With help from a billionaire benefactor, California’s governor built a hospitality company even as he gained power in America’s largest state.
A wealthy, imperious politician with ties to billionaires owns a hospitality empire. While serving in office, his family helps run the business empire he refused to divest. Conflict of interest allegations surrounding the properties just don’t seem to stick.
California governor Gavin Newsom may be posting like Donald Trump on social media, but clearly, the similarities don’t end there. The rumored presidential hopeful was a businessman before and while he ran for office, and built a brand of his own: PlumpJack Group, which he started with investors including oil heir and billionaire Gordon Getty, a family friend. Today, PlumpJack is a power player in both Napa Valley’s wine industry and San Francisco’s social scene.
Newsom was groomed for such success. His father, William, was a college friend of future California governor Jerry Brown, who appointed William to two judgeships. William Newsom was also employed by Getty as administrator of the Getty trusts. Despite dyslexia and struggling in school, Gavin went to Santa Clara University. He managed to earn a degree in political science in 1989, but had to make up a class he failed after graduating. He went into business just a few years later.
Named after the portly Shakespeare character Sir John Falstaff, PlumpJack, co-founded by Newsom, began as a wine store in San Francisco in 1992. Newsom and his partners—including Getty, John Conover (who initially joined as one winery’s general manager in 1999), Newsom’s sister Hilary and his cousin Jeremy Scherer—have since expanded it to encompass multiple wineries, restaurants, bars, stores and a hotel. Not every venture has panned out; several hotels and a sporting goods retailer have since shuttered, for example. But some have been enormously successful. The wineries alone, Forbes estimates, are worth over $400 million, so even a minority stake could be worth tens of millions of dollars to Newsom.
His exact share of each business is unclear, thanks to the vagueness of California’s financial disclosure forms. After serving on San Francisco’s parking and traffic commission and then on the city’s board of supervisors, Newsom sold off his stakes in the San Francisco-based businesses, reportedly to Getty, for just $1.7 million when he became mayor of the city in 2004. He repurchased them (using a loan from Getty) when he left the mayor’s office to become California’s lieutenant governor in 2011. “These are my babies, my life, my family,” he told journalists in 2018 while running for governor. “I can’t sell them.” Ultimately, Newsom put his business holdings in a trust and gave up control—even signing an executive order barring state agencies from doing business with PlumpJack. Today, sister Hilary, cousin Jeremy and Conover run the company.
With Newsom rumored to be gearing up for a White House bid, Forbes combed through his state financial disclosures, real estate records and PlumpJack’s websites to assemble a picture of his holdings. He doesn’t list much in the way of liquid assets on his disclosure—but, notably, is not required to list most diversified mutual funds or interest, dividend and capital gains income. His wife founded and helps run the nonprofit The Representation Project, which makes documentaries addressing gender stereotypes. Her stake in a related film production company called Girls Club Entertainment is worth between $100,000 and $1 million, according to her husband’s disclosures.
When reached for comment, Newsom spokesperson Nathan Click, who handles communications for the governor for non-state matters, would not comment on any of the holdings or Newsom’s stakes in them. Click instead reiterated that the governor’s holdings are in a blind trust and that he has “no role” in them, sending a link to coverage of the governor’s blind trust decision. He declined to share Newsom’s tax returns, which have previously been made available to reporters. A PlumpJack representative directed requests for comment to Click, as did a representative from the governor’s office.
Below is a snapshot of his properties and businesses held through PlumpJack, including four vineyards and two restaurants; as well as his two personal residences, one closer to home in the Bay Area and one closer to work in Sacramento.
PlumpJack Wine & Spirits (two locations)
Location: San Francisco, CA
Newsom opened the store that started it all in 1992 on Fillmore Street, in one of San Francisco’s upscale shopping and dining districts. The shop appears to lease the ground floor of a low-rise apartment building built in 1928. Newsom says his stakes in the business and leasehold are each worth between $100,000 and $1 million, according to his financial disclosures. A second location, in the Noe Valley neighborhood, opened in 2001.
PlumpJack Estate Winery
Location: Napa, CA
The first winery in PlumpJack’s portfolio, this property opened in 1995 after Newsom and Getty wanted their own varietals to support their wine store. PlumpJack Estate has a 42-acre vineyard on a 57-acre plot that also includes an 1880s-era tasting room and production facilities. Its specialty is cabernet sauvignon. Newsom said on his 2024 disclosure that his stake is worth over $1 million and his share of revenues was over $100,000, the highest categories for each. In a recent profile for the winery’s 30th anniversary, the owners claimed production of 15,000 cases and 28 employees, 20 of whom work the vineyard.
