Join California Governor Gavin Newsom at WEF 2026 in Davos for an in-depth discussion on innovation, economic growth and strategic governance.
At Davos, California Governor Gavin Newsom framed the current U.S. political moment as a test of democratic resilience and corporate courage. He opened by condemning the cancellation of a planned appearance as emblematic of “America in reverse,” arguing that institutions of independent thinking are “under assault” and that “masked men” and federal force deployments signal authoritarian drift. Newsom criticized CEOs and major institutions for “selling out,” mocking perceived capitulation with “Trump signature series kneepads,” while acknowledging the discourse is “deeply unbecoming” but necessary to “put a mirror up to… madness.”
On global leadership, he rejected the idea that America’s alliances are permanently broken, describing them as “in dormancy,” yet warned that “destruction is not strength,” calling Trumpism “weakness masquerading as strength.” He urged Democrats to adopt an iterative, confrontational strategy—“fight fire with fire”—citing California’s counter-redistricting response as an example.
Pressed on California’s governance and the Democratic brand, Newsom defended the state’s performance (innovation, life expectancy, fiscal contribution) while conceding accountability and reform needs. On immigration, he distinguished border security failures from broader pro-immigrant values and defended extending Medi-Cal regardless of status. He opposed a state-level one-time wealth tax as economically risky, favoring systemic, national reforms to address inequality.
Three. Okay. Well, thank you all for for joining us. And I actually wanted to start you, you or your you tweeted last or posted last night that this was that this was the the tweets, the conversation. And yes, thank you for joining us. Governor. Thank you so much to the web for hosting this. This is the conversation that Donald Trump tried to cancel. Don't miss it. 1130 Pacific. Thank you to our Pacific Time viewers. Yeah. In fact, this is a different conversation. In the West's defense, it was the privately run USA House, which is endorsed by the State Department, funded by big American companies, which did pull pull an event with you with fortune yesterday. Yeah. And I guess I wondered to begin with, what does that tell you about the way the US private sector, which is really very heavily represented here?
You're going to get me in trouble right off the bat. Political moment. I looked at the I admit, looking at the list, McKinsey and Microsoft and a few California companies. So have you. What the hell are they even talking about? But it's indicative, I think, of America. For those of you who are not American, it gives you a sense of what we're up against. And what's happening across my country and what happened here. In Davos. I was going to speak last night. It was well established event at the USA House. Simple conversation. Discussion. After Trump's speech, they made sure that I didn't, they made sure it was canceled. And that's what's happening. The United States of America. Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech. It's America in reverse. They're censoring historical facts. They're rewriting history. They're censoring books. 4340 books, libraries and in schools banned in the United States of America. You're watching institutions. Any institution of independent thinking is under assault and attack by the Trump administration. You're seeing what's playing out in the streets of American cities. What played out in California, the second largest city in the United States of America, 4000 National Guard were federalized. 700 active duty Marines were not sent overseas. They were sent to my largest city in the state of California. Masked men. Guy Greg Bovino, dressed up as if he literally went on eBay and purchased SS garb. Greg Bovino secret police, private army, masked men, people disappearing quite literally. No due process, windows being smashed, seatbelts on being, you know, literally just sort of cut off. People dragged in the streets, kids separated from families knocking on doors, racially profiling American citizens. So is it surprising the Trump administration didn't like my commentary and wanted to make sure that I was not allowed to speak? No. It's consistent with this administration and their authoritarian tendencies. Forgive me. These are objective facts.
But I would say this was not just to be clear. This was a private enterprise endorsed by the State Department. But these are these are a lot of decisions are being made by private companies right now. This is you know, this is a capital this is probably the global central global gathering of CEOs. And I guess I wonder if you can give me a review of how you see these folks. And you, you know, you know, your way around this world. How do you see those people behaving?
