Chris Larsen donates $500,000 to San Francisco supervisor race

Crypto billionaire Chris Larsen has donated $500,000 to a third-party political action committee supporting Theo Ellington in the San Francisco District 10 supervisor race. The contribution, made to the newly formed ‘From the Neighborhood, for the City, Supporting Theo Ellington for Supervisor 2026’, is considered highly unusual for a local supervisorial race, where such large individual donations to third-party groups are rare.

Ellington, a registered city lobbyist and executive director of the Ruth Williams Bayview Opera House, is running to succeed the termed-out Shamann Walton. He currently holds a fundraising lead in the race with approximately $472,000, compared to opponents J.R. Eppler and Dion-Jay Brookter, who have $151,000 and $129,000 respectively.

Larsen and his wife, Lyna Lam, along with his company Ripple Labs, have been significant contributors to San Francisco politics, including $2.5 million in support of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s charter amendments. The surge in spending has drawn criticism from local officials, such as former Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who has characterized the rising costs of supervisorial races as “corrupting.”