Tom Steyer Briefs Higher Learning on His Plan for California

In the following excerpt, Rachel and Van talk with Tom Steyer about his stance on whether billionaires should exist. 

Rachel Lindsay: Van laid out how your policies have changed over the years, and you talked about it even further. Obviously the candidates in the race—other candidates in the race—aren’t going to highlight that. Their biggest talking point against you is that you are the only billionaire in the race. And that plays into this mindset that maybe some voters may have of: Can they trust a billionaire? You talked also about how you were the only candidate who believes in a billionaire tax for this state. Let me ask you this way: Should billionaires exist? And if so, why?

Tom Steyer: So let me say this. My basic campaign is about shared prosperity. And when we think about California, the thing that we do as a state different from every other state in this country, and pretty much anyplace else in this world, is we innovate. You think about the film and entertainment business. That wasn’t even a business. That was made up in Los Angeles, California.

Van Lathan: Certainly.

Steyer: And built by tens of thousands of extremely talented people. They made something up and created a whole business. And if you look at what’s been going on ever since is that. What Californians do is they create. They look forward, they imagine things, and then they make them happen. When that happens, a lot of times there’s value associated with it. I want people in California to continue to do that because that’s actually our strength.

So when I look at … I can give so many examples of people outside the straightforward business world who have created, who’ve come up with new ideas. Magic Johnson is somebody from L.A. who just—he was a great athlete, sure. But then he created a whole ’nother thing going on around it. I don’t want to stop that, and I don’t want to put a lid on it. As far as I’m concerned, the sky’s the limit.

But the reason people come here to do that from all over the world is because this is the place where you can do it. This is the place that has an ecosystem that supports it. We have great schools. Hollywood, there may be a bunch of stars and a bunch of directors, but there were tens of thousands of incredibly talented people to make those companies actually work. When you look at building an IT company or an AI company, why are they all here? They’re all here because the people you need to make that happen are all here. This state was built by working people. It runs on working people. People have been—and let me say this; this is the part that I find most emotional. This system has been built over a thousand years, mostly by very poor people standing up for freedom, liberty, and democracy, and the rule of law. That is why we have our system.

That didn’t just happen. Elon Musk came here from South Africa to create a company. He could have stayed in South Africa, but that didn’t exist there. So I don’t mind people coming here. I encourage people to come here and create, to innovate, to do new things. It’s fun. I said the sky’s the limit. You can’t come here and rip us off. You can’t come here and spit. That’s why I was so mad at SoFi Stadium. You can’t come in here and rip off the working people that make this whole state run and also the descendants of the people who for 1,000 years have stood up for what’s right and often died in the mud.

Lathan: I think the conversation over billionaires is an interesting one because it’s sort of dueling thoughts on the existence of a billionaire. One is sort of the American paleo-capitalist idea that people create an abundance and they make a lot of money because they’re innovative or they take chances. The other one is the belief that the existence of the billionaire itself in this country is proof of a systemic contagion that allows someone to make that much money and hoard their wealth and then continue to hoard their wealth to the point that they have an abundance of resources while other people are sleeping on—

Steyer: And I totally buy the … it’s the hoarding part. That’s what I was trying to say. You can’t come here and create and make all this money and not pay back.

Lathan: Well, even in the creation, Tom. Even in the creation of all of that wealth, just the breathtaking systemic dysfunction that has to exist to produce somebody that has $500 billion but also someone else who doesn’t have a home. So I guess the question is specifically on billionaires, and the question is: Do you think that that type of wealth creation for a single person or entity should be something that happens in America or in California?

Steyer: I am not opposed to people creating. I’m opposed to people hoarding. Let me say this, just so you know. My wife and I have taken a pledge to give the bulk of our money away while we’re alive. I’m not going to die a billionaire or anything close to it. We’ve said, look, I started a business.

Lathan: You can give another way, too. Where do I put mine?

Lindsay: Your request?

Lathan: Yeah, where do I put my request in?

Steyer: My wife, actually, is probably better than me. No, but I’m being serious, because my point is this: Look, I started a business, and I made a bunch of money. I don’t want to hoard it. I want to use that money to actually push for justice, for economic, racial, and environmental justice in the state of California. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.

This excerpt has been edited and condensed.

Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay
Guest: Tom Steyer
Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Jade Whaley
Social Producer: Bernard Moore
Video Supervision: Chris Thomas and Jacob Cornett