The Briefing:
- Campaign filings cited by The New York Times show that Tom Steyer's unsuccessful bid for California governor paid TikTok creator Carlos Eduardo Espina $400,000, four times the $100,000 first reported.
- Espina says he was hired as an adviser, not to make videos, and put the total at $400,000 himself, adding that not all of it had been paid. Dozens of his posts backing Steyer carried no sponsored-content label.
- California has just added penalties for undisclosed paid political posts, but no federal rule requires creators to reveal campaign money.
The Latino activist with the largest following in the United States collected $400,000 from Tom Steyer's campaign for governor of California while promoting the billionaire to his audience. With roughly six weeks to go before the November elections, the episode raises a question for anyone who follows politics on TikTok: how much of what creators say is conviction, and how much is advertising with the label removed?
What the records show
Espina, a Texas-based creator with more than 14 million TikTok followers, threw his weight behind Steyer this spring. Campaign finance records describe what he received as strategic advice and representation for the candidate, The New York Times. Yet dozens of his posts pushing Steyer went out without any paid-collaboration tag.
For a campaign courting Latino voters, his reach was hard to match. A briefing memo that the campaign's digital firm gave to creators, obtained by CalMatters, named Latinos among the groups the effort wanted to win over, and CalMatters described Espina's followers as an audience Democrats are eager to reach.
Why the number changed: $100,000 or $400,000
The first public figure came from filings covering January through April 18, which put Espina's take at $100,000, CalMatters noted while crediting the Times. Later reporting by the Times, drawn from campaign finance filings, raised the total to $400,000.
Espina says the money paid for guidance on Latino issues rather than for recording content, so he saw no need to tag his posts as ads. In that same video he insisted, in Spanish, "no me vendí" ("I didn't sell out"), as La Nación relayed, because he believes in the candidate.
The Steyer campaign says every dollar it spends is publicly reported, according to the Times. A spokesperson also told CalMatters that contracts with outside content firms required them to include payment disclosures.
He was not the only one
Seventeen creators each collected at least $5,000 from the Steyer operation. Rival Katie Porter, who also failed in the governor's race, spent $139,500 on 12 influencers, including $25,000 for what looked like a single post by a lifestyle creator with 9.5 million TikTok followers. That post was removed after the Times asked about it.
The practice crosses party lines. The Times pointed to a complaint from Alabama Rep. Barry Moore over paid accounts attacking his military record and to an apparent coordinated network of creators boosting a Republican Senate hopeful in Kentucky. Steyer left the race, but the tactic did not leave with him.
Where the law stands
California has required creators to say when a campaign pays them since 2024, but for years the rule had little bite. As of May, CalMatters reported, the enforcing agency depended mostly on complaints, could only ask a court to compel disclosure and sometimes took years to close cases. Its inquiry then covered a single video, from a creator paid $10,000 who did not say so.
That has changed on paper. NBC News reports that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 1130 on Saturday, adding civil and criminal penalties, including a possible misdemeanor charge, for creators who skip the disclosure. The complaint against Steyer's campaign remains open, NBC notes.
Nationally, the rules are thinner. Only four states require creators to disclose political payments, and only for state and local races. The Federal Trade Commission's paid-endorsement rules carve out political messaging, and Rep. Mark Takano's June bill to require disclosure in federal contests has yet to become law, per the Times. Takano himself admits a loophole: campaigns can bury payments under layers of vendors. California makes those chains visible by requiring campaigns to report subvendors; federal campaigns have no such duty.
Why Latino voters are in the crosshairs
A creator's postal code matters less to a campaign than the audience he or she can reach. Steyer's spokesperson told CalMatters that creators have followers in California wherever they live, while the outlet found accounts presenting themselves as Californian that were tied to creators in Pennsylvania and Florida. When the voice is authentic-sounding and the payment is invisible, trust erodes in exactly the communities campaigns are fighting hardest to persuade.
How to tell whether an influencer is paid to talk politics
- Check the tag, then the comments. A missing label proves nothing, but the Times found disclosures for posts backing Porter parked in a hidden section of TikTok comments.
- Search campaign finance reports. In most cases that is the only way to confirm a payment, the Times says.
- Be wary of "local" accounts with distant owners. CalMatters traced pro-Steyer profiles posing as Southern Californians to creators based elsewhere.
- Ask about the contract. Someone who says they only advise has nothing stopping them from saying how much they earned.
What comes next
Rynn Reed, founder of the creator group Creator Congress, recently introduced a code of conduct that would have members reveal every payment even where the law is silent. Without shared standards, she told the Times, the industry is heading for a "race to the bottom." Takano's bill still needs to clear Congress. Meanwhile, the Espina case leaves millions of followers with an open question: who are creators who claim to speak for their community really talking to?
