A network of state agencies and non-profits linked to his wife.
Gov. Gavin Newsom had helped set up a state government agency for his wife and then a quasi-government non-profit to which he has directed millions of dollars which in turn helped promote yet another non-profit that puts millions of dollars in the pockets of the Newsoms.That convoluted arrangement may explain why Newsom won’t turn over his tax returns.
Gov. Newsom promised to be the first California governor to release his tax returns every year, but media outlets have been grumbling that the last time he released a tax return was quite a few years ago when he was legally required to because he was running for reelection.
The questions got louder when he bought a $9 million house in addition to their $6 million house. The new 5,609 square foot estate comes with a spa, sculptures and Brazilian decks, and was bought from a member of the billionaire Pritzker clan, who have been one of Newsom’s major donors, and carries a $6.5 million mortgage with $600,000 in annual payments plus over $100,000 in property taxes. Some have been asking where all that money was coming from.
This may only be the tip of the iceberg considering that in 2019, the Newsoms had paid their household staff $288,000 alone. Assuming that the staffing costs have kept pace, California’s first family should be looking at very some very huge bills to maintain their outrageous lifestyle.
As of last fall, Newsom still hasn’t released a tax return. We do know that Newsom’s income shot up by $500,000 to $1.7 million in his first year in office. Back then, his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, was earning $151,000, through her ‘non-profit’, The Representation Project, which set out to teach children, especially boys, about the evils of gender roles and masculinity.
Since then Newsom’s gubernatorial salary grew from $210,000 to $242,295: a sizable raise, but even with his winery, restaurant and investments in a blind trust, it may not explain his spending.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, whose boutique causes include gender pay parity, however has been earning a higher salary than her husband as her non-profit took in $1.5 million in 2024 and 20% of that money went to her with $150,000 going directly to her as salary and another $150,000 going to her Girls Club Entertainment LLC for compensation as “Writer/Producer/Director”.
Girls Club Entertainment is listed as an “independent contractor” even though it also admits on the same tax filing that “Girls Club Entertainment LLC (GCE), a single member LLC, is owned by Jennifer Siebel Newsom” and also claims that she serves as the writer, producer and director of the various ‘documentaries’ that she licenses to her non-profit which then reimburses her.
Since the non-profit, originally titled ‘Miss Representation’ after the name of one of her ‘documentaries’, was set up to promote them, the arrangement appears to exist to allow her to benefit from non-profit funding while diverting a significant amount of the funds to herself.
An arrangement under which Newsom’s wife is simultaneously the CEO, board member and an ‘independent contractor’, who manages to cash out a significant percentage of its revenues, is legally dubious and risks falling under the IRS prohibitions against self-enrichment.
In 2023, Newsom’s non-profit took in $1 million and again paid out $300,000 or around a third to her. In 2020, it took in a little over $800,000 and she received the same amount or 37%. The Daily Mail estimated that her total came in at over $3.7 million in the decade.
Where was all that money coming from to what would normally be just another obscure organization? The answer in part is the government and government lobbyists and contractors. The ‘films’ made by Newsom’s wife have been shown in thousands of schools and received millions in revenues. More money has come through donations from major companies that do business with the state or are lobbying the state for some favorable treatment.
At the Project’s most recent ‘Flip the Script’ benefit, “celebrating the 10th anniversary of Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s groundbreaking film, Miss Representation”, the co-chair was Gavin Newsom’s sister, who runs their joint company, the other co-chairs were Lori Puccinelli Stern, the wife of the San Francisco Airport Commissioner, who heads a PR firm, and Joanna Rees, a venture capitalist who was appointed to a board by Newsom.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s outsized media presence is partly funded by California taxpayers.
After taking office, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he was creating an ‘Office of the First Partner’ for his wife led by two senior staffers with combined salaries of over a quarter of a million dollars. The most recent organizational chart for the office shows 7 staffers including two communications staffers just for Newsom’s wife: all with six figure salaries. --->READ MORE HERE
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