Society becomes how we behave. We are our behaviors. We're not bystanders in this world. The world we're experiencing happened on our watch. So in the relationship to your question, yeah, they're complicit in some respects to this moment, you know, and forgive me, you brought up a tweet. But part of my approach has been a little more aggressive than perhaps a lot of American politicians. I created a Patriot site, in on the site, you can go there. Knee pads that are available to purchase, the last round of knee pads sold out, just as our law firms are selling out, many American universities are selling out. And yes, many corporate leaders are selling out to this administration, selling out our values, selling out our future, selling out what makes America great. And it breaks my heart. And, And people need to stand up. People need to, you know, encourage their damn convictions. We're the 250th anniversary. The United States of America this year. It's a 250th anniversary. The best of the Roman Republic. Greek democracy, co-equal branches of government, the rule of law, popular sovereignty. Tell me that that reflects the America you read about today. There's no rule of law. It's the rule of dawn. I hope it's hope for Europeans. It's dawning on you. It's not the rule of law. You don't have co-equal branches of government. You have a supine Congress. You don't have a speaker of the House. He doesn't exist. Popular sovereignty be challenged every single day by voter suppression, trying to rig elections. I mean, heck, Donald Trump tried to steal the election, the last election, tried to light democracy on fire, and then pardoned everyone that participated in that. Is anyone paying attention to what the hell is going on in the United States of America? So my state of mind is a little different, perhaps, than many others. I won't be complicit at this moment. I won't, I can't, I can't look my kids in the eyes. And so I'm, I'm just blessed that I get to represent a state that's larger than the size of 21 US states combined. We're 27% of us are foreign born. We practice pluralism. That's a word you haven't heard in America in a year, where we dominate in every critical category in terms of energy and daring and entrepreneurialism and innovation. And, look, give me a category in California outperforms fourth largest economy in the world. And so we can punch above our weight. We can come here with formal authority and moral authority. And I tell you, we need a little moral authority, our body politic in the United States of America today.
Governor, you and how do you balance?
Good morning, everybody.
Sorry.
Yeah.
I figured we would. Yeah. Yeah. You're a you're a you're a tough interview, governor.
No, I.
Forgive you. Yeah. And when I think you have chosen a sort of if you can't beat em, join em strategy to the way you're talking about this stuff. You talk, you know, you you know, you're you're running around distributing kneepads to CEOs. And I think it.
Does handing them out.
And it.
I do have a few if you'd like I don't know.
And honestly it sounds.
By the way I'm not kidding. They're the new Trump signature series kneepads. Yeah. And they are available online. I told you the last one sold out. And,
And I just want to say.
This is a serious moment, but we laugh anyway. These are available, and in bulk, too.
But I want to read you a couple of things the US government has said about you in the last 24 hours or so, the.
Treasury, the US government.
The Treasury Secretary.
When you put.
It in the Treasury Secretary described you as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach. Can the white House communications director.
That was this. That was the US Secretary of Treasury.
I have a couple more. And then and then you can respond. The white House communications director called you Gavin Newsom and.
A News.com.
And an official white House account. You know, federal government account described you with a, I'd say, very online sexual slur that people probably don't want to hear at 830 in the morning and you're in some sense responding in kind with fire. With fire. Do you think, should you I mean, is that is that kind of discourse from you, from them good for America?
No, it's deeply unbecoming. Come on. Of course it is. It's not what we should be doing. But you've got to point out the absurdity. You got to put a mirror up to this. This is madness, president. Have you? You see what he's saying about European leaders? You talking down to people? Talking past people. I mean, look, the comments he made yesterday were not even discussing because you're discussing all the other comments about windmills or whatever else was happening. He talked about Somalia's community. This is not normal. The deviation of normalcy. We've got to call it out. So I put a mirror up to Trump and Trumpism in all caps. And it was ironic because Pravda, Fox News and America, others, they got offended by it. They said, well, where is his mother to wash his mouth out with soap? I said, where the hell have you been? You've never said a word about Trump dressing up as the Pope, tweeting out and cosplaying on the world stage. And so, look, the Treasury secretary talked about a Barbie doll. It was as if he was reading a diary and had just broken up with someone. I mean, that was his Secretary of Treasury using valuable time yesterday on the world stage. Some sexual. Thank you for not sharing that on the official white House account. We're deeply in their head. I think the affordability agenda appears to be I'm living rent free in the Trump Trump administration's head.
The the most talked about speech here in Davos actually isn't what wasn't Donald Trump's address yesterday. It was it was the Canadian prime minister.
Forgettable speech. Yes.
