Why IOC partner Airbnb is trying to buy your vote

This is it, folks. The Los Angeles city representatives you elect by November 3 will all be in office through the end of 2028. Their leadership will determine LA's stance for its biggest megaevent of all; think of this council as your Olympic and Paralympic home team. Which is why, if we're going to talk about the election, we have to talk about Airbnb. Torched readers know that Airbnb has been a marquee sponsor of the IOC for years — and recently signed on as a FIFA sponsor as well. But after years of simply lobbying local elected officials, Airbnb used this election cycle to more aggressively claw its way into City Hall ahead of 2028. The powerful Olympic and Paralympic sponsor is spending over $7 million on LA races — and you can probably guess why.

Why Airbnb is an IOC partner

Airbnb became one of the IOC's top-tier sponsors — literally, the program is called TOP — in 2019, right before Airbnb's IPO. In the same way LA28 refuses to disclose its sponsorship deals, the IOC doesn't either, but Forbes reported Airbnb's IOC partnership had a $500 million value. "Airbnb’s mission is to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere, and we are proud that the Olympic spirit will be carried by our community," said Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, who currently serves as Donald Trump's design czar and blames immigrants for rising housing costs. The deal also included "guaranteed" accommodations in the five host cities over the next nine years, ending with LA in 2028. Ahead of the Paris games, Airbnb officials said they were aiming to lodge 500,000 people, and said during their 2024 global annual gathering they were looking at similar numbers for LA. The booking site is already up for 2028, with listings clustered by venues.

Megaevents create the perfect storm of opportunities for Airbnb, which is having a harder time positioning its accommodations as a preferred alternative to hotels — note new policies that hosts can no longer force guests to do chores — and attempting to pivot to an everything app for travel. But the biggest challenge Airbnb faces — which I also wrote about in 2024 — is that many cities are introducing policies that dramatically restrict the number of short-term rentals. Currently, however, LA is not one of those cities. In fact, thanks to Airbnb's influence, LA is now considering expanding its number of short-term rentals. So if you start thinking about everything Airbnb does as recruiting new hosts in the one U.S. market with potentially explosive growth ahead of this watershed moment, then (most of) their decisions start to make sense.

We can already see how Airbnb wants this to work

In 2025, Airbnb announced a new partnership as a global sponsor of FIFA, one year before the World Cup and just before the smaller Club World Cup tournament. Postcards went out pretty much immediately incentivizing first-time hosts to list their properties for a $750 bonus. The Airbnb logo was the first thing you saw when you walked into many fan zones during the World Cup. And at Grand Central Market, a stall was converted into an Airbnb Experience Counter hub where people can book taco tours of downtown. I missed this at the time, but Airbnb also promised legacy improvements: "In partnership with Tudela FC, an all-girls soccer club based in Los Angeles, Airbnb’s investment will help create mini-pitches across the city."

The pivot to experiences is another way Airbnb is trying to become a one-stop shop for tourism. But remember that the overall goal is more hosts. And ahead of every megaevent, you might guess what happens...

Airbnb always claims it has a shortage of hosts

If a megaevent is coming to your town, you can bet that Airbnb will put out a report warning there aren't enough Airbnbs. A June 2025 report came to this conclusion for the summer of 2026. A February 2026 report came to this conclusion for the summer of 2028. (This assessment was also conducted by Deloitte and fails to note that both Deloitte and Airbnb are LA28/IOC partners.) The ensuing breathless local news coverage that parrots very specific recommendations — "doubling short-term rentals could close 87 percent of this lodging gap" — gives policymakers well-publicized talking points. The problem is, we don't often get a full or accurate accounting of what happened during or after those megaevents. A post-World Cup release claims Airbnb saw "record guest numbers, host earnings" but is light on specifics. Meanwhile, Airbnb claims more short-term rentals are essential to take pressure off hotels, but many LA hotels reported they experienced a decrease in demand during this year's World Cup, largely due to "tourism boycotts" from international travelers.

Tenant advocates were already worried about Airbnb's impact on housing...

Since LA began bidding for the games a decade ago, tenant unions raised red flags about Airbnb further destabilizing LA's rental market. "Short-term rentals remove housing from our communities, raise rents, and displace our neighbors," says Noah Suarez-Sikes, an organizer at Better Neighbors LA. "With the Olympics coming up, it's more important than ever to oppose the efforts of corporations like Airbnb to commodify our housing." The city's Home Sharing Ordinance, which finally went into effect in 2019, was drafted with these concerns in mind, requiring, for example, that Airbnb hosts could only rent out their primary residence. Still, advocates warned that landlords of rent-controlled buildings would favor short-term rental guests over long-term tenants, keeping would-be affordable properties off the market. A 2024 ProPublica/Capital & Main investigation revealed this was, in fact, happening. But as with many LA laws, there is often simply not enough city money, resources, or staff to enforce illegal Airbnb rentals. In 2022, one study found more than half of all short-term rentals were out of compliance. In 2024, LA's own housing department estimated "7,500 short-term rentals were violating the city’s Home Sharing Ordinance, but the city only issued 300 citations."

