Who has Newsom’s ear as he weighs a White House run?

On June 23, Gov. Gavin Newsom had a scheduled call with Mark Lashier, the chief executive of Phillips 66 — months after the oil giant announced it would shut down a major Los Angeles refinery following the governor’s signing of new regulations on oil and gas facilities as he pushed to end California’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Within days, Newsom’s administration pivoted.

State officials unveiled a plan to boost oil drilling and imports in California and put on hold a refinery profit cap the governor had previously championed. Newsom later described the shift as a necessary step to keep refineries open and gas prices in check while the state pursues what he has called a “green-growth future.”

The call, scheduled for 15 minutes, was one of dozens of meetings Newsom held last year with interest groups, business leaders, political donors and policymakers, according to copies of his official calendars for the first half of 2025 obtained by Bay Area News Group through a public records request.

The documents, which the governor’s office had previously declined to release to journalists, offer a rare window into who has had direct access to California’s most powerful elected official as he navigates high-stakes policy fights — and as allies and critics alike speculate about a future presidential bid.

“We want to know who he’s talking to, and it’s always good to see who is influencing the government to do what,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College. Governors and their staff, he noted, routinely meet with a wide range of interest groups. But the records raise questions about whose voices are being heard most often — and whose are not.

In a brief statement, Newsom’s office said the governor meets with a broad range of stakeholders “to better inform his understanding of issues facing California.” The office declined to discuss the substance of any specific conversations. Phillips 66 said it regularly meets with government officials about its operations but declined to comment on the call.

Oil policy shift

The scheduled call with the Phillips 66 executive came amid growing uncertainty over the future of California’s refining industry. In addition to Phillips’ closure of its only California refinery in Los Angeles in December, Valero plans to idle its Benicia refinery by April, citing challenges including “legal, political or regulatory developments.”

Even before the call, Newsom had directed state officials to work with oil companies on ways to ensure a reliable fuel supply as concerns about gas prices mounted. The same day as the call, Newsom also spoke with the head of Union Pacific Railroad, which has transported oil for Phillips. Union Pacific declined to comment on the specifics of the conversation.

What followed was a visible shift in state policy. The administration announced recommendations to increase drilling and imports, and to delay the refinery profit cap — signed by Newsom in 2023 after he called a special session — now paused until 2030.

Consumer Watchdog, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that was among the profit cap’s most vocal supporters, does not appear anywhere on the governor’s calendar last year.

“The governor shouldn’t be setting policies by phone calls with refiners — he should be having open public discussions,” said Jamie Court, the group’s president. He noted that Phillips 66 is also pursuing a pipeline project to import oil into California.

Tech, labor and donors

The calendars show Newsom also scheduled private meetings with leaders of major tech companies, including executives at biotech firm Genentech; national labor unions such as Service Employees International Union; and prominent political figures, including President Donald Trump. The meetings with Trump, which occurred after the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, had been previously disclosed.

Ahead of signing a major artificial intelligence regulation bill in September, Newsom scheduled a June call with Dario Amodei, the CEO of San Francisco-based AI developer Anthropic — one of the few major tech firms to publicly support the legislation. Anthropic did not respond to questions about the conversation.

During negotiations, Newsom’s staff also engaged with other technology companies that had raised concerns about the bill, according to Politico. The governor commissioned a report by AI safety experts as part of that process. The final law requires companies to disclose public-safety protocols, among other mandates. Some AI safety advocates have criticized the measure as too accommodating to industry, which could be a major donor in the next presidential race. Other critics, including the Trump administration, have argued it will stifle innovation.

“We worked with industry, but we didn’t submit to industry,” Newsom said at a public event in New York weeks before signing the bill.

In the months before approving two high-profile measures that rolled back environmental reviews for multifamily housing developments and other projects, Newsom also set up meetings with leaders of major labor unions in his Capitol office. The bills were among Newsom’s top legislative priorities last year as he sought to show progress on the state’s housing crisis, one of his main political liabilities. Union affiliates’ support, or at least non-opposition, was critical to securing the votes needed for passage.

The unions involved — the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations — and their affiliates have long been major donors to state Democrats, including Newsom. Neither group responded to requests for comment.

After the legislation passed, environmental groups that had opposed it, including the Sierra Club, accused the administration and lawmakers of cutting them out of the process through what they called “back-room deals.” The calendars do not show a meeting with the Sierra Club, though Newsom did schedule a meeting in May with the Natural Resources Defense Council, another critic of the bills.

Who else had access

The records also document meetings with wealthy donors and corporate executives.

In June, Newsom had a scheduled meeting with representatives of Chicago-based Reyes Beverage Group, one of the nation’s largest beverage distributors. The family-run company’s billionaire owners — active donors to Republicans — have also contributed at least $199,000 to Newsom and his causes since 2021, according to campaign filings. A company spokesperson said Reyes used the meeting to share plans for a new Coca-Cola bottling plant in Rancho Cucamonga.

That same month, Newsom scheduled a meeting with Andrew and Jamie Schwartzberg, philanthropists who have donated heavily to California Democrats in recent years, though they do not appear to have contributed to the governor’s campaigns. The couple did not respond to questions about the meeting.

What the calendars don’t show

The documents obtained by Bay Area News Group, however, provide only a partial picture of the governor’s schedule.

They only cover the first seven months of last year, through July. Newsom’s office did not explain why later calendars were withheld, saying only that the remaining records “will be provided as soon as they are ready for release.” The schedules list only formal, planned meetings, and the governor’s office would not confirm whether every entry took place as scheduled. Some items were redacted under a public-records exemption for the “deliberative process.”

Because of those limits, the calendars offer partial insight into some of Newsom’s highest-profile travel, including trips to Brazil, New York and South Carolina. His June visit to South Carolina — a key state in presidential primaries — does not appear in the records because it was classified as campaign travel.

For critics, the timing of some of Newsom’s policy shifts ahead of a likely presidential run has reinforced a broader concern: that decisions on issues like energy, housing and technology are being shaped not only by policy debate, but also by elite access and the political calculations of a governor with national ambitions.

Whether the call with Phillips 66 played a role in California’s retreat from its refinery profit cap and broader pivot on oil is impossible to determine from the calendars alone. But taken together, the records illustrate how major corporate leaders, organized labor, donors and political heavyweights have enjoyed direct access to the governor during a year of consequential policy turns — even as some of the most outspoken public-interest advocates were left out of the room.