Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician and businessman serving as the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California from 2011 to 2019 and as the 42nd mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.
Born in San Francisco, Newsom graduated from Santa Clara University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science in political science. Afterward, he founded the boutique winery PlumpJack Group in Oakville, California, with billionaire heir and family friend Gordon Getty as an investor. The company grew to manage 23 businesses, including wineries, restaurants, and hotels. Newsom began his political career in 1996, when San Francisco mayor Willie Brown appointed him to the city's Parking and Traffic Commission. Brown then appointed Newsom to fill a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors the next year and Newsom was first elected to the board in 1998.
Newsom was elected mayor of San Francisco in 2003 and reelected in 2007. He was elected lieutenant governor of California in 2010 and reelected in 2014. As lieutenant governor, Newsom hosted The Gavin Newsom Show from 2012 to 2013 and in 2013 wrote the book Citizenville, which focuses on using digital tools for democratic change.
Newsom was elected governor of California in 2018 and reelected in 2022. Newsom faced criticism for his personal behavior and leadership style during the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed to an unsuccessful recall effort in 2021. As governor, Newsom focused on infrastructure and housing, climate, gun control and LGBTQ rights. In 2025, he began hosting a podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom, which has featured guests from across the political spectrum. Also in 2025, he oversaw the passage of California Proposition 50, also known as the Election Rigging Response Act, in a referendum to amend the State Constitution.
Early life
Gavin Christopher Newsom was born on October 10, 1967, in San Francisco, California, to Tessa Thomas and William Alfred Newsom III, a state appeals court judge and attorney for Getty Oil. A fourth-generation San Franciscan, Newsom comes from a prominent family with deep ties to the city. His maternal great-grandfather Thomas Addis was a pioneering nephrologist and professor of medicine at Stanford University noted for his groundbreaking research on kidney disease. Newsom is a second cousin twice removed of musician Joanna Newsom, and his aunt Barbara Newsom was married to Ron Pelosi, the brother-in-law of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Newsom's parents divorced in 1971 when he was three years old, leaving his mother, Tessa, to raise him and his younger sister, Hilary Newsom Callan, largely on her own. Tessa worked three jobs—often as a waitress, bookkeeper, and secretary—to support the family, fostering a strong work ethic in her children. Newsom has called his childhood challenging, shaped in part by financial instability and his struggle with "pretty severe" dyslexia, a condition he still has.Newsom's education began at École Notre Dame des Victoires, a French-American bilingual Catholic school in San Francisco that he attended for kindergarten and first grade. But his severe dyslexia—which affected his ability to read, write, spell, and perform numerical tasks —prompted a transfer. He continued at Notre Dame des Victoires from third through fifth grades, where he was enrolled in remedial reading classes to cope with his learning difficulties. Throughout his years in school, Newsom relied heavily on audiobooks, summaries, and verbal instruction. He still prefers audio interpretations of documents and reports. In a 2023 interview, he said his dyslexia "forced me to find workarounds and think differently—skills I still use every day as governor."
At Redwood High School in Larkspur, California, Newsom excelled athletically despite his academic struggles, graduating in 1985. He played basketball as a shooting guard and baseball as an outfielder, earning recognition on the cover of the Marin Independent Journal for his skills. His sister Hilary recalled lean Christmases when their mother warned them not to expect gifts, underscoring the family's financial strain. Tessa opened their home to foster children, a practice that Newsom has said instilled in him a lifelong commitment to public service. His father's habit of donating much of his income further tightened the family's finances, leading Newsom to take various jobs—such as washing cars and working at a local deli—during high school to help out.
Newsom enrolled at Santa Clara University on a partial baseball scholarship, graduating in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science in political science. He tried out for the baseball team during his first two years but underwent elbow surgery in late 1985—later revealed as a procedure to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament—ending his varsity aspirations. He has credited the university's Jesuit education with fostering his independent thinking and skepticism of conventional wisdom. During his junior year, Newsom spent a semester studying abroad in Rome, Italy, an experience he called "eye-opening" in a 2019 speech, exposing him to global perspectives that influenced his political career.
Business career
Newsom and his investors created the company PlumpJack Associates L.P. on May 14, 1991. The group started the PlumpJack Winery in 1992 with the financial help of his family friend Gordon Getty. PlumpJack was the name of an opera written by Getty, who invested in 10 of Newsom's 11 businesses. Getty told the San Francisco Chronicle that he treated Newsom like a son and invested in his first business venture because of that relationship. According to Getty, later business investments were because of "the success of the first".One of Newsom's early interactions with government occurred when Newsom resisted the San Francisco Department of Public Health's requirement to install a sink at his PlumpJack wine store. The Health Department argued that wine was a food and required the store to install a $2,700 sink in the carpeted wine shop on the grounds that the shop needed the sink for a mop. When Newsom was later appointed supervisor, he told the San Francisco Examiner: "That's the kind of bureaucratic malaise I'm going to be working through."