...then came the "Save Our Services" campaign

In the summer of 2025, signs started popping up all over LA reading "Save Our Services." A scan of the QR code sent you to a website proposing a solution to prevent looming city budget cuts, claiming that the tax revenue from adding more short-term rentals to the local market during upcoming megaevents could help fill what had become a $1-billion hole. Mailers started going out as well, and people gathering signatures in support could be found at local events.

It all seemed to be an oddly timed campaign — long after the city's budget had been decided, with many of the most severe cuts averted — until it was revealed by the Los Angeles Times that Airbnb was indeed funding Save Our Services. Airbnb then quietly added its logo to the long list of supporters, including many labor unions. It was clear now that Airbnb was just getting launched early for election season.

Save Our Services says expanding short-term rentals would contribute $100 million in various tax revenues. But a Better Neighbors report claims if LA simply enforced the rentals it already has, the city would have made $47.6 million per month last year. A more recent report determined just 11 bad operators could be fined $201 million. Capital & Main has a really good explainer that shows why better enforcement would be better policy.

Everyone kind of forgot about Save Our Services until April 2026 — when LA Mayor Karen Bass sneakily slotted a recommendation to relax short-term rental rules into her 2026-2027 budget. Which was weird enough! But the wording also included a clause that would have allowed Airbnb hosts to pre-pay the city's overnight guest tax, known as the transient occupancy tax, or TOT... in advance?

I have absolutely no idea how this would have worked. Also the hotel industry, which contributes the vast majority of TOT funds was like... what? Well, it may not surprise you that both proposals were suggested to the mayor by Airbnb, the company confirmed to LAist. "Airbnb is a committed partner to Los Angeles and its long-term prosperity with not just words, but with action. That’s why we have offered to provide tax revenue we already collect on behalf of hosts up front to help fund essential city programs millions of Angelenos rely on," said Airbnb’s senior public policy manager Justin Wesson.

Now why does that name sound familiar?

Justin Wesson is the son of Herb Wesson, the former LA City Council president who led the vote to bring the Olympics back to LA — including absorbing the cost overruns. Herb is also the councilmember who first proposed the short-term rental ordinance; and yes, Airbnb's PAC donated to him, as well as many other LA councilmembers, starting a decade ago, right when bidding for the games began. Justin also worked in Herb's office as the short-term rental ordinance was being negotiated. And then Justin went to work at the LA County Federation of Labor — which everyone calls "the LA Fed" or just "the Fed" — a large coalition of local unions. (There were some recordings made there which you might have heard about.) Justin left the Fed to go to Airbnb. The unions backing Save Our Services? Mostly from the Fed coalition. Current LA Fed president Yvonne Wheeler is Bass's appointee to the LA28 board.

So what happened with expanding short-term rentals?

While the Bass/Airbnb suggestion was removed from the budget, LA's planning department drafted a new report (posted to the council file in September, after a previous report mysteriously disappeared and reappeared) about a potential "vacation rental program" that would allow more hosts just for upcoming megaevents and run through December 2028. This has not yet gone up for a council vote.

And once you have all that background, the end game becomes very clear. If Airbnb can capture a majority of council seats, they can push this through and change the short-term rental policies. But if they have a mayor who can simply drop it into her budget next time around — even better!

It seemed like a lock... until one of Airbnb's most strident critics ran for mayor

When Nithya Raman surprised everyone by filing to run for mayor in February, an alarm went off at Airbnb. Raman has worked harder than any of her colleagues to reform and enforce LA's short-term rental rules. And in September, the very powerful Unite Here Local 11 — the union that's part of the Fair Games coalition, which wants a moratorium on short-term rentals and LA28 to end the Airbnb sponsorship with the IOC — endorsed Raman for mayor. "Mayor Bass slipped into her budget a proposal to expand Airbnb instead of keeping units available," she said at the press conference. "I am here today because we cannot, we cannot, prioritize a tech company's profits over solving Los Angeles's housing crisis."

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Suddenly, the mayoral race became a referendum on Airbnb.

That's why Airbnb has been heavily funding Karen Bass

As CalMatters reported last month, this is the most Airbnb has ever spent on campaigns in California and the first time it's poured money into local races — with LA city absolutely making up the majority of those races. To track that money, we have to look closely at independent expenditure committees, or Super PACs, which Airbnb both funds and operates.

Take this new ad, for example, which was paid for by the Central City Association Political Action Committee on Behalf of Regional Businesses with Major Funding by Airbnb. (Is this a good place to mention that Airbnb's Justin Wesson is co-chair of the Central City Association Political Action Committee?) This PAC also gives money to A Stronger LA in Support of Karen Bass for Mayor 2026, Sponsored by Central City Association of Los Angeles.

And when you look closer at contributions to both those PACs, you see the largest contributor, by far, is the very powerful Committee to Expand the Middle Class Candidate Committee Sponsored by Airbnb, Inc.

It's hard to track exact dollar amounts as the money trickles from one PAC to another — someone who watches closely described it to me as "PAC-washing" — but it's safe to say millions of dollars are flowing from Airbnb with the intention to get Bass reelected.

