There has been talk for months that Silicon Valley’s billionaire class is recruiting a candidate to take on Representative Ro Khanna. Early Tuesday morning, the candidate made it official.
Ethan Agarwal (pictured above), a 40-year-old tech entrepreneur with no political background, told TechCrunch on Monday evening that he is running for California’s 17th congressional district. This process could become one of the most lavishly funded priority challenges of the 2026 cycle.
The race puts the spotlight on Khanna, a 49-year-old Democrat who is widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, having publicly supported a one-time wealth tax in California. His support has angered some of the state’s richest founders and investors, but Khanna has doubled down by introducing national legislation with Senator Bernie Sanders that would impose a 5% annual wealth tax on all Americans worth $1 billion or more — a proposal that his offices estimate would raise $4.4 trillion over a decade.
There is a certain irony in the situation. Agarwal is a graduate of Wharton and spent three years at McKinsey before founding audio fitness company Aptiv, which he sold in 2021. He recently co-founded Coterie, a financial services startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz.
When Khanna first ran for the same seat in 2014, he was a tech-backed outsider, with tech names like Marc Andreessen, Sheryl Sandberg and Eric Schmidt supporting him. He challenged popular Democratic incumbent Mike Honda, losing that effort, but came back victorious in 2016.
Critics at that time called Khanna a possessive person. A decade later, the man trying to remove him from office would almost certainly be accused of the same thing.
What follows is an edited version of our conversation with Aggarwal.
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TechCrunch: Last summer, you announced plans to run for governor of California. Now you are joining the Congress race instead. Why switch?
Aggarwal: I decided to run for governor in July when the field was really weak. I don’t have any political background – I come from the tech sector. But then some strong candidates came in, including Matt Mahan, who I think is really strong. I’ve been following Ro since her first congressional race in 2012 – I was a big supporter of hers. But over the past few years, he has been slowly leaning to the left, and when he tweeted in support of a wealth tax in late December, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I realized I could have a greater impact by running in the 17th District and ousting RO.
TC: Who is supporting you financially?
Aggarwal: We’re getting the papers out tomorrow, so we don’t have a bank account yet and I can’t raise the money until then. said that – [Y Combinator CEO] Gary Tan is behind me, [DoorDash co-founder] Stanley Tang, and many others from the tech community whose names will emerge in the coming days and weeks.
[Editor’s note: The involvement of Tan, Tang, and others will likely fuel a familiar line of attack: that Agarwal is less an independent candidate than a vehicle for billionaire grievances. It is worth noting that Khanna faced nearly identical criticism when he first ran, and was backed by much of the same tech-donor class that is now organizing against him.]
TC: Can you give me a little more detail on your plan? Apart from closing the loophole, is there an alternative to the billionaire tax?
Aggarwal: One is to impose tax on loans taken against property. Very rich people will take loans against their property and pay low interest. Because it’s technically a loan, they don’t pay taxes on it. I think it’s very fair to tax those loans.
The second is capital gains – California’s rate is currently 13.4% and I think it’s worth considering increasing it. Third, a lot of homes in California are owned by private equity firms or people who hold them as investments. I believe you should pay significantly higher property taxes on a home held as an investment than as a primary residence. This will increase revenues and reduce pressure on families who actually live in their properties.
[The loan-tax idea has been circulating in wealthy circles for some time — notably espoused by VC Chamath Palihapitiya, though it may trace back further to hedge fund giant Bill Ackman. The proposal would treat loans backed by stock holdings as taxable events, eliminating a longstanding strategy by which investors access their portfolio’s value without selling, and thus without ever paying capital gains taxes.]
TC: If you get to Washington, what will be your top three priorities?
Aggarwal: Number one, ban stock trading for members of Congress and their families. Number two, ban corporate PAC money. Number three, term limits.
[Earlier in the conversation, Agarwal spoke at length about the 5,000 children in the 17th district — the wealthiest congressional district in the country — living below the poverty line, and described making it “the first congressional district in history to completely eradicate childhood poverty” as one of his proposals. That point did not make the top three.]
TC: You have accused Ro Khanna of being a brilliant stock trader. Can you explain?
