Gavin Newsom flew to China and laughed with communist executives while California taxpayers footed the bill.
This week the Pentagon made an announcement that changes everything about that trip.
Now Newsom has a question he cannot answer.
Newsom Took $50K From a Chinese Military Company Executive While Handing Out No-Bid Contracts
BYD is the Chinese state-subsidized electric vehicle company that dethroned Tesla as the world's largest EV seller – moving 2.26 million vehicles in 2025 while selling zero in the United States, where its cars are currently blocked from the market.
BYD's executive vice president Li Ke – a Chinese national married to BYD's billionaire founder and Chinese Communist Party member Wang Chuanfu – donated $20,000 to Newsom's 2018 gubernatorial campaign.
She gave him another $30,000 when he ran for reelection in 2022.
That's more money than Li Ke has ever donated to every other California candidate combined.
In the years between those checks, Newsom rewarded BYD with a $1 billion no-bid COVID contract to supply California with 200 million masks per month – a deal so secretive that Democrat state legislators sent Newsom a formal letter demanding he tell them what was in it.
He refused.
California then re-upped the deal with a $315.6 million follow-on mask order after BYD failed its initial federal certification vetting and missed early delivery deadlines.
In 2020, Newsom's administration handed BYD a separate lucrative contract to supply California's public transit system with electric buses.
In 2023, Newsom flew to Shenzhen, China – BYD's headquarters – where he laughed and joked with company executives while test-driving BYD's newest electric vehicle.
"Who needs a car when you can have a car and a boat?" Newsom quipped during the visit.
A left-wing foundation with ties to Chinese climate initiatives paid for the trip.
BYD Pentagon Blacklist Confirms What Newsom Ignored for Years
The Pentagon's blacklist is not symbolic.
Under the designation established by congressional mandate in 2021, a company earns the label "Chinese military company" by contributing to Beijing's strategy of using private-sector technology to strengthen the People's Liberation Army.
BYD made the list this week alongside Alibaba and Baidu – the expansion brings the total number of blacklisted Chinese firms to more than 130, the largest the list has ever been.
The Pentagon found that BYD is affiliated with China's state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology – both direct conduits into Beijing's defense apparatus.
This was not a surprise to anyone paying attention.
Researchers flagged BYD's military entanglements back in 2019 – documenting its cooperation with the People's Liberation Army and identifying components in its products manufactured by Chinese state-owned entities.
Congress responded the following year with a law barring federal funds from purchasing buses built by Chinese-state-linked manufacturers.
Newsom routed around it with state taxpayer money instead.
Rep. John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said that any Pentagon-designated company publicly traded on U.S. exchanges "should be immediately delisted and their products should be removed from supply chains our country depends on."
Newsom's office did not respond to requests for comment.
Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Cella, founder of the Secure Our States Coalition, said: "China's always looking for a weak link and I think that they found a weak link in Governor Newsom."
"The Department of War has blacklisted BYD for a reason," Cella told the Washington Free Beacon. "It means that there is a threat to the national security of the United States."
Newsom did not need this week's Pentagon designation to know what BYD was.
The warnings sat in front of him for years – the research on military ties, the congressional prohibition, the legislators demanding contract transparency – and he signed the checks anyway.
That's the pattern the Washington Examiner documented in January: since Newsom launched his first gubernatorial bid in 2018, individuals tied to Chinese Communist Party influence operations and employed by Beijing-linked companies poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into California Democrat campaign accounts.
BYD alone routed over $80,000 to California Democrats through executives and direct contributions since 2018.
The Pentagon just confirmed what that money was buying.
Newsom is running for president in 2028.
BYD sells more vehicles than any EV company on earth and cannot get a single one into the American market.
A friendly president who owes you favors could change that overnight – and the donations started flowing eight years before Election Day.
Sources:
- Thomas Catenacci, "Weak Link: Gavin Newsom Took $50K From Chinese EV Exec of Now-Blacklisted Chinese Military Company," Washington Free Beacon, June 9, 2026.
- Ellen Mitchell, "Pentagon Adds Alibaba, BYD and Baidu to Chinese Military-Linked List," The Hill, June 9, 2026.
- "Newsom Warmed on China as CCP-Linked Money Flooded State Politics," Washington Examiner, January 23, 2026.
- "Why Did Gov. Gavin Newsom Make Hurried $1 Billion Deal With China's BYD for Masks?" California Globe.
- "China Firm Mask Contract California Document Trove," Fox News.