Also: Bass was lambasted when Chevron contributed to her campaign through an independent expenditure committee run by the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council. Well, some Chevron money also made its way through the Central City Association's Airbnb-funded PAC. While you're over there, please note contributions to this pro-Bass committee from other LA28 sponsors: Delta Airlines, AEG, Uber, and IOC sponsor McDonalds.

That's not the only race Airbnb is spending on

Once you get familiar with Airbnb's various money funnels, it's easy to track the other races where Airbnb is trying to buy a local office. I highly suggest reading Capital & Main's detailed reporting on which 2026 campaigns Airbnb is funding, "contributing about 30 times more than it has in all previous Los Angeles elections combined since 2018." Here's an earlier rundown by SAJE as well. But here are the three other candidates besides Bass that Airbnb favors. The fifth candidate Airbnb was supporting, Traci Park, already won in the primary.

Airbnb wants John McKinney for City Attorney: The current city attorney, Hydee Feldstein Soto, is suing Airbnb for price gouging, so it makes sense why Airbnb would want to back a challenger. But she came in third in the primary so she's out. In this race, Airbnb's candidate is McKinney, running against Marissa Roy, a progressive with a strong tenant protection platform.

Airbnb wants Tim Gaspar for Council District 3: Airbnb hasn't spent as much in this Valley district, but their favored candidate is Gaspar, running against Barri Worth Girvan.

Airbnb wants Jose Ugarte for Council District 9: This South LA district has the most Olympic and Paralympic venues in the entire city and it makes sense that Airbnb would be flooding this race with money. Airbnb's candidate is Ugarte, a former staff member for incumbent Curren Price (who is headed to trial for a corruption case). Ugarte is running against community organizer Estuardo Mazariegos, who has been pushing for answers about how the Olympics are going to impact South LA, including when LA28 is going to pay to fix and open the Expo Park pool. (The city still doesn't have answers, by the way.)

That's a total of $7 million Airbnb is spending to control City Hall — and those figures don't include lobbying efforts or behested payments...

Wait, what are behested payments?

Behested payments are gifts made from corporations or other entities on behalf of an elected to a particular cause. Here's a great explainer in L.A. Material. They do have to be disclosed, and there are rules around those disclosures just like any campaign contribution. The Center Square has a complete rundown of $38 million in behested payments made to Bass since she's been in office. Two of these are from Airbnb, including $1 million in July meant to support Lineage warehouse fire victims, in addition to "$600,000 of housing support." Side note: The Center Square is also reporting that the Airbnb payment, along with two others, is now under investigation by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Well, that sounds like a disaster

Interestingly enough! I mentioned before that megaevents create the perfect storm of opportunities for Airbnb. What also creates opportunities? Storms themselves! Whenever the city experiences a catastrophe — and boy, have we had a lot of them lately — local officials tell impacted residents to go a designated page to sign up for Airbnb and apply for temporary housing. After every disaster, Airbnb also encourages Angelenos to sign up as a host to house displaced people — because, as we know, the goal is always trying to sign up more hosts.

This is what happened after the 2025 fires. After I reported on price-gouging for short- and long-term rentals, the city subsequently sued Airbnb for price gouging. And yet — and yet! — despite the fact that her own city attorney was taking Airbnb to court, after the Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, Bass directed residents to go to Airbnb once again for help.

Speaking of disasters, what about that Airbnb-sponsored jazz festival?

At a launch event at City Hall with Bass in February, the LA Jazz Festival promised 25 days of free concerts in LA city parks, events in all 15 council districts, plus 150 shows at bars and clubs, all sponsored by Airbnb. The festival was being planned by another former councilmember and former Fed executive named Martin Ludlow. As first reported by Los Angeles Magazine, Airbnb gave $750,000 to Ludlow's LA Jazz Foundation to headline the event, then paid Ludlow's Bridge Street consulting company $2.3 million to gather signatures for Save Our Services — oh hello! — while planning was in motion for the festival.

Was this a ploy by Airbnb to blanket the city in Save Our Services propaganda ahead of the election? We'll never know. L.A. Material explained why the LA Jazz Festival imploded the day before it was supposed to start.

Okay, one last thing: why is Airbnb supporting Prop 1?

Also on your ballot is a state measure called Prop 1, which "authorizes $11.25 billion in state bonds to build affordable housing and expand homeownership." Airbnb is supporting Prop 1 with a $1 million contribution. (Airbnb also supported the similar Prop 5 in 2024.) Housing production has become a big issue for Airbnb. In 2023, in response to accusations that short-term rentals were taking affordable housing off the market, Airbnb formed a "housing council" to support YIMBY groups advocating for building more housing including the Housing Action Coalition and a housing accelerator next month. This doesn't mean you shouldn't vote for Prop 1; progressive voter guides are recommending voting yes.

So... what's Airbnb's role with LA28?

That's a great question. What does it mean to be a sponsor of the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games? Is money being exchanged? Will the city get some kind of legacy project through this IOC deal? The truth is, we don't know! But we might soon. 🔥