Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...At least one candidate in the June 2 primary race to replace State Sen. Aisha Wahab is raking in millions in financial support. Not from grassroots efforts, but from major tech companies and billionaires.
Union City Councilmember Scott Sakakihara, a former Palantir executive, has received over $3 million in support from political action committees tied to Uber, Meta, and tech billionaires Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, according to independent expenditure reports from the Federal Elections Commission. Sakakihara also loaned his campaign for Senate District 10, which covers parts of Alameda and Santa Clara counties, a total of $1 million of his own money, most recently giving himself $250,000 on May 21.
“I want to make sure we have the resources we need, whether it’s funding or otherwise, to run a strong campaign,” Sakakihara told this news organization. “I do think this is a really important election.”
In support of Sakakihara, Uber has spent over $1 million in TV ads, media production, and polling. Meta bought mailers and digital ads totaling over $966,000. Larsen and Draper’s Grow California PAC spent over $1 million in ads, consulting, and research.
Opposing candidates questioned Sakakihara’s self-funding and the tech interests supporting him.
“My interpretation is, by the millions being spent trying to buy this seat, that I’m perceived as a threat,” candidate Anne Kepner, a West Valley-Mission College Board trustee, told this news organization Friday. “That’s exactly the problem, and the reason I’m running.”
Kepner, a consumer attorney who has previously taken companies such as Uber to court, said, “sometimes, I think we’re defined by our enemies.”
PACs representing nurses and labor unions that spent over $505,000 in support of Kepner have been outpaced by other PACs representing businesses that spent nearly $550,000 opposing her campaign. This includes hundreds of thousands spent by the Californians For Consumer Protection Against Anne Kepner For SD10 PAC and JobsPAC, a political arm of the California Chamber of Commerce and other pro-business interests.
“If that’s who my enemies are, it’s all the more reason that I feel it highlights who I am and what my candidacy is about,” Kepner said. “It’s about putting people over profits.”
Sakakihara said he doesn’t know Larsen or Draper personally. He said the millions spent by companies and billionaires are part of “battles that predate me that start to resurface in a race like this.”
San Jose City Councilmember David Cohen, who is also running for the seat, said, “I suspect for some, this amount of spending is problematic,” and called the tech companies’ independent expenditures “overkill that I think actually backfires in terms of what voters think of a candidate.”
“I think it’s an obscene amount of money that Scott is putting into the race out of his own pocket,” Cohen said. “I think anybody spending a million dollars out of their own pocket to try to buy a race should be looked at with skepticism.”
Cohen, who has the most political experience compared to Sakakihara and Kepner, said he was being “helped and supported by grassroots, and not by large political interests who are trying to buy influence in Sacramento.”
“I’ve spent a decade of actually fighting on the front lines against the abuses of this Trump administration and ICE, while my opponents have not been involved, or in some cases have actually been enabling that behavior,” Cohen said, referring to Sakakihara’s former Palantir ties.
Palantir has drawn widespread public criticism for aiding ICE’s deportation efforts. Sakakihara said those actions led him to quit the company last year.
“I’ve been very consistent in what my priorities are,” he said. “I’ve been very consistent that what ICE is doing is terrible and what the Trump administration is doing more broadly targeting vulnerable communities is reprehensible.”