Airbnb’s $12.6M Plan B: Elect an LA City Hall That Says Yes

ByPriscilla Li
Los Angeles City Hall tower and facade in downtown Los Angeles

Airbnb and its nonprofit arm have spent at least $12.6 million on Los Angeles politics since 2025. The largest share, at least $6.9 million in campaign spending, has gone mostly to committees backing Mayor Karen Bass and the other officials who will decide whether owners can rent second homes and investment properties to tourists through 2028. The city already has an estimated 7,500 illegal short-term rentals. City Hall has also said no once. Bass put the expansion into her spring budget, and the City Council stripped it out in May.

That makes Tuesday’s November 3 election the company’s last chance to change who is in charge before the Games. The business behind the spending is large. In the second quarter of 2026, guests booked $27.2 billion through Airbnb and the company kept $3.6 billion as revenue. Renters bear a different cost: every apartment booked by the night is one fewer apartment available on a year’s lease.

Where the $12.6 million went

Politico’s count, itemised by reporter Liam Dillon, breaks down like this:

Spending Amount
Campaign spending, mostly PACs backing Bass $6.9M+
…of which, a PAC backing city attorney candidate John McKinney $2.1M
“Save Our Services” lobbying campaign $3.7M
Charity payment made at Bass’s request, for emergency housing $1M
Not broken out in the itemised figures about $1M

The fourth row is a behested payment. A politician asks a company to donate to a cause, and the company does. The money never passes through a campaign account, but the request comes from the official.

Capital & Main counted separately and reached a similar total. As of mid-October it found $7.1 million spent on the mayor’s race and three other contests. More than $6.1 million of that went to political committees run by the Central City Association, a downtown business group. Capital & Main also counted nearly $4.2 million in lobbying over 18 months, for a combined total of about $11.3 million. By the outlet’s tally, this cycle’s election spending is 30 times what Airbnb spent in every earlier LA cycle since 2018 combined. The spending is part of the tech money reshaping California politics, and it extends the push to shape the officials who regulate it that this site reported on.

The candidates Airbnb backs hold the votes it needs. Besides Bass and McKinney, the money supports Tim Gaspar in Council District 3, Jose Ugarte in District 9 and Traci Park in District 11. For Ugarte, $750,000 went through a PAC tied to the electrical workers’ union IBEW Local 18, and about $300,000 more went to a separate committee. Park won her seat outright in June.

The city attorney’s office has also been suing the company. Incumbent Hydee Feldstein Soto sued Airbnb in July 2025, alleging price gouging after the Palisades fire. She was eliminated in the June primary. Airbnb’s $2.1 million now backs one of the two candidates competing to replace her.

Airbnb has told investors why Los Angeles is worth the money. Chief executive Brian Chesky has called “megaevents” the best way to add listings, and Politico points to Paris, where listings grew by more than 50% around the 2024 Games. The company’s Q2 2026 results reported more than 150,000 first-time listings in World Cup host cities, along with $816 million in net income.

Residential apartment building in Los Angeles

What the rule would change, and who pays for it

The current rules come from the 2019 Home-Sharing Ordinance. Hosts can generally rent out only their primary residence, for up to 120 nights a year, and rent-controlled and affordable units are off limits. The proposal would let owners run second homes and investment properties as short-term rentals through December 31, 2028. An owner who now has to sign a year’s lease with a tenant could book the same unit to Olympic visitors instead.

Estimates of how many units would switch depend on who made them. The Planning Department put the number at fewer than 5,500 new potential rentals. Capital & Main reported up to 15,000. Airbnb’s own request covered up to roughly 31,000. Before the 2018 rules, Los Angeles had about 29,000 listings. At full size, Airbnb’s request would roughly rebuild the market the ordinance shrank.