It was Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney the day before who talked about, I don't know in large terms, the middle powers everybody except for, for for China and the US really had to adapt permanently to a world without American leadership, I guess, I wonder I mean, that's in some sense a pretty anti-American point of view. That's that's a view that America is gone from the world stage, that whether the next president is J.D. Vance, Gavin Newsom, somebody else. This isn't a deviation. As you said, this is permanent. Do you buy that? Do you buy? Do you buy Carney's?
I was you know, I felt there was moments and forgive me, I should be cautious making this statement. I don't want it to be overanalysed. But when I was listening to the EU president speak, there were moments where I said, that used to be us. That used to. I remember that. So am I surprised by what Carney did? Quite the contrary. I thought it was. I had more leaders from the United States quietly send me. Not publicly, not enough standing up publicly. The transcript of that speech saying, wow, they were I mean, gone. And Trump said yesterday he had he brought it up, you know, everything about Trump because it's what's not in the teleprompter that tells you everything you need to know about where Trump's head is on things. It was incredibly effective. The markets were more effective markets. It's not Mother Nature. I thought the most powerful force on earth with Mother Nature. But it's the markets, particularly the Trump administration. Combine that with the comments of Macron behind that with the EU commissioner. But the clarity that came from Prime Minister of Canada, but the fact that he went to China came back with a deal, start introducing low cost, high quality electric vehicles not made in Michigan, Detroit, but overseas into Canada. It says everything you know about the recklessness of America's foreign policy, everything you need to know. You know it intimately. But it's a remarkable thing to break down. 80 plus years of alliances takes decades and decades to build trust in organizations to architecture that it takes weeks, tweets, hours, minutes, sometimes to destroy it. Destruction is not strength. The Trump administration is weakness masquerading as strength. And people need to understand that. That's reflected in the tweets, that's reflected in canceling people, that's reflected in sending masked men into American cities. It's reflected at this moment. So I respect what Carney did because he had courage of convictions. He stood up. And I think we need to stand up in America and call this out with clarity. We can lose our republic as we know it. Our country can unrecognizable in a matter of months, just not years. It is code red blinking red in the United States of America. So forgive me, I. I feel this with passion some indignantly, as someone frankly, has taken it for granted all of these years. And it's why I came here to Davos to call it out. And I wish there were more of us doing the same because there are more of us. And on that, I just forgive me. I want you to know Donald Trump is an historic president. That's absolutely correct. He's historically unpopular in the United States of America in every category. He's underwater. He will be remembered in years, not decades. He's not going to run again. Time of life denies that. Not his state of mind, but time of my life. But we need to manifest that. And we need to do the hard work. And that hard work includes the difficult work of coming to Davos and calling that out. This is not where I want to be spending. I love you all my time. And, and so, anyway, it's an extension of the conviction.
I feel.
About.
This moment, talking about people who, among other things, aren't American, maybe be concerned for America, but are making decisions about their own politics, their own countries. And what Carney's core point was, this is a rupture. This isn't an anomaly, and there's no going back. And do you think that I mean, do you think.
There's.
Always great American leader can bring?
I think I think these relationships are in dormancy. They're not dead. I don't use those binary terms. Don't, don't don't fall prey to that. That's a bit hyperbolic. And I'm prone to a little of that at times. Dormancy. We can look he's an invasive species, Donald Trump. He's not. He is, he took over the Republican Party. They're just I mean, he's got, you know, a few of them. Lindsey Graham, I mean, speaking of the knee pads, I'm sorry, this is tough stuff. It's tough stuff. I don't recognize these people any longer. I used to respect Lindsey. I mean, Lindsey, you think what I'm saying about Trump's tough? How about what Lindsey Graham said about Trump? How about the secretary of state, Marco Rubio? Do you think this is these are the same people. And this is why we for things to change, we need to change. Do you think that's why I'm changing my approach? And again, grateful you all.
Took the I mean I suppose do you think post-Trump there's a path back. Do you see this everywhere, the kind of insult politics that you're doing here, which you you said you don't really enjoy it. You kind of seem to.
I'm just putting a mirror up. No, just you got to. I was doing my ten point plans before, and I don't think any of you would have been here this morning had I done that.
