BTC Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya Aims To Run For California Governor

Chamath Palihapitiya, an early investor in bitcoin and a notable proponent in the industry, has made an interesting announcement. The man has shown that he is aiming for the position of Governor of California.

Gearing For The Next Election

Palihapitiya stands as the CEO of Social Capital, a venture capital firm, and had announced his intent to run for governor on the 26th of January, 2021, through Twitter. The post itself had a link, as well, which directed to his new website.

In this website, he promised a slew of bold moves: Handouts for new births, massive cuts in taxation, student loan dismissal, as well as increasing the salaries of teachers.

It’s on. #RecallGavinNewsom https://t.co/r8Cwd4szrn

— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) January 26, 2021

As it stands now, it seems that Palihapitiya is preparing for the Gubernatorial elections of 2022, or maybe even a special election. The problem is, however, is that he refrained from providing any specifics, just that he plans to get involved in politics in general.

Pushing For A Special Election

Reports from BusinessInsider revealed that Palihapitiya stands as one of the people behind the efforts to force a recall vote in California for the current governor of California, Gavin Newsom. This, in turn, would lead to a special election later on in this year.

California has seen a large growth in displeasure aimed at Newsom. This is primarily thanks to his performance regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, which included inconsistent shutdowns as well as a vaccine rollout that was slow at best.

Palihapitiya himself stands as one of the early investors of  , having bought a million BTC some time ago. Obviously, the man has no need for money anymore, but is planning to help California keep its status as a leading hub of technology within the US. In a statement, he states he wants to do this by realigning the incentives instead of dismissing them outright.

A Successful Bet On Bitcoin

During an interview he had done back on the 7th of January, 2021, Palihapitiya stated that Bitcoin, in his eyes, stands as an economic uncertainty insurance. He hinted that the price of Bitcoin could go as far up as $200,000 within the next five or ten years.

A Forbes article, done back in April of 2020, highlighted how back in 2013, Palihapitiya had bought his Bitcoin. At that time, a Bitcoin was only $80 apiece, a laughable price in today’s metrics. Palihapitiya went as far as to claim that he held a total of 5% of the entire Bitcoin supply at one point in time.