Thomas Fahr Steyer (; born June 27, 1957) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and environmentalist. He is the founder of Farallon Capital, a San Francisco-based hedge fund, as well as NextGen America, a progressive political action committee, and Galvanize Climate Solutions, a climate change-centered investment firm. A member of the Democratic Party, he unsuccessfully ran for the party's nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election. According to Forbes magazine, Steyer's net worth stood at $2.4 billion as of April 2026.
Steyer is a graduate of Yale University (BA) and Stanford University (MBA). He is the founder and former co-senior managing partner of Farallon Capital. Following his departure from the company in 2012, he became an advocate for climate action and founded NextGen America. His book, Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We'll Win the Climate War, appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2024.
A billionaire, Steyer has been one of the largest donors in American Democratic Party politics, using his wealth to fund both environmental causes and political campaigns. In 2020, he ran for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. After spending $253 million on his campaign, he withdrew from the race in February 2020 without having received any pledged delegates. In 2025, Steyer announced his candidacy in the 2026 California gubernatorial election to succeed term-limited governor Gavin Newsom. Steyer spent more than $215 million on his gubernatorial campaign. On June 2, 2026, he finished in third place in California's nonpartisan primary, failing to advance to the general election.
Early life
Steyer was born on June 27, 1957, in Manhattan, New York City. His mother, Marnie (née Fahr), was a teacher of remedial reading at the Brooklyn House of Detention and his father, Roy Henry Steyer, was a partner in the New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell and was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials. His father was Jewish and his mother was Episcopalian.
Steyer grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and attended the Buckley School. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy as valedictorian of his class. Steyer then graduated from Yale University summa cum laude in economics and political science. At Yale, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, was captain of the soccer team, and was a member of the Wolf's Head Society. Steyer received his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.
Career
After graduating from Yale, Steyer began his professional career at Morgan Stanley in 1979 and spent two years there. Steyer worked at Goldman Sachs from 1983 to 1985 as an associate in the risk arbitrage division, where he was involved in mergers and acquisitions. Steyer also worked for San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman.
In January 1986, Steyer founded Farallon Capital, a hedge fund firm headquartered in San Francisco. Steyer founded Farallon with $15 million in seed capital. He named the firm after the Farallon Islands off the coast of the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 1987, Steyer, a Yale alumnus, approached the university's endowment fund and asked that it allocate funds for Farallon to manage. After initially declining, Yale later arranged with Steyer for Farallon to manage an allocation of the Yale endowment for no fee.
An article noted that Farallon has a management company in the British Virgin Islands, an offshore company created in large part to help nonprofits, including Yale, avoid paying taxes Steyer wrote in a letter to investors.
In 2002, Farallon bought control of Bank Central Asia (BCA), an Indonesian financial institution, for $531 million. Farallon sold its stake for a profit in 2006.
Steyer made his fortune running Farallon, which was managing $20 billion by the time he left the company. He is a billionaire. Steyer is known for having taken high risks on distressed assets within volatile markets.
Said one former investor with his fund: “He [Steyer] made us a lot of money and his attitude has always been ‘whatever it will take to make money.’”
In October 2012, Steyer stepped down from his position at Farallon in order to focus on advocating for alternative energy. Steyer decided to dispose of his carbon-polluting investments in 2012, although critics say he did not dispose of them quickly enough and noted that the lifespan of the facilities he funded would extend through 2030. A 2014 New York Times article said coal-mining companies that Farallon invested in or lent money to under Steyer had increased their coal production by 70 million tons annually since receiving money from Farallon, and that Steyer remained invested in the Maules Creek coal mine. Prior to Steyer leaving Farallon, a student activist group called UnFarallon criticized the company for investments in companies with anti-environmental policies.
Reporting in 2016 by Politico noted that Farallon had also invested in private prisons while Steyer was leading the hedge fund. According to SEC filings, Steyer was at the helm as the hedge fund purchased nearly $90 million of Corrections Corporation of America stock (5.5% of the company's outstanding shares). After leaving Farallon, Steyer hosted a two-day think-tank entitled the 'Big Think Climate Meeting' to discuss how to address climate change.
In April 2020, it was announced that California Governor Gavin Newsom had selected Steyer to chair a task force focused on the state's economic recovery after the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Steyer's co-chair was political advisor Ann O'Leary.Multiple sources:
In 2021, Steyer co-founded Galvanize Climate Solutions with Katie Hall, his longtime friend and business partner. Galvanize is a climate-focused investment firm.
On May 28, 2024, Spiegel & Grau published Steyer's book, Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We'll Win the Climate War. The book appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2024.
According to Forbes, Steyer's net worth stood at $2.4 billion as of 2026.
