Bitcoiner Chamath Palihapitiya running for governor of California

Notorious billionaire and bitcoiner Chamath Palihapitiya is running for governor of California.

Chamath has published a special website, ChamathForCA.com, in which he writes: 

“California is a mess: it’s too expensive, our teachers are underpaid and our schools aren’t good enough.” 

Among his proposals is a total cut in state taxes to 0% from the current 16%, increasing state revenues from $150 billion to $300 billion through economic growth alone. 

Chamath also argues that technological innovation is key to generating change, and he wants to make California the world centre for all work on technological development and climate change, realigning incentives rather than eliminating them. 

For now, the website is very minimal, and his candidacy is still in its infancy.

The next gubernatorial election in California will be held in November next year, so Chamath has almost two years to prepare. 

Chamath Palihapitiya dreaming of leading California

In the past, the governors of the most high-tech state in the USA, as well as the state where Hollywood is located, have included celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronald Reagan. Chamath’s candidature is therefore nothing particularly strange. 

Chamath Palihapitiya is currently CEO of Social Capital and chairman of Virgin Galactic, and has been openly pro-Bitcoin for quite some time now. 

He is also known to have liberal views, although to date he is not a member of any specific political party. 

California is the US state with the largest GDP, and has long been the technological centre of the world, thanks to its famous Silicon Valley. 

However, recently, its largest urban centres, particularly Los Angeles and San Francisco, have been suffering from social problems, and some large technology companies, including Hewlett Packard and Tesla, have chosen to relocate elsewhere. 

Chamath is 44 years old, was born in Sri Lanka, but grew up in Canada before moving to the US. He began his career at AOL, in the instant messaging division, before moving to Facebook, where he oversaw the company’s growth. 

After leaving Facebook, he started his own venture capital fund, Social Capital, and became an influencer on Twitter, where he has more than 850,000 followers.

He currently resides in Palo Alto, in California’s Silicon Valley.