It’s 2026. Do you know where your CalPERS pension is?

CalPERS’ Board of Administration is supposed to represent state workers. But its investment strategy is actively working against workers’ interests. 

CalPERS invests billions of dollars in the same corporations and billionaires who are attacking public workers, building data centers, fueling climate change, undermining democracy, and enabling the Trump regime. 

For years, workers have asked the CalPERS Board to pull their money out of corporations that abuse human rights and build pipelines on indigenous land. Now it’s November 2026, and voters across the country have risen up to demand change. The era of cooperating with authoritarianism and corporate oligarchy is over. It’s time for a new direction.

What California state workers should know:

• CalPERS is (still) massively invested in oil & gas.
• Oil & gas is a bad deal for workers’ pensions–and this year’s war profiteering hasn’t changed that.
• CalPERS is invested in many of the companies building hyperscale data centers in our communities.
• CalPERS bought stocks and bonds in SpaceX when it went public this year–helping make Elon Musk a trillionaire after he slashed jobs for public employees across the federal government.
• The oil industry helped fuel the rise of the Trump regime–and Trump returned the favor by gutting environmental regulations, appointing oil executives to environmental agencies, and handing out fossil fuel subsidies.

Let’s break it down.

CalPERS is (still) massively invested in oil & gas.

• Despite its stated commitment to sustainability, CalPERS holds over $21 BILLION in fossil fuel investments.
• CalPERS increased its fossil fuel bond investments by 33% between 2023 and 2025. Bonds are long-term investments that provide corporations with capital for new projects. Many of CalPERS’ oil bonds don’t mature till 2050 or later–locking workers’ money into fossil fuel investments for decades to come.
• CalSTRS has transferred $30 billion into a low-carbon fund and significantly cut stock holdings in the biggest oil companies. But CalPERS has made no similar moves.

Oil & gas is a bad deal for workers’ pensions–and this year’s war profiteering hasn’t changed that.

• Fossil fuel stocks have dragged down portfolios for the past decade, even factoring in high oil prices during the Iran war. If you invested $10,000 in the  S&P 500 ten years ago, you’d have over $40,000 today. The same amount in the fossil fuel industry would be worth less than $29,000.

• 45 years ago, fossil fuels made up almost 30% of the S&P 500; in September of this year, they only made up 3.4%. In other words, the value of fossil fuel companies has dropped dramatically, and the Iran war hasn’t shifted the long-term pattern.

• Spiking oil prices during the Iran war are speeding up the transition to clean energy around the world–accelerating the end of the fossil fuel era. 

CalPERS is invested in many of the companies building hyperscale data centers in our communities.

• Data centers cause air and noise pollution,  gobble up immense amounts of water, generally lead to higher electricity costs, may reduce land available for farming and other rural uses, and pollute already-overburdened communities.

• In the United States, which is the world leader in data center concentration, the government and fossil fuel corporations alike are feeding AI’s energy demand with existing and planned gas and coal generation.

• CalPERS is invested in the large (“hyperscaler”) data centers, including significant holdings in Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Oracle, IBM,  Meta and Tesla. 

CalPERS has invested in Elon Musk’s ventures–even though Musk is a disaster for public-sector workers, democracy, and the environment. 

• When Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, went public last June, CalPERS purchased about $886,000 of stocks and $13 million of bonds–after Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” upended public-sector workers’ lives and careers.

• Musk’s companies lost $500 billion in value after the midterm elections.

• Musk’s companies use methane and fossil fuels to power AI infrastructure. Musk AI company xAI added more methane gas turbines at its Mississippi power plant, for a total of at least 57 methane gas turbines. And SpaceX acquired a fossil fuel company called APR Energy, which operates mobile gas and diesel turbines to power AI data centers.

The oil industry helped fuel the rise of the Trump regime–and subverts democracy in California and around the world.

• In 2024, Trump told oil and gas executives he would gut climate regulations if the oil and gas industry raised $1 billion for his 2024 presidential campaign. The industry donated, and got huge rewards in return. Trump appointed industry executives, lobbyists and other polluters to numerous government agencies to gut the regulations that protect us from pollution and climate change. 
• Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” gave the industry tens of billions in new subsidies and tax breaks to fossil fuel companies. The industry will collect an estimated $190 billion in tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years. 
• Right here in California, the oil and gas industry spent almost $34 million in 2025 on lobbying Sacramento lawmakers. Lawmakers then approved boosting oil production in Kern County, which suffers 12 times the state’s average of respiratory diseases and heart disease leading to death. 
• Between 2015 and 2025, fossil fuel interests donated millions to state lawmakers who backed voter suppression. 
• Fossil fuel companies wrote the Project 2025 section on energy development via Kathleen Sgamma, President of the Western Energy Alliance and now appointed to head the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM  is now planning to open nearly 2 million acres of California public lands to oil and gas drilling, including lands near Mount Diablo and Pinnacles State Park. 
• In Israel, Chevron fuels 71% of the electricity supply, which in turn is used as a tool of subjugation, collective punishment,  and dispossession in occupied Palestine.

It’s time for CalPERS to align its investments with California state workers’ interests and values. Join us on November 16–in person or by phone–to tell them so!