to allow you to do that?
Tom:
Allow? First of all, the governor gets to choose the PUC members. Second, yes, we’d have to pass legislation. But this isn’t some crazy idea I just made up. Versions of this exist elsewhere.
A lot of this comes down to what the law allows people to do. If you and I own a warehouse and put solar on the roof, okay, we’re generating electricity. So what? Who are we allowed to sell it to? At what price? That’s just a legal question.
Are people allowed to put solar on the roof with a battery and use that electricity and sell it to their neighbors? In this system, no.
But there’s an electricity revolution happening in the world, and it’s happening at breakneck speed.
Emily:
Right.
Tom:
Prices are coming down like crazy. A bunch of countries added 50 percent more electricity generation last year, not through utilities or the government, but because people bought solar panels and hooked them up.
In Germany, people routinely have plug-in solar panels on their balconies. They put them out there, plug them in, and use the electricity.
Emily:
On their balconies. So that’s part of your campaign promise—
Tom:
This is here. This is already here.
We have these old monopoly electric systems that were built in the early 20th century on older technology. The technology is changing really, really fast. The question is whether we’re going to keep a legal system that insists we live in the first half of the 20th century when we’re in the 21st.
Our responsibility is to bring down costs for people and get them the power they deserve.
Emily:
I will say it does seem like PG&E in particular is at least somewhat threatened by this proposal.
Their response to your campaign — and to others proposing utility reform — appears to be a coordinated dark-money attack campaign. There’s this 501(c)(3) called California Energy Facts that’s been systematically targeting every politician proposing rate relief, including you. But our reporting suggests it’s not an independent watchdog like it claims to be. It’s essentially a PG&E front group run by PG&E president Carla Peterman.
Are you aware of that?
Tom:
I’m not, but I was told the big electric monopolies are going to give money to every campaign except mine. Does that suggest maybe I’m onto something good?
Emily:
Well, not only are they not giving you money — it appears they’re actively spending money against you.
Tom:
Yes, and that’s exactly my point: they’re going to try to prevent me from winning.
Emily:
I guess my question is: do you need that money?
Tom:
I wouldn’t take their money, for God’s sake.
Emily:
You wouldn’t?
Tom:
No. Absolutely not. I would never do that. I’m not taking corporate PAC money. I’m not taking money from people who want something from me in exchange for me not telling the truth. No.
Emily:
Is that how you view using your own money to fund this campaign?
Tom:
Yes, because I want to be able to say I can’t be bought. It’s expensive to run in California. And my point is: if you want to take on the powers that be, if you want to change things, you can’t take money from the powers that be, because that’s why they’re giving it to you.
So to a very large extent, I’m saying to Californians: I can’t be bought.
Emily:
I want to zoom out for a second, because this sounds like it could be a way for California to serve as a testing ground for policies that might later spread to other states. Historically that’s often been what California has been, especially on climate policy.
And that’s another reason we’re having this interview, because as much as I love California, this isn’t actually a California podcast. It’s a climate podcast.
So I’d like to ask: how do you see the California governorship as a tool for climate action nationally?
Tom:
I love that question, Emily, because I’ve spent decades preparing myself to answer it.
I have a simple framework. Four rules.
First: polluter pays. If you emit, you pay. Otherwise you’re saying everybody else is going to pay for your pollution.
Second: never do environmental policy without doing environmental justice. There has been structural racism and unfairness in where we put toxicity. That trip we took to the oil sands was proof of that. Those First Nations people were absolutely crushed. So you can’t do environmental policy without EJ from the start.
Third: the tech is here. The world already has the technology to get to net zero — or at least dramatically reduce emissions. The question is whether we are willing to deploy it. Because it’s cheaper. We’re not asking people to pay more for electricity or more to fill up their cars. We’re saying: it’s cheaper and better. This is now about deployment, not invention.
And fourth — and this is the one I think is even remotely controversial — I’m a huge believer in natural-world sequestration. We can use photosynthesis, Mother Nature’s gift to us, to sequester CO2 at the gigaton level.
