Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician and businessman. He is the 40th governor of California, serving since January 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California from 2011 to 2019 and as the 42nd mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.
He is the son of an appellate court judge and came from an old, privileged San Francisco family. He graduated from Santa Clara University in 1989, and with a loan from the wealthy Getty family, he started the PlumpJack Wine Shop in 1992. The business eventually grew to a multi-million dollar empire with over 700 employees, including restaurants, theaters, a wine label, and a hotel/ski resort. He served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1996 to 2004, where he became well-known for his "Care Not Cash" initiative, which reformed the city's homeless policy by slashing cash benefits to the homeless. Newsom was elected the 42nd mayor of San Francisco in 2004, the youngest mayor of that city in over a century. In February 2004, he made national headlines when he allowed same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses.