Oh, they would have been here.
No, I because it just it wasn't working. Everyone's trying to figure this out.
How do you Mark Carney crowd.
Yeah. No, but it's how do you how do you how do you communicate. How do you respond to this moment. And it's for me, it's about iteration. It's an entrepreneurial spirit. It's a very California mindset. You got to keep increasing the number of tries. And I was trying everything one working, one breaking through. Democratic Party writ large wasn't breaking through. And we decided the only way to address Trump is quite literally to fight fire with fire. I did an initiative, prop 50, in California. It was to reflect the fact that Donald Trump called an American politician and said in the middle of the decade, to the governor of the state of Texas, I am entitled Greg Abbott to five seats, and I need you to redraw district lines. Mid-Year redistricting to rig the 2026 election before one vote is cast. What the Trump administration expected. We were going to do as good Democrats do. We might write an op ed, and we may all go out and just say, this is just so wrong, and all of us would be applauding and say, yes, yes, you know, as he's consolidating power, instead, we went out and we redraw our maps and we also drew a line in the sand. And I think that's what's required at this moment. And he he assesses out weakness like no one else. That's his great strength. That's his gift. But you punch back, you fight fire with fire. You display conviction and strength to different relationship. And so my relationship to this moment is reflected in that I'm not naive. These guys are going to try to take me down, not just my state. I'm not naive about what I've said this morning and how that will be reflected in the official white House account. I'm not naive about the fact that he threatened to prosecute the fed chief and the United States of America that has subpoena against another sitting governor, Tim Waltz, who's literally going after his enemies with the FBI and the DOJ and these power ministries. I'm not naive about any of this. I'm not naive about the corruption and the graft at scale we've never seen in American history. I'm not naive about folks writing million dollar checks to wykoff to Jared Kushner for this new peace deal they're announcing today. I'm not naive about the fact the president, United States made a billion and a half plus dollars in the last 12 months. Personally, how the hell are we putting up with this? We have to call this out. Unprecedented in American history, happening in real time on our watch. We have to be held to a higher level, all of us, myself, notably to a higher level of accountability at this moment.
And, And, you know, one of one, I think one of the main reasons that, you know, that he has been successful is because the Democratic Party is so discredited in the eyes of so many voters. I have a couple of questions about that. One is big picture about California people. You know, you are in the midst of a enormous economic boom right now, and yet the state is on one hand running deficits and on the other, not always delivering services that it's, you know, from education to health care that your citizens are delighted with. And I guess I wonder, how can you know, how are voters looking at California, looking at New York, looking at Chicago, you know, supposed to say, yeah, this is the model we want.
Well, I'm proud of my state. We have more fortune 500 companies than any other state in America. More scientists, engineers, more Nobel laureates, my state than any state in America, the finest system of higher public education in the world. We have 18% of the world's R&D. China, 22%, Germany, 21, California, 18% of the world's R&D. We're the center of the universe as it relates to AI. 432 is.
Wonderful, but what about the governance?
Well, the governance with one of the lowest rates in America. You mentioned health care. We just did our state of education report, which showed in every category, every classroom making progress with our test scores. Our investments are paying off. Just did a big state of.
The state idea that these blue states have trouble are spending are are spending more for less results.
I don't know, higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, lower gun death rates, more productivity, higher wages, higher quality of life. $83.1 billion. That was the net contribution, that we provided to the federal government versus red state like Texas. That was a taker state of $73.1 billion. So we're producing more, and people are, I think, creating more opportunities. So look, are there problems.
For instance, you're supporting the mayor of LA for reelection after these, these, these terrible fires that a lot of, you know, a lot of your citizens do feel was part in part because of government mismanagement. Do you just reject that narrative that the government has anything to do?
Absolutely. Accept that we all should be held to a higher level of accountability in terms of our governance, and I think there's many areas of reforms that are necessary in so many areas of reforms that were underway. We can get into the specifics of any one of these issues. But the general notion that in the middle of winter, with 100 mile an hour winds, we're attached to a fire that somehow, by the way, there were 16 major fires in Southern California over a two week period that somehow that had to do with fire hydrants, is rather preposterous. And it was shape shift because of the complete that came from Donald Trump and Elon Musk saying somehow the sprinklers didn't work and the fire hydrants didn't work because we didn't turn on a valve. In Northern California. These are literal words from the Trump administration. So I do reject that. Do I reject this notion of being self-critical about governance and management across the spectrum? No, that's fair game.
