California’s economic dominance under Governor Newsom

Keeping California at the forefront of innovation

California’s world-leading innovation ecosystem has been a major driver of the state’s economic success. Governor Newsom’s final bill of his tenure as Governor seeks to drive the next wave of Golden State innovation by putting a $7.5 billion research bond before voters to invest in the science, technology, universities and breakthroughs that will shape California’s future and advance California’s status as the capital of innovation, research and technology.

As of August, California companies attracted $366 billion in venture capital in 2026—more than three times the total raised in all 49 other states combined.
California businesses performed more than one-third of all U.S. business R&D in 2023 — more than the next five states combined.
California residents received more than 50,000 U.S. patents in fiscal year 2025—more than any other state and more than four times as many as second-place Texas.
The University of California system received more U.S. patents than any other university worldwide in 2025, with 571 patents granted.
California is home to more Nobel laureates than any other state or any country outside the United States, and this year’s awards only widened that lead. More than a third of America’s science Nobel laureates this century have ties to California, including five of the world’s nine science winners in 2025 alone.
California’s colleges and universities performed $14.4 billion in R&D in fiscal year 2024 — more than any other state.
California’s life sciences industry generated $394 billion in total economic output and supported more than 1 million jobs in 2025, including more than 400,000 direct jobs.

California is home to leading research institutions, universities, biotechnology companies, technology companies, and emerging industries that connect fundamental research to new products, companies, and jobs.

Keeping workers safe from AI disruptions

While Trump and the federal government abdicate their responsibility to protect workers from AI’s impacts, Governor Newsom is taking bold steps to keep workers safe and include Californians’ voices in shaping the future of AI. Recently, Governor Newsom announced results from the first-in-the-nation project to involve Californians in decisions about AI. Their main message: Californians should have a say in how AI is built, used, and governed. Earlier this year, Governor Newsom signed a nation-leading executive order to prepare workers and businesses for potential AI disruption, and signed first-in-the-nation legislation to protect people in the workplace from the impacts of artificial intelligence, automated technology, and AI-powered workplace surveillance.

✅ Ensuring real people review automated employment actions by prohibiting employers from relying solely on AI when making a disciplinary or termination decision.

✅ Providing more transparency by requiring employers to disclose if a mass layoff, relocation, or termination is caused by an AI system.

✅ Protecting employee privacy by banning the use of workplace surveillance tools by employers in a bathroom located in the workplace.

✅ Requiring California public higher education institutions to create training for students, faculty, and staff on AI training and procurement.

✅ Keeping lawyers responsible for practicing law by prohibiting them from fully handing over core legal work, such as drafting briefs or providing legal judgment, to AI.

Governor Newsom recently signed new legislation to continue powering California’s economic engine:

✅ Making a major update to California’s antitrust and consumer protection laws. Clamping down on anti-competitive behavior, encouraging competition, and expanding opportunities for entrepreneurs and workers — including by creating new authority for the Attorney General and district attorneys to combat monopolistic behavior while also protecting small businesses.

✅Helping retailers open and operate faster by allowing businesses undertaking certain tenant improvements to hire qualified architects or engineers to review and certify that building plans comply with life-safety, health, and building code requirements.

✅ Protecting small businesses from abusive financial practices by unscrupulous financing companies.

✅Ensuring access to small business technical assistance by supporting providers who offer free or low-cost one-on-one, confidential consulting and training. This will help small businesses and entrepreneurs start, grow, expand, and create jobs in California.

✅Cutting unnecessary red tape that has kept a lower-cost fuel option out of reach for California drivers. Removing a regulatory barrier to make E15 — gasoline blended with up to 15% ethanol — available to California drivers.

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