Garry's List, the 501(c)4 run by Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, spent $51,000 on TV buys for AI-generated campaign videos and $76,000 against SF's CEO tax, per disclosures reviewed by Mission Local. The money is documented; the persuasion is not.

The first thing to know about the AI-generated attack ads seeping into San Francisco's ballot fights is that someone paid for them, and the amount is on file. Garry's List — the 501(c)4 political group run by Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan — spent $51,000 on television buys for AI-produced videos in May, according to financial disclosures and a spokesperson cited in an Aug. 4 report by Mission Local's Brandon Pho. That is the documented part of a machine whose persuasive power remains entirely unproven.

The videos are exactly what a skeptic expects. One Mandarin-language spot stages an AI-rendered son loading an AI-rendered moving truck, blaming a new wealth tax for pushing his company out of California. It argued against Prop. D, the "overpaid CEO tax" — which city voters rejected, 53 percent voting no in June's primary, per the same reporting. A Spanish-language version followed, and a separate clip backed a Superior Court candidate who went on to win her seat. Whether any of it swung a vote is unknowable; sharing a ballot with a measure that was already failing is not the same as defeating it.

What is knowable is the money. The group — disclosed as bankrolled by Tan, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and the organization Govern for California — put $76,000 into fighting the CEO tax, routed $15,000 to the moderate group Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, and cut a $39,200 maximum donation to gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, Mission Local reported. Under 501(c)4 rules the group can spend directly on races; the AI clips are a line item, not the enterprise.

They are also one front among several. State Sen. Scott Wiener's campaign separately yanked a Claude-powered parody chatbot after roughly a day, as we reported. Tan's spokesman, Sam Singer, told Mission Local the group is still weighing which contests to enter this fall, and how. That is the figure worth tracking — not the slop, but the next disclosure filing, and whether synthetic ads graduate from novelty to a standing budget category. Tan already dangles a personalized "political AI" agent to anyone who signs up: the product pitch that, as ever, outpaces the proof it works.