And probably the biggest governance issue, policy issue fueling right wing parties in the United States around the country is immigration. And, you know, I think liberal parties, again, in the US and around the world had a posture of welcoming, welcoming immigrants that it just turned out a lot of Americans, a lot of Californians. But more Americans are unhappy with legal illegal immigration, the out of control border. But also, it's the last issue on which Trump, though his numbers have been sliding, remained somewhat popular. And I guess I wonder, do you think, do you think that your party went too far or that you went too far? And I think, for instance, in extending Medi-Cal to the California health care program to undocumented immigrants, like, do you. Well, two different, two different, I guess, on the big picture and the small picture. Do you feel like you went too far?
Two different questions. Do I believe in universal health care? Yes. Regardless of pre-existing conditions, ability to pay and your status? I campaigned on that and we delivered on that, and I'm proud of that. We're one of 16 states to provide care to people regardless of their immigration status. By the way, we have universal care in emergency rooms, and you pay the price on the back end, at least Americans for that, regardless of your immigration status. But the issue of immigration, Donald Trump is very unpopular on immigration. He's successful on the border, separate issue, connected. And yes, the Democratic Party failed in the last few years on the border. And yes, I was critical of that. And yes, I put our own National Guard on the border the day I got elected into office in 2019, sent 394 National Guard down to the border. And we were very, very pointed with the Biden administration that we were failing to deliver border security for a number of years. On the larger immigration issue, I happen to share the same old office of Ronald Reagan, governor of California, who decided his last day in office at the white House, and he gave a love letter to immigrants from around the world. It was a love letter to America. And what distinguishes America from the rest of the globe. He talked about Lady Torch, Lady Liberty's torch, and he talked about the vibrancy of newcomers, people coming all over the globe for riches and new beginnings, becoming Americans and what defines our great nation. And that's the spirit that defines my mindset. Getting first round draft choices around the rest of the world is what makes California so vibrant. It's because of that diversity, and it's because of people's willingness to dare and to match up with ideas and perspectives and backgrounds to come in and make a go of it. That has made California the fourth largest GDP in the world. But we have failed on the border, and Donald Trump is failing on immigration. He has. Economic policy is not complicated. It's tariffs, which is a regressive tax. It's mass deportations, which is having a major impact on supply chains. And you've seen the American jobless rate. You're seeing it growing the unemployment rate in America. Bessant didn't talk about this. They had the worst jobs numbers in the first year of the Trump administration, outside a recession since 2003, 49,000 jobs a month. The Biden administration last year was averaging 168,000 jobs a month. Inflation is not lowering. It's still at 2.7%. Ask folks what a pound of beef costs in the United States of America, or a brand new car. Everything you heard yesterday was B. S, and it's impacted by these policies of tariffs that are impacting ranchers and farmers and small business folks. A major tax that they celebrate, a tax that they celebrate collecting, which is ironic from the Republican Party. And the third leg of the stool is a massive tax cut away from the wealthy and the privileged, taxing now the burden on small businesses and working folks. That's the policy easily described of America's economic strategy. And it's a failed strategy. And the impacts of that strategy are being felt all throughout the United States of America, including my state that has been disproportionately impacted by these policies. So I'm very critical of those. I'm critical of our assault on institutions of higher learning, research institutions that have literally been I mean, they're part of that formula for success. And the rest of the world gets that, and he's putting sand in the gears across that spectrum. And in California again, is fighting, pushing back.
And some of those, those first round draft picks got incredible contracts and are now in, made quite a lot of money and are now very freaked out, threatening to leave California over a proposal that, just to be clear, you oppose to tax to for sort of one time tax on the wealth of the very, very, very wealthy Californians. And I guess I want to ask you two questions. One is I was talking to somebody progressive here who said, this guy's basically a fake populist. He talks a good game about the billionaires. Here is an actual proposal that they're unhappy about. And you're on the other side. You're standing with Elon Musk and David Sacks on this. Why is that?
