By Katherine Tinsley
10:58am PDT, Mar 13, 2025
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California Governor
Gavin Newsom will be memorialized at San Francisco City Hall, but critics were shocked to discover companies close to the governor helped finance the installation.
Keep reading for the details — and to see the statue…MORE:
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In an interview with
SFGATE, Gavin Newsom discussed the bust being made for him.
"I don't want to call it embarrassing, but it's a strange thing," he said. "I'm just awkward about it. … But now the word is out."
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Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter made damaging claims about Gavin Newsom in their book Fool's Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All.
The authors alleged Newsom "behested payments" to help fund the statue.
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Susan Crabtree claimed Gavin Newsom was fearful about what her project would unearth.
"Team Newsom is afraid of the shocking revelations in FOOL'S GOLD — which is backed by more than forty-five pages of endnotes containing more than 1,000 open-source reputable and verifiable citations with zero anonymous sources — and that is why they are trying to smear this book," Crabtree said, according to Fox News Digital.
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X users rushed to discuss Crabtree's comments about Gavin Newsom.
"This is peak leftist arrogance — worshiping their own failures while everyday Californians suffer under their disastrous policies," one user wrote.
"If only he cared half as much about fixing his state as he does about immortalizing his own ego," another said.
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A spokesperson for Gavin Newsom shut down the assertion that he paid for the art piece.
"To imply the Governor personally funded or proposed this effort is categorically false," a rep told Fox News Digital.
"As is customary in the city, the effort was independently proposed by a nonprofit and funded by private donors — not taxpayers," the spokesperson added. "This was reported at the time and isn't news now."
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The spokesperson later clarified that the financing of the art piece was public information.
"Businesses tied to the Newsom family made a modest contribution to the privately funded initiative and raised funds for the effort as reported publicly at the time," Gavin Newsom's office said.
"The contributions were not in any way 'secret' as falsely claimed by some now," they noted.