The business grew to an enterprise with more than 700 employees. The PlumpJack Cafe Partners L.P. opened the PlumpJack Café, also on Fillmore Street, in 1993. Between 1993 and 2000, Newsom and his investors opened several other businesses that included the PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn with a PlumpJack Café, a winery in Napa Valley, the Balboa Café Bar and Grill, the PlumpJack Development Fund L.P., the MatrixFillmore Bar, PlumpJack Wines shop Noe Valley branch, PlumpJackSport retail clothing, and a second Balboa Café at Squaw Valley. Newsom's investments included five restaurants and two retail clothing stores. Newsom's annual income was greater than $429,000 from 1996 to 2001. In 2002, his business holdings were valued at more than $6.9 million. Newsom gave a monthly $50 gift certificate to PlumpJack employees whose business ideas failed, because in his view, "There can be no success without failure."
Newsom sold his share of his San Francisco businesses when he became mayor in 2004. He maintained his ownership in the PlumpJack companies outside San Francisco, including the PlumpJack Winery in Oakville, California, new PlumpJack-owned Cade Winery in Angwin, California, and the PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn. He is the president in absentia of Airelle Wines Inc., which is connected to the PlumpJack Winery in Napa County. Newsom earned between $141,000 and $251,000 in 2007 from his business interests. In February 2006, he paid $2,350,000 for his residence in the Russian Hill neighborhood, which he put on the market in April 2009 for $3,000,000. At the time of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in March 2023, it was acknowledged that at least three of Newsom's wine companies—PlumpJack, Cade, and Odette—were Silicon Valley Bank clients.
Early political career
Newsom's first political experience came when he volunteered for Willie Brown's successful campaign for mayor in 1995. Newsom hosted a private fundraiser at his PlumpJack Café. Brown appointed Newsom to a vacant seat on the Parking and Traffic Commission in 1996, and he was later elected president of the commission. Brown appointed him to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors seat vacated by Kevin Shelley in 1997. At the time, he was the youngest member of San Francisco's board of supervisors.Newsom was sworn in by his father and pledged to bring his business experience to the board. Brown called Newsom "part of the future generation of leaders of this great city". Newsom described himself as a "social liberal and a fiscal watchdog". He was elected to a full four-year term to the board in 1998. San Francisco voters chose to abandon at-large elections to the board for the previous district system in 1999. Newsom was reelected in 2000 and 2002 to represent the second district, which includes Pacific Heights, the Marina, Cow Hollow, Sea Cliff, and Laurel Heights, which had San Francisco's highest income level and highest Republican registration. Newsom paid $500 to the San Francisco Republican Party to appear on the party's endorsement slate in 2000 while running for Supervisor. He was reelected.
As a San Francisco Supervisor, Newsom gained public attention for his role in advocating reform of the city's municipal railway. He was one of two supervisors endorsed by Rescue Muni, a transit riders group, in his 1998 reelection. He sponsored Proposition B to require Muni and other city departments to develop detailed customer service plans. The measure passed with 56.6% of the vote. Newsom sponsored a ballot measure from Rescue Muni; a version of the measure was approved by voters in November 1999. Newsom also supported allowing restaurants to serve alcohol at their outdoor tables, banning tobacco advertisements visible from the streets, stiffer penalties for landlords who run afoul of rent-control laws, and a resolution, which was defeated, to commend Colin Powell for raising money for youth programs. Newsom's support for business interests at times strained his relationship with labor leaders.
During Newsom's time as supervisor, he supported housing projects through public-private partnerships to increase homeownership and affordable housing in San Francisco. He supported HOPE, a failed local-ballot measure that would have allowed an increased condo-conversion rate if a certain percentage of tenants within a building were buying their units. As a candidate for mayor, he supported building 10,000 new housing units to create 15,000 new construction jobs. Newsom's signature achievement as a supervisor was a voter initiative called Care Not Cash, which offered care, supportive housing, drug treatment, and help from behavioral health specialists for the homeless in lieu of direct cash aid from the state's general assistance program. Many homeless rights advocates protested against the initiative. Newsom said: "Progressives and Democrats, nuns and priests, homeless advocates and homeless people were furious." The successfully passed ballot measure raised his political profile and provided the volunteers, donors, and campaign staff that helped make him a leading contender for mayor in 2003. In a 2008 city audit, the program was evaluated as largely successful for lowering average cash payments per person from over $300 to $78 and the number of people receiving cash payments from over 2,500 to about 640.