Well, one time wealth tax at a state level that almost exclusively goes to solve one problem health care and not solving for larger issues like education, supporting police officers and firefighters, and starves the rest of the general fund that has had already the impact of people moving out of our state and impacting then the annual income tax collection is not something I support. And by the way, vast majority of labor does not support as well. And, and that's reflected in my opposition. What's not reflected in my opposition, quite the contrary, is my advocacy for progressive taxes that does tax the wealthy disproportionately.
Do you have a theory for.
Having a strong advocate.
For that? Do you have a theory on how to tax this particular group, who often kind of live in this? And I'm sure you know many people in this room who do this, but who live on debt, who have no income and live on these sort of giant revolving loans.
Yeah. I mean, when you could have that conversation.
I think the wealth tax is sort of an attempt to get at that.
Yeah. But in a national level we're competing with 50 states capital flows and move. That's real. It's not imagined. It's very, very real. So we have a progressive tax structure, the most progressive in the country, by the way, states like Texas and Florida, the most regressive tax structures, they tax their lowest wage earners more than we tax our highest wage earners. They are the high tax states. We have the highest tax rate for the 1%. But for working folks in middle class, it's a very different tax structure. That's the approach we promote. That's the approach that we advance in our state. But again, our state of mind as it relates to the issue of a state by state wealth tax, the impact of that has to be considered in the context of how freely capital can move and how that's already occurred. It's not just an assertion, it's an evidence already in the state of California as it relates to a proposal that hasn't gone on the ballot, a proposal that has never gotten through the legislature, and a proposal that likely, if it did get on the ballot will lose.
Would you campaign against it?
I'm opposed to it. It's already had a, I think, a very negative impact on the state, and it's a badly drafted initiative. Again, that literally takes teachers and takes our educational system out of any consideration of support and impacts all other parts of our general fund. It is a flawed initiative.
And then I think, conversely, these these folks who control a ton of capital, as you said, some are actually already leaving, have been leaving. How do you, you know, over this. But I think also over a sense that California that Democratic leadership broadly, you know, complains about billionaires a lot doesn't is not does not give them the, you know, love and respect that they feel that they're entitled to. I don't know, how do you mean? You actually you talk to these folks, some of them support you, some don't. But what are you saying as you call people up and say, hey, please don't leave California. What's your.
Well, California's population three years in a row continues to grow, and so does our footprint as it relates to more fortune 500 companies than we've had in over two decades. And our innovation ecosystem and startup ecosystem is second to none. We have half of the country's unicorns in our state. The largest market cap, private sector company, OpenAI, just headquartered in San Francisco. They could have chosen any other state in the country. Look, I don't begrudge other people's success. I've never been that kind of Democrat. But I also recognize in a world businesses can't thrive in a world that's failing, 10% of the wealth is concentrated. Or rather, two thirds of the wealth in the United States is concentrated in the hands of just 10%, 10% of our consumer spending. The imbalance I mean, it was Plutarch who said it to the Athenians 2000 years ago. The imbalance between the rich and the poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. Fast forward today. So this concentration, it's a very real issue, and we're going to have to address that. And but we have to address it, I think, very thoughtfully and systemically. And I think we have to have it through the lens of a national reform. What we've done is the exact opposite with H.R. one, which is going to explode deficits in the United States of America and debt. And again, it's transferred the tax burden to small businesses, farmers and ranchers. It is an abomination, and it's a policy. Unfortunately, the Trump administration is very proud of.
Do you think a national reform is enough? I mean, a lot of this capital is really global.
It's I mean, this is a challenge for all of us across the globe. And so the challenge is, do you have a redistribution mindset or a redistribution mindset? Do you have a progressive tax structure that can balance these things? And this is the iteration in the state of California. And this is our approximation. And I think California has figured it out in many respects. I mean, our economic and our entire entrepreneurial system is thriving in our state. We're I think, found that balance. We had the highest contribution of venture capital last year in our history, $106 billion, 68% of it went back into the state of California, despite our progressive tax structure.
Well, you know, from the tweets to Plutarch, thank you. Thank you so much, governor.
Thank you guys. Thank you, everybody for being here. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.