The rough idea people have had is that we need to get down from something like 42 billion tons of CO2 emissions a year, and that by 2050 we’d need to be sequestering maybe 10 billion tons — 25 percent of that. But someone I really respect said to me a year and a half ago: it’s 10 to 20, Tom, because emissions are not coming down at the speed we need.
So I’m a huge believer that before 2030, there are multiple ways in the natural world to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it in the ground or ocean at the gigaton level, and at a cost that is much cheaper than people understand.
To get to net zero, we have to be good at sequestration. The natural world is the way to do it, and we could have an immense, fast impact if people got behind that.
Emily:
That’s a big vision, and I’m glad to hear it. But help me understand something. I watched your campaign launch video, and I was surprised, given your background, that it didn’t mention climate at all. Why?
Tom:
Because when I talk about electricity, I’m talking about climate. When I talk about wildfires and insurance, I’m talking about climate. When I talk about technology growth, inventing the future in California, and building companies around that, I’m talking about climate.
I’m trying to talk about climate in terms of how people actually experience it: costs, health, and jobs.
Every time I’m talking about health, I’m talking about asthma and reducing particulates that go along with emissions. Every time.
So yes, I’m always talking about climate. I’m just not always describing it that way. I’m trying to put it in human terms, because people are living this as human beings. They understand cheaper power. They understand a better deal. They understand lower electricity prices.
Once you get too scientific, too disconnected from everyday life, people are so pressed and stressed that it becomes hard for them to hear.
Emily:
Do you think that talking about it explicitly as climate makes it polarizing?
Tom:
I’m not worried about the polarizing part. I’m worried about whether it’s viscerally impactful.
If I say to you, “I’m going to drop your electricity rates by 25 percent,” that is viscerally impactful. If I talk about cheaper transportation, that’s a big deal. This war has raised prices at the pump 40 percent. That’s a big deal.
So what I’m saying is: I am talking about climate, but not the way scientists talk about it or many advocates talk about it. I’m trying to talk about it the way human beings experience its impacts.
Emily:
When do you think it is politically a good idea to start talking about it explicitly as climate?
Tom:
Let me say this: “polluter pays” is explicit. That’s money. That’s saying to California polluters: no, you don’t get to make the rest of us pay for your pollution. You pay for your pollution. That’s specific. That’s concrete.
Emily:
This is my last question, because I know we’re running out of time.
You have more money than you could ever spend. You’ve funded climate candidates, built organizations, spent hundreds of millions trying to move this issue. A lot of people would argue that that’s actually the more powerful position to be in.
So why do this? Why do you need to be governor? What can Tom Steyer the governor accomplish that Tom Steyer the billionaire climate activist cannot?
Tom:
I think we’re at a crisis point in this country in multiple ways. And the governor of California has a platform that can be transformational in multiple ways — in terms of what democracy looks like, how we take care of everybody in a fair and just way, and how we preserve the natural environment.
One of the big issues is housing. We need to build a lot of houses, because we have way too few. That’s a climate issue. How you zone, where you put those homes, whether you continue to sprawl outward — which means more transportation and the destruction of natural space — that’s a climate issue too.
So in all of these ways, there is a platform here, at a critical time in America and at a critical time for climate.
I’m sure your show has gone into where we are in terms of heating and biodiversity, but it’s pretty hard not to see this as a critical moment. And if you listen to Jim Hansen, his prediction is that heating is going to accelerate much faster than people expected, and that we’re heading to a much worse place much sooner than anyone thought.
So when you ask whether I think this role has more impact than I could have as an independent activist — honestly, I do.
No joke, Emily.
Emily:
Is it one of those things where you’re like, “It’s just easier if I do it myself?” You know how sometimes you’re deciding whether to hire someone or fund someone to do something, and you’re like, nah, it’s easier if I just do it?
Tom:
Well, let me ask you a question: if there were somebody doing this and saying what I’m saying, would I be happy to support them? Yes.
This is not an ego trip. I don’t think I’m doing this all by myself. I want to be part of a group of people — which clearly includes you and your listeners — making the changes necessary to get the outcomes we need.
I want to be part of an army solving this. I have no illusion that any one person is going to solve it. I want to be part of a coalition making good decisions, pushing society forward, and protecting our future.
