Post

Gil Durán
@gilduran.com

How to defeat tech billionaire power? Look at Solano County. When billionaires invaded their community with plans to build a "tech utopia," Democrats AND Republicans banded together to fight back. In a triumph of local democracy, they stopped the project...for now. 🎁 www.wsj.com/us-news/sili...

wsj.comSilicon Valley’s Dream City Has Crashed Into Small-Town PoliticsA bitter standoff between tech-backed developers and local county leaders helped doom a $3-billion project at the edge of the Bay Area.

318 reposts905 likes

janellie1.bsky.social
@janellie1.bsky.social

What if you live in Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s home state of Louisiana? AI plants destroying our countryside, immigrant prisons, airport hub bringing them in, Elon tearing up wetlands to launch rockets. Can watch children in zip ties departing planes in a retirement community at night.

Gil Durán
@gilduran.com

Not even Gov. Gavin Newsom—who tried to help the billionaires with a last-minute bill in the legislature—could overpower the people of Solano County. This Network State city is like a data center on steroids, and the struggle to defeat it contains important lessons for the fight ahead.

Gil Durán
@gilduran.com

I write about California Forever in "The Nerd Reich." It fits a pattern:billionaires trying to build private cities. We see this idea popping up in Honduras, in Greenland, in Venezuela, in Cuba, in Kazakhstan, and in the ruins of the Gaza genocide. www.techpolicy.press/trumps-gaza-...

techpolicy.pressTrump’s Gaza Fantasy and the Network State: The Tech-Fueled Future of Privatized SovereigntyWe’re watching the rise of a new anti-democratic extremism—networked, crypto-financed, and cloaked in the language of freedom, writes Gil Duran.
Gil Durán
@gilduran.com

In Solano, tech billionaires gave $900 million to a guy with no real estate experience to buy up 60k acres of land in a place with no water, roads or infrastructure—but with a host of endangered species, an airbase, and a law specifically preventing this kind of project.

Gil Durán
@gilduran.com

California Forever ain't about housing. It's about billionaire power. That's what I wrote in my very first article on the Network State cult in January 2024. The People of Solano County vs The Next Tech-Billionaire Dystopia via @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/1777...

newrepublic.comThe People of Solano County Versus the Next Tech-Billionaire DystopiaIf these Silicon Valley plutocrats have their way, a swath of Solano County will be transformed into their own nation-state.
Madame Hardy
@madamehardy.bsky.social

I can't pull cites on this, but I read that substantial dredging would be required to make the Sacramento River viable as a modern shipyard. There's a reason it isn't a major port.

Madame Hardy
@madamehardy.bsky.social

"Red tape" says WSJ. Ignoring that Saronic solicited two competing bids for a shipyard, then picked the one in Brownsville, Texas, where the port and manpower already existed. "California forever" was always a ploy to get bigger tax breaks in Brownsville. www.manufacturingdive.com/news/saronic...

manufacturingdive.comSaronic Technologies picks Texas for $3.2B autonomous shipyardThe manufacturing hub will be built at the Port of Brownsville, which is located in one of the largest foreign trade zones in the U.S.
QItalia |
@qitalia.bsky.social

The 'for now' matters. These projects don't disappear — they regroup and return with better lobbying. Sustained civic pressure and transparent land-use rules are what make the difference long term.

meh
@o-meh-o.bsky.social

They can always come to Dumbfuckistan (Ohio) and ram these projects down our throats. Especially after tech billionaire Temu MAGA dipshit becomes governor.

Brendon
@3662brendon.bsky.social

If they'd ever took a drive down 680 in rush hour they may have modified their approach beyond 'dump 400k people here and call it walkable'

Gil Durán
@gilduran.com

Yes, as anyone who has been on I-80 between Fairfield and Sacramento anytime in the last 25 years could tell them. Of course, Jan Sramek had only been in this country for a few years when the billionaires gave him $900k to buy half a county, as one does...

Quarantegan
@quarantegan.bsky.social

Lorraine Powell Jobs's heavy involvement with California Forever is why my eyebrows went up when I saw her name on Lurie's 'Partnership for San Francisco' roster 🤨 Far too many of the CF/Network State folks are turning up in things like the Presidio Trust or citywide "improvement initiatives".