California Gov. Gavin Newsom is spending tons of taxpayer dollars to spread online propaganda to prop up his image.
A CalMatters investigation found that Newsom built a 24-person taxpayer-funded communications operation costing at least $2.6 million a year. This is double the amount of staff he had in 2020.
During his second term, the post-pandemic, post-recall election Newsom has grown his press and communications team into an around-the-clock, content-creating media operation, even as he rarely takes questions from the media in Sacramento and his agencies shun interview requests. He nearly doubled his communications staff since the pandemic, even adding a full-time photographer, making $212,000 a year, whose LinkedIn profile describes his job as focusing on the office’s “visual messaging, public perception and narrative development.”
Newsom has 24 taxpayer-funded employees on his official communications team who are collectively paid at least $2.6 million a year, including staff who scout locations for events and camera operators who livestream them. That’s up from 12 in January 2020, a year into his first term.
The only other governor with a comparable communications staff was Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an international media sensation whose office credentialed 400 reporters in his first term and held weekly press briefings, said former spokesperson Margita Thompson. Today during one of Newsom’s rare Sacramento press conferences, between 10 and 20 reporters regularly attend. The office stopped issuing its own press credentials years ago.
@GavinNewsom This is coming from the guy who has three taxpayer-funded propagandists on Twitter who cost taxpayers over a million dollars per year, as well as a photographer who earns more than $200,000, all paid for by California taxpayers.
— NoNewsom28 (@NeverNewsom50) October 6, 2026
Newsom’s official social media accounts have leaned fully into the realm of online politics. They have embraced memes, sarcasm, and mockery of right-leaning figures.
Former Newsom communications director Erin Mellon said her team had an inside joke, “Everything is a comms problem,” printed on coffee mugs.
@Milajoy Newsom hired a professional photographer to follow him around. California TAX PAYERS are paying for it. He shouldn’t be allowed to use any of these snazzy photos for campaign materials when he runs for POTUS. https://t.co/Jymcry0VZQ
— Sylvia Quinn (@quinn31960) September 19, 2026
Republican strategist Rob Stutzman accused the governor of violating ethical lines by using his communications team as a political social media apparatus.
It must be nice to use other people’s money to fund Newsom’s propaganda. He’s clearly leaning toward running for president in 2028, and these taxpayer funds have already aided in the early stages of his campaign.