Bass’s campaign rejects the pay-to-play charge and says the policy is about Olympic demand. In May, Bass said it would “accommodate the influx of tourists during the Olympics,” and added, “otherwise I would be concerned about the housing supply.” Her own city’s planners had already looked at that concern. Their April 2 report recommended rejecting the proposal because it would remove long-term housing and raise little revenue. Thirteen days later, a follow-up report said a temporary program tied to the Olympics was worth considering.

The word “temporary” is not the one Airbnb used with its investors. Politico reports that the company’s executives told investors they expect the Olympics to spur “rapid and lasting expansion” of its Los Angeles business.

“The Olympics may be the immediate prize, but the bigger opportunity is influencing the rules of the game long after the torch goes out.”, Jeremy Oberstein, Democratic political consultant, to Politico

The evidence for a shortage of rooms comes mainly from a Deloitte report commissioned by Airbnb and built on Airbnb data. The city’s most recent big event tested that claim. During the World Cup, citywide hotel occupancy was 71%, the second-lowest of six major LA events surveyed, while short-term rental listings rose 10%. In Paris, AirDNA found that only about a third of available Airbnb rentals were booked during the 2024 Games.

The revenue case is just as thin. Short-term rentals currently produce $34.5 million of the city’s roughly $297 million in hotel taxes. Airbnb claims the expansion would bring in $100 million, and no independent estimate supports that figure. The Los Angeles Times reported that Bass’s budget also included a $50 million tax prepayment from Airbnb, which neither Bass nor Airbnb has confirmed. Petersen, quoted by the Times, described the prepayment as “bribing the city.”

The city cannot enforce the rules it already has. Los Angeles has about 5,500 legal short-term rentals against an estimated 7,500 illegal ones, and it issues around 125 citations a year. Since 2019 it has collected $667,000 in fines. Airbnb’s political spending since 2025 is nearly 19 times what the city has collected in short-term rental fines over seven years.

The penalties are small next to the prices. The city’s first fine for an illegal listing is $587. During the World Cup, one listing near SoFi Stadium went from $400 to $7,000.

Airbnb’s political spending since 2025 is nearly 19 times what the city has collected in short-term rental fines over seven years.

Tenants already live with the results. About 75% of Los Angeles rentals are rent-controlled, and that is the housing the current ban protects. A July 2024 investigation still found units in more than 60 rent-controlled buildings advertised on booking sites. A 2023 investigation found that weak enforcement of a separate law, the Residential Hotel Ordinance, had let nearly 800 housing units go to tourists. In December 2024, when ProPublica asked about tougher enforcement, neither Airbnb nor Booking.com responded.

Who is opposing it, and why Election Day decides it

Airbnb is not the only large outside spender in the election. As of September filings, hedge fund manager Aaron Sosnick had put about $7 million into committees backing Nithya Raman, and the Carpenters union had added $3 million. The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the LAPD officers’ union, has spent more than $4 million backing Bass and others.

Rotman says Airbnb will work with whoever wins. The company has spent $12.6 million on deciding who that is.

The race is close. A UC Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times poll released October 28 has Bass and Raman tied at 40% with 19% undecided, after Raman led by 11 points in September. A poll for UNITE HERE, the hotel workers’ union, found that 53% of voters were less likely to back a candidate supported by Airbnb and 7% more likely. Raman calls the arrangement “pay-to-play” and has promised to crack down on short-term rentals.

Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games signage

For now, one official is holding the proposal back. Bob Blumenfield chairs the Planning and Land Use Management committee and won’t hold a hearing until the city’s enforcement reports are finished. He is termed out in December. Airbnb is spending to elect Tim Gaspar to his District 3 seat.

Tuesday’s vote picks the mayor, the city attorney and Blumenfield’s successor. The ordinance has not been adopted, and it can come back in January before a Council whose newest members Airbnb paid to seat. Raman has promised the opposite outcome. The rule Airbnb wants expires on December 31, 2028. The expansion Airbnb described to its investors does not have an end date.

Further Reading