Mayor Daniel Lurie just released a list of donors for his two-month transition, most of it spent on his lavish inauguration.

 Two names stood out: Ron Conway, the billionaire investor and self-styled Godfather of Silicon Valley, and Neil Mehta, another billionaire and a tech venture capitalist accused of pushing out mom-and-pop businesses on Fillmore Street.

Conway and Mehta contributed $50,000 each for a chance to cozy up to the newly elected mayor. Coming, as it does, on the heels of Lurie’s appointment of yet a third tech billionaire, OpenAI chief Sam Altman, as co-chair of his transition team, the news is worrying. Elected, in part, for his promise to listen to the various constituencies that make up San Francisco, Lurie appears to be listening most closely to the city’s privileged. 

That spells trouble for the working San Franciscans who struggle to survive in what is among the most expensive cities in the world. Perhaps the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune — and a billionaire in his own right — feels most at home with the denizens of Pacific Heights. If so, Lurie, who was elected to represent all San Franciscans, would do well to expand his comfort zone.

Conway, Mehta and Altman are all connected to the Astroturf Network, a constellation of wealthy individuals trying to move San Francisco dangerously to the right. Conway has been a fixture on San Francisco’s political scene for more than a decade. He bankrolled then-unknown bureaucrat Ed Lee into the city’s top job in 2011. In return, Lee pushed tax breaks for the tech sector and fought against regulating controversial companies like Airbnb and Uber. 

After Lee’s death, Conway backed London Breed, another mayor friendly to the tech sector as well as other business interests at the expense of working San Franciscan and the city’s most vulnerable. The November 2024 election saw Conway again use his vast wealth to influence local elections. He spent $100,000 to attack longtime foe, Board of Supervisors President, and progressive stalwart Aaron Peskin, and tossed some tens of thousands into GrowSF’s political action committee. 

The lesser-known Mehta contributed $50,000 to Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, the political organization created by Republican billionaire William Oberndorf. That contribution made him among Neighbors’ top donors in 2024. An example of the interconnectedness of the Astroturf Network, Neighbors was a leading contributor to GrowSF.

Last year, Mehta made headlines for buying property on a stretch of Fillmore Street that is Pacific Heights’ popular commercial corridor. Once the sales closed, he began forcing longtime store owners and restaurateurs to close shop. Mehta planned to replace them with “new concepts” of his own choosing, a scheme momentarily blocked by the Board of Supervisors.

Until Lurie’s appointment, Altman has yet to play a significant role in San Francisco politics other than to lobby Breed for tax breaks. However, he has strong ties to Garry Tan, a former member of GrowSF’s board of directors. Altman led Y Combinator, the world’s largest incubator of tech startups, handing it off to Tan upon his departure. Today, Altman and Tan are among the coterie of tech leaders surrounding President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. 

A recent article in the San Francisco Standard, chronicled the machinations of Astroturf Network players as they have attempted to curry favor with a mayor they failed to support in the November 2024 election. TogetherSF, which went all-in on former District 2 Supervisor Mark Farrell, recently threw in the towel, “merging” with Neighbors for a Better San Francisco. GrowSF, which gave Lurie a tepid third-place endorsement, just hired the mayor’s campaign advisor Tyler Law in a bid to move closer to the new administration.

Neighbors for a Better San Francisco and Abundant SF are, for now, on the outs. Lurie is said to be keeping a healthy distance from Neighbors which has been beset by ethics violations. The organization and its executive director Jay Cheng were hit with a $53,000 fine for violating San Francisco’s strict elections laws during the recall of former District Attorney Chesa Boudin. 

The mayor is said to be equally wary of AbundantSF after its political director Todd David publicly attacked Lurie, who is Jewish, for his failure to forcefully support Israel during its actions against the Palestinians in Gaza.

For now, the Astroturf Network believes that money can heal all wounds. Lurie has publicly stated that he intends to recruit wealthy San Franciscans in the rebuilding of a post-pandemic San Francisco. To them, anything — and everyone has a price. After all, Neil Mehta used a small piece of his fortune to buy a neighborhood. San Francisco’s “broligarchs” used their wealth to gain unprecedented access to a U.S. president and the inner workings of the federal government. For Lurie, the challenge will be to keep them from buying City Hall.