California funding pours into Bilderberg despite tech elites fleeing the state

April 12, 2026

Salamander Hotel in Washington, D.C., the site of Bilderberg 2026

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

WASHINGTON —  Donations from California tech billionaires have accounted for the majority of funding the influential Bilderberg group has received from American donors in recent years, despite a growing trend of high-net-worth entrepreneurs and investors fleeing the Golden State.

The Bilderberg group is meeting this week in Washington, D.C. with western government officials, military leaders, CEOs and media executives present for multiple days of private talks on pressing geopolitical, economic and technological matters. Dining, drinking and networking are also a part of the conference taking place at the luxury Salamander Hotel, which is being protected by a large security and law enforcement presence.

Very limited information about the current Bilderberg Meeting is available to the public. However, nonprofit tax filings provide some picture of who is likely funding the high-level gathering.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp outside Bilderberg 2026

A trio of tech billionaires with strong defense ties help bankroll Bilderberg conferences that are held in the United States, tax filings show. Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp has essentially fled California; Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel is in the process of shifting ties from California to Florida; while former Google chief Eric Schmidt is residing in the Golden State and running an aerospace company there. Thiel and Schmidt have contributed millions of dollars in opposition to California’s proposed billionaire tax.

King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands at Bilderberg 2026

Formally known as the Bilderberg Meetings, the conference draws North American and European elites from business, government, academia and media. About 120 to 140 participants attend each gathering, which typically occurs in late spring. The majority of meetings are held in Europe, while the rest are held in North America.

This year’s conference, which is taking place earlier in the year than usual, is spanning Thursday through Sunday. Topics being discussed at the 2026 meeting include AI, global trade, the USA, Europe, the Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, China and the future of warfare.

The meeting occurs behind closed doors with little reporting on it, despite some members of the media being on the inside.

Participants at this year’s meeting include NATO chief Mark Rutte, former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, U.S. Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, Commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Samuel Paparo and U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. CEOs in attendance include Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, Deutsche Bank’s Christian Sewing, Siemens’s Roland Busch, Stripe’s Patrick Collison and TotalEnergies’s Patrick Pouyanné.

Alex Karp, the CEO of defense software contractor Palantir Technologies, and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and current CEO of Relativity Space, are also in attendance. Notably absent is Karp’s co-founder of Palantir, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

The Bilderberg group is led by a steering committee, on which tech billionaires Thiel, Karp and Schmidt have held seats for years.

Thiel, Karp and Schmidt have collectively contributed the majority of funding received over the last several years by the American Friends of Bilderberg Inc., a nonprofit that serves as the legal entity representing Bilderberg’s U.S. interests. American Friends of Bilderberg is a primary funding source for the Bilderberg Meetings that take place in the U.S. Typically, Bilderberg meets in the U.S. about once every four years.

Over the last decade, Thiel has personally contributed well over $1 million to Bilderberg. He donated $500,000 to American Friends of Bilderberg in both 2022 and 2024.

Karp contributed more than $350,000 between 2015 and 2024, American Friends of Bilderberg tax filings show. Schmidt donated $900,000 over that period. Additionally, Palantir Technologies contributed $300,000 in both 2017 and 2019.

Left to right: Eric Schmidt, Peter Thiel and Alex Karp. From outside the 2019 Bilderberg Meeting in Montreux, Switzerland

Bilderberg co-chair Marie-Josee Kravis and her billionaire husband Henry Kravis are other key contributors to American Friends of Bilderberg, as is investment banker and former U.S. Treasury official Roger Altman. Previous donors to the nonprofit have included David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, who were longtime Bilderberg insiders prior to their deaths in 2017 and 2023 respectively. Kissinger also mentored Schmidt, and the two co-authored a book on AI.

Tax filings for neither 2025 nor 2026 are publicly available yet, so the funding for the current conference remains somewhat murky. American Friends of Bilderberg had net assets of $1.23 million, as of the end of 2024.

The nonprofit’s expenses spike in years the conference takes place in the U.S. The last year Bilderberg met in the U.S., 2022, American Friends of Bilderberg had more than $3 million in expenses. The nonprofit had a net loss that year of $1.32 million. Thiel’s and Schmidt’s 2024 contributions of $500,000 each appear to have made up for most of the loss surrounding the 2022 conference.

Marie-Josee Kravis serves as both the president of the American nonprofit and co-chair of the Bilderberg group’s influential steering committee. Steering committee members Thiel and Schmidt have attended most of the annual conferences over the last two decades. Karp, also on the steering committee, has been a regular participant at Bilderberg Meetings over the last 15 years.

Eric Schmidt outside Bilderberg 2025 in Stockholm, Sweden

Schmidt, the former head of both Google and its parent company Alphabet, now serves as the CEO of the Long Beach-based aerospace manufacturing company Relativity Space. Schmidt previously led the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board, and he chaired the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. He also, amid the Russia-Ukraine War, launched a startup drone manufacturer called White Stork.

The former Google chief owns a real estate portfolio stretching at least from California to London, but there is no indication he is fleeing the Golden State. Last year, shortly after assuming the role of Relativity Space CEO, Schmidt purchased a $110 million Los Angeles mansion known as The Manor.

Schmidt provides funding to American Friends of Bilderberg through his company Big Hen Group LLC, which he also uses to make political contributions. Though Schmidt’s LLC is incorporated in Delaware, Bilderberg tax filings list Big Hen Group’s address as being in Palo Alto, where Schmidt’s family office is located.

Alex Karp outside Bilderberg 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal

Thiel and Karp led a team of founders that started Palantir in Palo Alto in 2003. Palantir, a leading provider of software for military operations, moved its headquarters to Denver in 2020. Earlier this year, the company announced it will again move its headquarters, this time to Miami.

Tax forms list Thiel’s San Francisco residence as the address associated with his Bilderberg contributions. Thiel moved his primary residence from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2018, and he recently opened an office in Miami for his private investment firm Thiel Capital. Thiel has established a significant presence in Miami over the last several years, maintaining a personal residence in the city since 2020, according to a Thiel Capital press release.

Karp is listed in Bilderberg tax filings as a resident of Palo Alto, though he moved to Colorado in 2020, when Palantir relocated there. Last year, Karp purchased a Miami mansion ahead of Palantir’s move to South Florida.

The California Billionaire Tax Act, which is a proposed initiative for the 2026 ballot, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the worldwide assets of California residents with a net worth of more than $1 billion. The tax would apply retroactively to anyone who was a California resident on Jan. 1, 2026.

Thiel donated $3 million to the California Business Roundtable, which is opposing the California Billionaire Tax Act. Schmidt also contributed about $4 million combined to multiple committees opposing the tax.

Additionally, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, who is attendance at this year’s Bilderberg meeting, contributed $7 million to Building a Better California, which is also opposing the wealth tax.