Thread by @doctorow

San Francisco has one of the highest densities of billionaires of any city in the world - 75 of them - and these billionaires have spent lavishly to fight antipoverty initiatives and taxes to help the city's homeless epidemic, and to secure tax breaks for their offices.

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One thing they haven't spent on: San Francisco's official coronavirus relief fund.

SF Mayor London Breed created the #Give2SF fund and asked the city's billionaires to contribute to it. Out of 75, nearly 70 put in $0.00.

sfmayor.org/article/mayor-…

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The fund was supposed to raise hundreds of millions. It's sitting at $10.5m.

Some billionaires, like @Jack moved money into a charitable LLC (a favored vehicle for dark-money lobbying and investment). These LLCs also didn't give to the city's fund.

sf.curbed.com/2020/4/30/2124…

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Dorsey donated $175,000 to fight the city's Prop C, which would have levied a 0.69% tax on companies with more than $50,000,000 in revenue to deal with the city's homelessness crisis. That's $175,000 more than he's donated to the city to help the homeless during this crisis.

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Other SF companies that have yet to give a dime to the fund: Levi Strauss, the San Francisco Giants, Charles Schwab, Instacart, and the Chamber of Commerce (the C of C DID spend $345,000 to fight Prop C, though!).

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Bank of America and Wells Fargo HAVE given, but the $350,000 they gave is far less effective than mortgage relief for struggling San Francisco residents would have been.

Image:
Roger W (modified)
flickr.com/photos/2473621…

CC BY-SA
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa…