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The Brutal Hypocrisy of Tom Steyer - My Column In The New York Post
The billionaire running on virtue after decades of profiting from everything he claims to oppose.
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(I wasn’t sending anything out today, preferring to relax with my family, watch football, buy things online, and eat leftovers. But a piece I had submitted to the New York Post popped this morning, so thought I would give you some Black Friday reading! - Jon)
Steyer the Liar
Tom Steyer wants you to believe he’s California’s moral savior. This billionaire woke up one morning, felt guilty about his wealth, and decided to spend his life fighting climate change. That’s the glossy campaign myth. The truth is far less flattering: Steyer made his fortune doing the very things he now condemns, and no amount of fleece jackets, polished ads, or self-righteous speeches can rewrite the record he spent decades creating.
Before Steyer discovered his inner Greta, he spent 25 years at Farallon Capital aggressively investing in coal, oil, gas, pipelines, and even private prisons. Not dabbling — profiting massively. Farallon poured billions into coal mines across Indonesia and Australia, expansions that helped accelerate Asia’s coal boom. It held huge stakes in oil sands operations, offshore drilling, and one of the largest pipeline operators in North America. And while Steyer now rails against mass incarceration, Farallon shoveled nearly $90 million into the country’s biggest for-profit prison company.
I’ve written about this hypocrisy before — including in an opinion piece for the New York Post — where I laid out exactly how Steyer built a “green” reputation on top of fossil-fuel profits.
Only after stepping away — long after the checks cleared — did Steyer suddenly “find religion” on climate and justice? (Who would he be today if he happened to hail from, say, Texas?) Then came the rebranding, the public scolding, the moral lectures, and now, yet again, the political ambition.
And now he wants to be governor.
If Tom Steyer wants to run as a climate crusader, fair enough — but voters deserve the whole story. Because a man who became a billionaire off fossil fuels and prisons lecturing Californians on purity isn’t just ironic, it’s hypocrisy on a scale even Sacramento should appreciate.
Read my New York Post OpEd ——> HERE! (No Firewall)
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