SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A new book alleges California Gov. Gavin Newsom secretly funded a $97,000 bronze bust of himself at San Francisco City Hall, using donations from his own companies. The claim, published March 11, 2025, in Fool’s Gold by Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter, has reignited scrutiny of Newsom’s financial dealings as mayor from 2004 to 2011.
The book says Newsom solicited “behested payments”—donations requested by officials for causes—via two firms, Balboa Cafe Partners and PlumpJack Management Group. Each donated $5,000 in 2015-2016 to Community Initiatives, a nonprofit, earmarked for the “Mayoral Bust at San Francisco City Hall,” per state records.
Newsom’s office denies any secrecy. “To imply the Governor personally funded or proposed this effort is categorically false,” spokesman Izzy Gardon told the Daily Mail on March 13. “The effort was independently proposed by a nonprofit and funded by private donors—not taxpayers.”
The bust, unveiled in 2012 with little fanfare, honors Newsom’s mayoral tenure. Crabtree alleges Newsom’s firms got tax breaks for the $10,000 total, a claim his team won’t confirm or deny, raising questions about hidden costs to taxpayers.
Newsom downplayed the project years ago. “I don’t want to call it embarrassing, but it’s a strange thing,” he told SFGate in 2015, adding, “I’m just awkward about it.” He claimed it was “the brainchild of Newsom supporters” funded privately, saying he didn’t know the donors.
Crabtree stands by her reporting. “No one knew that Gavin Newsom used ‘behested payments’ to solicit funds from his own companies until we followed the money and unearthed the obscure documents,” she told the Daily Mail. She insists the book’s 45 pages of endnotes back the findings.
The governor’s team hit back hard. “This publication should come with a free tinfoil hat, a lifetime subscription to InfoWars, and a VIP dinner with Elvis Presley and Bigfoot,” Newsom’s office told Fox News on March 13, mocking the authors’ credibility.
Behested payments are legal in California, letting officials request unlimited donations for charitable or governmental purposes. Newsom’s raised $227 million this way since 2011, per the LA Times, though only $10,000 is tied to the bust—far less than his $226 million haul in 2020 alone.
The timing stokes the fire. California faces a $6.2 billion Medi-Cal overrun, per the LA Times on March 17, and homelessness rose 6% in 2024, per CalMatters. Newsom’s bust resurfaces as he eyes a 2028 presidential run, launching a podcast March 6 with figures like Charlie Kirk.
His office says his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, helped raise funds, reported by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2018. That story didn’t detail his companies’ roles, which Crabtree calls a gap. “Team Newsom is afraid of the shocking revelations in Fool’s Gold,” she said.
The bust sits among other mayoral tributes, sculpted by Bruce Wolfe after Newsom posed multiple times. Gardon stressed it’s a tradition, not a scandal: “Businesses tied to the Newsom family made a modest contribution… reported publicly at the time.”
The controversy dogs Newsom’s image rehab. His approval dipped from 52% to 47%, per Capitol Weekly, amid podcast backlash and state woes. For now, the bust stands—bronze proof of a past term, or a taxpayer shadow yet to clear.
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