Billionaire Climate Warrior Tom Steyer Lectures Us on 'Big Oil'—But His Billions Tell a Different Story

AI Generated image Tom Steyer in front of a coal plant in Indonesia

While Californians stare at $4+ gas and gripe about the pain at the pump, billionaire Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) is all over X blaming "Trump and Big Oil" for "screwing Californians" and calling the current Middle East skirmish "someone else’s stupid war." He promises that as governor he'll make renewables "cheap," cut utility rates 25% by breaking "monopolies," and make "polluters pay." Fossil fuels are "expensive," he says. Renewables will save us.

Puh-lease.

This is the same Tom Steyer whose hedge fund, Farallon Capital, pumped hundreds of millions into coal mines and coal-fired power plants in Indonesia, China, and Australia while he was running the show. His firm helped finance massive coal projects that ramped up production by tens of millions of tons a year—facilities still belching CO2 well into the 2030s and beyond. He made his fortune betting on the very fossil fuels he now demonizes as the root of all evil.

Steyer stepped away from Farallon in 2012, had his "Alaska glacier epiphany," and rebranded as the ultimate climate warrior. He founded NextGen Climate, poured tens (hundreds) of millions into Democratic causes, ran for president on a green platform, and now co-chairs Galvanize Climate Solutions. His latest play? Raising $370 million (part of over $1 billion capacity) for a Real Estate Fund that buys undercapitalized commercial properties and "decarbonizes" them with efficiency retrofits, on-site solar, and electrification—all while promising juicy returns on net operating income.

Sounds noble on the pitch deck. In reality, it's classic value-add real estate wrapped in green virtue: Target commercial buildings where sophisticated investors (pensions, family offices) can afford the upfront costs, pass savings or higher rents downstream, and market the "impact" to ESG dollars. Meanwhile, the regular folks he claims to fight for—the ones choosing housing based on what they can actually afford, not carbon scores—get squeezed when policies he champions (electrification mandates, "making polluters pay," aggressive building rules) raise rents, utility bills, or displace tenants.

His 2024 income alone? $39 million, mostly from massive global stock market investments. Net worth hovers around $2.4 billion. He's self-funding big chunks of his California governor campaign.

Yet here he is, posting daily about how outrageous gas prices are "all to pay for someone else’s stupid war" while Big Oil "loves this." The guy who once helped supercharge coal production overseas now wants to force a rapid transition that hits working families hardest—higher energy costs today, with promises of cheap renewables tomorrow.

If Steyer truly believed in abundant, affordable energy, he could quietly deploy some of those billions into moonshot plays like solar-powered AI data centers in space or next-gen nuclear that actually scale without the regressive pain. Instead, we get lectures from a former fossil fuel financier turned real estate decarbonizer who wants to regulate and tax his way to "making polluters pay"—while his own portfolio chases returns in the transition he’s politically accelerating.

Californians aren't stupid. Gas prices suck, and they've been chronically high here thanks to a toxic mix of state taxes, strict fuel rules, limited refining, and yes, global shocks. But when a billionaire who built wealth on coal now rails against "Big Oil" and pushes policies that could make housing and energy even less affordable for the non-rich, it doesn't smell like salvation.

It smells like the same old hustle, rebranded.