CADE Estate Winery
Location: Angwin, CA
CADE (named after cades, a Shakespearean term for wine casks) is the second winery in PlumpJack’s portfolio—purchased in 2005, two years into Newsom’s first term as mayor of San Francisco. The whole property, on the slopes of Howell Mountain, is 54 acres, with 28 set aside in a land trust, 18 planted with grapes for cabernet sauvignon, two planted for malbec and a petit verdot, and the rest used for winery buildings, which claim gold LEED certification thanks to organic farming and solar panels. It was reportedly impacted by the Glass wildfire in 2020, which limited production, and by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, its lender, in 2022.
Odette Estate Winery
Location: Napa, California
Winery number three is located in the Stags Leap District, a valley within Napa that sports cooler temperatures. The 45-acre site opened in 2012 and grows grapes for five different types of wine: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec, petit verdot and cabernet franc. The name “Odette” comes from the princess in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet, and the entrance to a cave on the property used for tasting and wine production aims to replicate a swan’s wing, according to the architect. Newsom says his stake is worth between $100,000 and $1 million.
CADE 13th Vineyard
Location: Angwin, CA
Just down the road from CADE Estate on Howell Mountain is the largest site in which Newsom declares a direct interest: CADE 13th Vineyard, so named because it was the thirteenth bonded winery—a fancy way of saying it was insured against excise taxes—in California. The property boasts 82 planted acres growing mostly cabernet sauvignon, plus a few dedicated to sauvignon blanc, malbec and petit verdot. PlumpJack acquired it in 2016. Like its Estate namesake nearby, CADE 13th experiences a “temperature inversion”—daytime temperatures are cooler than evenings—which allows grapes to stay on the vine longer.
PlumpJack Inn and Cafe
Location: Olympic Valley, CA
The same year PlumpJack opened a winery, it also launched a ski-in, ski-out hotel and restaurant just a few miles from Lake Tahoe. Open year-round except for seasonal breaks in November and the late spring, the PlumpJack Inn hosts 55 rooms in what used to be known as Squaw Valley, the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics (won handily by the Soviet Union). It stands out as the only remaining hotel in PlumpJack’s portfolio—the other three, one in Palm Springs and two in Carmel-by-the-Sea, closed in 2019. The Inn also included PlumpJack Sport, an equipment store hawking skis, helmets and other athletic wear, but it closed its doors last year, according to its Facebook page. Newsom declared his stake in the latter to be worth between $10,000 and $100,000 most years he’s filed disclosures.
Balboa Cafe
Location: San Francisco, CA
The San Francisco saloon across the street from the first PlumpJack Wine & Spirits first opened in 1913 (though the superstitious original owners put 1914 on the sign) as a watering hole for working men. PlumpJack—spurred by Newsom, who was apparently convinced to bid on the restaurant by Pat Kelley, a realtor and the first female stock broker in San Francisco—purchased it in 1994 and overhauled the menu. However, they made sure to keep the Balboa Burger, served on a baguette with pickles and onions, and the espresso martini. Balboa was added to San Francisco’s Legacy Business Registry in 2018, which came with marketing and other assistance from the city.
White Rabbit
Location: San Francisco, CA
Continuing their expansion on Fillmore Street, PlumpJack opened the MatrixFillmore Bar just across from Balboa in 2001, taking over the Matrix nightclub, which had launched psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane to fame. A rebrand in 2018 to White Rabbit, a nod to the band’s iconic hit, seems to have boosted the club: Newsom reports that his share of revenues has exceeded $100,000 every year since 2020, up from the $10,000 to $100,000 range it previously threw off.
Fair Oaks, CA home
Newsom finally secured the governor’s mansion in 2019 after eight years as second-in-command, but apparently wanted a place to live near Sacramento that wasn’t owned by taxpayers. In October of that year, he and his wife purchased a 12,600-square foot home in nearby Fair Oaks for $3.7 million, borrowing $2.7 million to do so, public records show. They refinanced in 2021 for the same amount.
Kentfield, CA home
The day after Donald Trump won back the White House last year, Gavin Newsom appears to have purchased a home north of San Francisco Bay for $9.1 million, borrowing $6.5 million for the deal, according to public records obtained by Forbes. He did so through an LLC for which his wife is listed in California corporate records as the sole manager. According to public listings, the house is over 5,500 square feet and has six bedrooms (plenty for Newsom’s four kids), a pool and a spa. It’s an apparent upgrade from his previous Marin County home, reportedly sold in 2021 for $5.9 million.
With additional reporting by Monica Hunter-Hart.
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