Gavin Newsom has accused the tech billionaire Elon Musk of “encouraging looting” in an escalation of a row over disinformation surrounding the deadly Los Angeles fires.
The California governor lashed out after Musk, who is President-elect Donald Trump’s wealthiest supporter, reposted a message on X – the social media platform he owns – that falsely accused the governor and his fellow Democrats of decriminalising looting.
“Stop encouraging looting by lying and telling people it’s decriminalized. It’s not,” Newsom wrote. “It’s illegal – as it always has been.”
The clash came amid concerns of a looting spree after owners who had been forced to abandon their homes as the flames spread later returned to find the contents had been burgled.
About 30 people have been arrested, most of them for suspected looting, since the fires threatened to engulf several Los Angeles neighbourhoods. One man was found at a fire-damaged home dressed as a firefighter and arrested. Two men were detained on Saturday outside the Los Angeles home of Kamala Harris – the vice-president whom Trump defeated in November to return to the White House – but were later released after no evidence of a burglary was found.
Newsom’s exchange with Musk was triggered by a user who posted a television interview in which the governor said there would be “zero tolerance for looters”.
Above the footage, the user wrote: “LOOTING: Newsom and California Democrats literally decriminalized looting, barring police from arresting looters and prosecutors from prosecuting them. Now he’s opposed to looting.”
Musk, who has been prominent in Republican criticism of the Democrat response to the fires, reposted the message with a clown emoji and a globe.
Trump, Musk and other leading Republicans have blamed the fires on liberal and “woke” policies they accuse the Democrats of prioritising over public safety, including measures to combat climate change. They have focused on Kristin Crowley, Los Angeles’ first female fire chief – who is gay – to portray a fire service more focused on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
The baseless accusation that Newsom had decriminalised looting appeared to stem from his opposition to changes to Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot initiative that reduced some minor offences from felonies to misdemeanours in an effort to free up prison space for more serious crimes.
The ballot’s provisions were partly replaced by another initiative, Proposition 36, in 2024 that introduced tougher sentences for offences such as shoplifting, property damage and theft in certain instances. Neither initiative explicitly mentioned looting.
Newsom opposed Proposition 36 and initially proposed competing legislation to keep it off the ballot.
The governor extended his complaint about disinformation to include Trump, who has claimed that firefighters’ efforts to extinguish the blaze were hampered by a shortage of water in local reservoirs. Water experts say levels in Los Angeles reservoirs were at record levels when the fires started.
“The reservoirs are completely full – state reservoirs here in southern California,” Newsom told NBC. “That mis[information] and disinformation, I don’t think, advantages or aids any of us.”
Trump has hinted that he might hold back disaster aid to California after he is sworn back into the White House on 20 January amid calls from Republicans that relief funds should come with “strings attached”.
The notion of using the fire to extract political concessions from California’s ruling Democrats seemed to be given voice by John Barrasso, a Republican US senator from Wyoming, who told CBS’s Face the Nation that the fires were a result of “gross mismanagement in California by elected officials”.
“There can’t be a blank check on this … because people want to make sure that as rebuilding occurs … that these sorts of things can’t happen again,” he said, mooting the idea of an aid package with “strings attached”.
“The policies of the liberal administration out there – I believe – have made these fires worse.”
The suggestion drew an angry response from Democrats.
“This is disgraceful. Disaster aid should never come with strings attached,” Maxwell Frost, a Democrat US House member from Florida, posted on social media.
Newsom said Trump had made similar threats following fires that happened in California during his first presidency.
“He did it to California back before I was even governor, in 2018, until he found out folks in Orange county voted for him, and then he decided to give the money,” he told NBC. “We take it seriously to the extent that, in the past, it’s taken a little bit more time [to get the funds].”
Article by:Source Robert Tait in Washington
