California supported by DSA The prosecutor who helped Meta pay out a historic $17 billion settlement this year is becoming Los Angeles’ top lawyer — unless a tech investor with a cozy relationship with Elon Musk can spend enough money to stop her.
San Francisco resident John Hering has invested more than $1.25 million to defeat California Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Marissa Roy, who is backed by the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, and to support County Attorney John McKinney in her hard-fought general election campaign. It was a massive infusion of cash from one man in the local competition for a little-known office, but it pales in comparison to Herring’s private-sector spending: In 2022, his investment firm Vy Capital poured $700 million into Musk’s acquisition of what was then known as Twitter, and $300 million into his tunnel-building Boring Company.
As co-founder of cybersecurity company Lookout, Herring’s spending is consistent with his long-term investments in the technology industry. While the city attorney’s office is typically used to defend the city from litigious residents, the office also has the power to craft legislation, enforce state laws like labor protections and take on corporations and the federal government in court. Roy has vowed to use the office’s regulatory power to crack down on businesses, including big tech companies.
“Monopolies and Big Tech are [Roy] Former Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin, who has not endorsed either candidate, said: “If I were a big tech company, I would definitely think, ‘Well, this is a potential threat.'”
Herring, who did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment, is part of a group of tech giants supporting McKinney. Others include the founders of Ring, Tinder, and Boingo, as well as investors in Anthropic, Anduril, and SpaceX, who have collectively poured more than $1.9 million into the committee supporting McKinney. A group called the Candidates Committee to Expand the Middle Class, with support from real estate rental technology giant Airbnb, donated an additional $4.2 million to the committee supporting McKinney.
To help McKinney survive the June primary, Herring and fellow tech investor Diego Berdakin poured more than $1 million into another committee. Herring’s general election spending group, John McKinney’s Neighbors, has been spending the past month on television, online ads and mailers portraying McKinney as a “lifelong Democrat” and “100 percent against making America Great Again.”
The same cannot be said for the group’s top funder.
After donating to Democratic candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Beto O’Rourke, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2016, Herring donated $41,300 to the Republican National Committee in 2024 and $500,000 to Musk’s U.S. PAC to support Donald Trump’s presidential bid. He publicly praised Musk’s chaotic purge of the federal government through the so-called Government Efficiency Department program and called the world’s richest man an “American hero” for proactively paying the Transportation Security Administration’s salaries during the spring government shutdown. In 2025, Hering and Ring founder Jamie Siminoff attended the White House dinner hosted by Trump for dozens of Silicon Valley celebrities. He also donated to Neighbors for John McKinney. Groups supporting McKinney have also been funded by failed Los Angeles mayoral candidate billionaire Rick Caruso and Democratic megadonor Ron Burroughs.
Earlier this cycle, Herring listed San Francisco as his residence on campaign finance filings, and he also intervened in the Los Angeles mayoral race to boost right-wing reality star Spencer Platt.
Technology industry spending The Los Angeles election comes amid a midterm cycle in which Big Tech and artificial intelligence have poured millions of dollars into exerting influence in congressional and state races across the U.S. as lawmakers grapple with how to regulate the industries. For example, Musk invested more than $442 million in the midterm elections, including more than $70 million in October alone to his political action committee, America PAC. Tech and artificial intelligence executives spent more than $29 million in California state House and Senate races, according to political nonprofit Tech Equity Action. Tech Equity Action is a political nonprofit dedicated to lobbying for tech-related legislation and advocating for workers’ rights.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom alarmed big AI companies last month when he signed a series of bills to protect workers from excessive influence of artificial intelligence, such as limiting the use of AI to fire or discipline workers, banning employers from using AI to spy on workers in bathrooms and ensuring that human health care workers have the final say in patient care decisions.
The tech industry has fought hard to repeal these bills, and while Newsom did offer some concessions to the industry, labor organizers say the new laws also offer them an opportunity to expand local worker protections.
In Los Angeles, Roy said she would use the city attorney’s office to fight for workers’ potential lost wages and promised she would go after “big corporations and big tech companies” who “misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid paying them minimum wage and benefits,” according to her campaign website. She also opposes companies that are increasingly using automation to “evade regulations and eliminate jobs.”
Brian Justie, a fellow at the UCLA Labor Center and a member of the coalition pushing the bill, said tech industry leaders may view city attorneys with an interest in regulation as “critical to their business models.”
“What happened in California set a precedent and provided a blueprint for the rest of the country,” Justice said. “So if you’re a big tech company, you really need to pass certain results here to avoid ripple effects elsewhere.”
McKinney blasted Roy for wanting to “transform the City Attorney’s Office into the largest public interest law firm in the country” as being out of step with the desires of Los Angeles voters. However, voters across the United States are increasingly expressing opposition to the expansion of artificial intelligence and the construction of data centers. Roy’s campaign has shown a willingness to listen to growing anxieties about artificial intelligence.
“Billionaires don’t want to be accountable to the working people, consumers and communities they take advantage of,” Roy said in a statement to The Intercept. “But as the Los Angeles City Attorney, I intend to hold them, their companies, and the MAGA Republicans who allowed their actions accountable — which is why they’re spending money on those who won’t.”
McKinney did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.
Advertising John McKinney’s neighbor asserts that McKinney will “take on dishonest landlords.” The council’s website says he will fight for “legal protection” for tenants against “unlawful evictions” and other actions. But one of the council’s biggest funders was Douglas Emmett Properties, a Santa Monica-based real estate company that attempted to carry out one of the largest mass evictions in Los Angeles history until it was blocked by a judge. In late September, Douglas Emmett donated $250,000 to Neighbors for John McKinney.
Neighbors of John McKinney also funded attack ads against Roy, portraying her as an inexperienced lawyer with weak criminal skills and an “extreme DSA” position. The ads cited an article in the conservative California Post, the West Coast spin-off of the New York tabloid, which claimed she supported a freeze on prosecutions for misdemeanors, which she denies.
McKinney campaigned as a law-and-order candidate, promising to address homelessness and public safety through the prosecution of misdemeanors, touting a closer relationship with police and pledging to reinstate the neighborhood attorney program. Other tech-backed efforts in California have responded in kind — such as Bay Area tech leaders’ successful push to oust progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
But Bonin noted that the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office has limited criminal enforcement powers. He suspects tech investments in the Los Angeles race are more concerned about potential civil lawsuits, which he thinks could cause problems for the campaign if voters make the connection.
“Voters care about big tech, they certainly care about artificial intelligence, they care about — I don’t think you can put it any other way — the influence of robber barons in the 21st century,” Bonin said. “Income inequality is a huge issue in Los Angeles, so if they feel like this funding is indicative of the agenda that McKinney is going to pursue… then it becomes even more of an issue.”
Roxana Tynan, executive director of the Alliance for a New Economy in Los Angeles, called the amount of money big tech companies are pouring into the campaign “shocking.” As she and other labor rights groups prepare to fight for more worker AI protections in Los Angeles — such as expanding coverage to include temporary and gig workers and banning employers from using AI software to collect sensitive worker information — she said she hopes people will focus on the money being poured into campaigns and the influence some figures hope to have on the city.
“These are people who truly believe not only can they buy elections, but they should buy elections,” Tynan said.