Philanthropy In 2006, Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor, founded OneRoof, Inc., a B Corp and social enterprise business designed to bring broadband connectivity, computer literacy, and employment skills via OneRoof Internet Centers to small rural towns in rural India and Mexico.
In 2007, Steyer and Taylor founded Beneficial State Bank, a community development bank, for the purpose of providing commercial banking services to underserved Bay Area businesses, nonprofits, and individuals, with operations now in California, Oregon, and Washington. Its stock ownership is entirely held by a foundation such that all profits are reinvested in local communities. Steyer and Taylor put up $22.5 million to start the bank and create the One PacificCoast Foundation to engage in charitable and educational activities, provide lending support, investments, and other services for disadvantaged communities and community service organizations in California.
In August 2010, Steyer and his wife signed onto The Giving Pledge, an initiative of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. In 2011 Steyer founded Advanced Energy Economy, an energy research and lobbying group with Hemant Taneja, an Indian-born American venture capitalist.
Steyer and Taylor created the TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, California, near Half Moon Bay. The ranch is meant to research and demonstrate a sustainable way of doing agriculture. The ranch's activities include underwriting healthy food programs and co-producing an independent film, La Mission, starring Benjamin Bratt, about San Francisco's Mission neighborhood. Around 2011, Steyer joined the board of Next Generation, a nonprofit intending to tackle children's issues and the environment. In 2013, Steyer founded NextGen Climate, an environmental advocacy nonprofit and political action committee.
In August 2015, Steyer launched the Fair Shake Commission on Income Inequality and Middle Class Opportunity, which was intended to advocate policies for promoting income equality.
Political activity
In 1983, Steyer worked on Walter Mondale's presidential campaign. He raised money for Bill Bradley in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.
When Republican party candidate Richard Riordan ran for Governor of California in 2002, Steyer made two $25,000 campaign contributions (for a total of $50,000) to Riordan's campaign. However, Steyer did not electronically file any Major Donor Campaign Statements disclosing the campaign contributions that he made to the Republican gubernatorial candidate Riordan.
An early supporter of Hillary Clinton in 2008, Steyer became one of Barack Obama's most prolific fundraisers. Steyer served as a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 2004 and 2008.
Steyer has been a member of the Hamilton Project and has been involved with the Democracy Alliance, a network of progressive donors whose membership in the group requires them to donate at least $200,000 a year to recommended organizations.
California ballot measures Steyer has been active in California politics, particularly in ballot initiative campaigns. In 2010, Steyer joined the former Secretary of State, San Francisco-based George Shultz, to co-chair the No on Prop. 23 campaign. Proposition 23, backed by a coalition including conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, aimed to overturn California's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Steyer donated $5 million to the No on Prop. 23 campaign, which succeeded with a margin of 61%.Multiple sources:
In 2012, Steyer was the leading sponsor of Proposition 39 on the ballot in California. Its purpose was to close a loophole that allowed multi-state corporations to pay taxes out of state, mandating that they pay in California. Funds raised by closing the loophole, estimated at $1 billion annually, went to a combination of clean energy projects and the state's general fund. Steyer contributed $29.6 million to the campaign, saying that he could wait no longer for the change. The initiative passed with 61% of the vote.
While supporters of Steyer's effort said it would "help break the partisan gridlock in Sacramento", critics objected that "the increasing involvement of rich individuals perverts the original intent of the initiatives". Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said that the level of giving was unprecedented for an individual donor. The initiative was criticized as an ineffective jobs stimulus, while Steyer described it as a success for closing a corporate loophole.
Steyer co-chaired the 2016 campaign in support of California's Proposition 56, which raised the state's tobacco tax by $2 per pack to fund a combination of healthcare programs, Medi-Cal, and tobacco-use prevention. He contributed more than $11 million to the effort and appeared in the campaign's television advertising. When Proposition 56 was approved with 64% of the vote, it became the first successful ballot initiative to raise the tobacco tax in over a decade, ultimately directing over $1 billion per year to the Medi-Cal program.
In 2025, Steyer donated $12 million to become the largest contributor to the campaign for California's Proposition 50, which redrew California's congressional districts in response to what supporters described as partisan gerrymandering efforts in other states. The initiative passed with 64% of the vote.
2012 In 2012, Steyer hosted a fundraiser at his home for President Obama. At a private meeting, Steyer, along with fifteen other top donors, reportedly pressed the president regarding the Keystone pipeline, which Steyer opposed. Obama was said to be supportive of Steyer's views, but reluctant to put his full weight behind any initiatives without better proof. Steyer was critical of Obama's decision to keep an energy initiative as a low priority.
Democratic National Convention speech