Chamath Palihapitiya has decided to put his political career on hold, commenting that he needs to focus on business.
Palihapitiya announced his decision to run for the governor of California less than two weeks ago. On February 2nd, during an episode of The All In Podcast, he reported that he had given up on the idea.
Palihapitiya is a vocal critic of Gavin Newsom, the current Governor of California, even joining the #RecallGavinNewsom movement on Twitter. He’s also posted several policy promises on a website under the banner of “Chamath for California Governor,” but it seems he’s changed his mind soon.
During the podcast, he said, “Let’s be really honest. I’m not ready to do any of that.” Palihapitiya added that he’d rather focus on his business career than on a political one.
A petition to recall governor Newsom over his mismanagement of the response for the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t gotten sufficient signatures to start a recall. The petition was started in June 2020, and it managed to receive 1.3m signatures, but 195,000 more are needed by March 17th.
“The government should be doing the things they need to do for people to have an even starting line,” the Bitcoin supporter commented.
One theme explored during the podcast was “insiders vs. outsiders,” and Palihapitiya spoke about two classes of people – the ones who can say anything and those who are listened to. He believes that belonging to the latter doesn’t let you criticize other insiders.
In July of 2019, Palihapitiya declared Bitcoin to be “the single best hedge against the traditional financial infrastructure.”