Did California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife create Cal Volunteers to steal money raised by FireAid? No, that's not true: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, not Newsom, created California Volunteers, also known as Cal Volunteers, in 2006. FireAid, which was organized to help victims of the Los Angeles fires in January 2025, has listed the California Volunteer Fund as a potential recipient of a grant, but it is a separate organization and Newsom and his wife have no role with it.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) posted on TikTok on July 25, 2025, with the title:
Gavin Newsom Creates An Organization Just To Steal Money Raised To Help Fire Victims.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
The Older Millennial on TikTok
Gavin Newsom Creates An Organization Just To Steal Money Raised To Help Fire Victims.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Jul 25 22:57:38 2025 UTC)
The host of The Older Millennial TikTok video began:
So Gavin Newsom and his wife actually created an organization just to steal some of the FireAid money. Like, how this man is still governor of California and not behind bars, is fucking mind blowing. So I'm sure most of you have heard about the FireAid controversy. You know where they had this concert to raise $100 million for the victims of the Palisade fires. And people started asking, 'Hey, where the fuck did all that money go?' Because there's not a single person who was a victim of the Palisade fires who's seen a cent of it.
He later specified that he was referring to the Cal Volunteers organization.
But Cal Volunteers is an organization that was recently created by Gavin Newsom and his wife, and they have never done fucking anything before this, this organization was created strictly for the purpose of getting fire aid money, and they've not said what they plan to do with the money they got. They haven't even said how much of the money they received.
Social media users making the claim are confusing the California Volunteers office, which was created by Gov. Schwarzenegger's executive order (archived here) in 2006, with the California Volunteers Fund, a non-profit charity organized during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The California Volunteers office made that clear in a post on X (archived here) replying to another video making the false claim:
California Volunteers, Office of the Governor, is not a recipient of FireAid. The nonprofit, California Volunteers Fund, has been publicly identified as a potential grantee. While we're independent of them, they financially support volunteer efforts in CA, including our programs https://t.co/sEDv5Yao8Y
-- California Volunteers (@CalVolunteers) July 22, 2025
California Volunteers, Office of the Governor, is not a recipient of FireAid. The nonprofit, California Volunteers Fund, has been publicly identified as a potential grantee. While we're independent of them, they financially support volunteer efforts in CA, including our programs
FireAid does not make direct payments to victims, but its website (archived here) lists charities helping fire victims with FireAid funding.