Aggarwal: He’s trading more stocks than any Democratic congressman in the history of the country — in tobacco, oil and gas, Big Pharma, big tech. He publicly initiated Congress’s stock trading ban and then made 4,000 trades last year. Even though the bill has not been passed, there is nothing stopping him from imposing it on himself. In my case, I will sell my entire portfolio on the first day I’m elected, so no one will be surprised if my votes reflect my personal account or my actual beliefs.
[Both claims deserve scrutiny. Khanna has co-sponsored the TRUST in Congress Act and introduced reform resolutions calling for a ban, but hasn’t authored standalone legislation. On the trading figures, Khanna has repeatedly said that he does not personally own or trade any individual stocks, and that the trades in question belong to his wife, whose pre-marital assets are held in an independently managed trust — which, he noted, eliminates any conflict under Office of Government Ethics rules. Whether that distinction satisfies voters is a question the campaign will have to answer.]
TC: Should social media platforms be held responsible for harming teens? Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act currently protects them from liability for what users post. Where do you stand on changing this?
Aggarwal: I think Section 230, when it was first drafted [in 1996]Made a lot of sense. The goal was for the platform to function seamlessly as hosting. But as they have evolved, they are now determining what we see, because of the algorithms they implement. I don’t think it makes sense to make social media companies solely liable for what people post – the volume is simply too high, and making a subjective determination by a third party about what is harmful really goes into dangerous territory.
That said, I think it’s worth looking again when it comes to the long-term effects on teen mental health. If you talk to Meta, or X, or anyone, they’ll all say that hurting teenagers doesn’t benefit them. We are all unanimous that this will not yield any results.
TC: What about regulating AI companies, many of which are literally in your backyard?
Aggarwal: I think about it from a national security perspective. I believe it is important for the US to have the most powerful models, and if we don’t build them, China will beat us.
Some restrictions make sense – the AI shouldn’t help you hurt yourself or anyone else. But I don’t think we should limit companies’ ability to build and strengthen these models. It’s really important that we allow them to flourish for national security purposes, if nothing else.
TC: Do you think we need something like an FDA for AI?
Aggarwal: I’ve heard that idea. The FDA has done a largely good job of keeping Americans healthy and safe – I have confidence in the people who work there, which I can’t say for most government organizations. If there’s a way to create an independent, apolitical authority with no roaming conditions, that makes sense to me. But I want to make sure that this is designed to strengthen America’s national security, and not for political purposes.
TC: What about prediction markets – Polymarket, Kalshi? Do they need more regulation?
Aggarwal: To be clear, Kalshi and PolyMarket are both regulated by the CFTC. I think part of the problem is that sports betting apps have created a lot of regulatory confusion about what is allowed, with Polymarket and Kalshi emerging as alternatives. But the regulation they have today is really great.
TC: How do you plan to run this campaign? Are you doing this full time?
Aggarwal: This is 110% of my life. I went to [the private San Jose, Ca., school] Harkar, which is in the district. I grew up nearby. I know hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who live there. My campaign is basically a ground game – I am going to Chinese and Hindi educational schools, to cultural events. Holi is coming; Chinese New Year, Purim, is on Tuesday. I’m going to do all this, meeting people, visiting small businesses.
I think that’s really the main contradiction between RO and me: he’s building a national profile, and I have absolutely no objection to that if that’s what he wants to do. But he is doing this excluding the people of his own district. I’m not leaving California. I’m not using it as a stepping stone. He is national; I am local. And I think 17th guys know that they need someone who will focus only on them.
TC: What inspired you to get into politics in the first place?
Aggarwal: Maybe this is strange, but – my dad came here with absolutely nothing, making $14,000 a year when he first came. They started a company, took it public, sold it. As a result of that, I was born on the third basis. I started two companies and sold both.
And then I watch as people around me no longer benefit from the system that made all this possible. The people here are hard-working, high caliber – but the environment is no longer supporting them. I’ve been complaining about it for a long time and I thought it was time to stand up and do something.
TC: Is this the beginning of a political career?
Aggarwal: This is not a career pivot. I see a very specific problem in the 17th District that I want to solve. I’m going to impose term limits on myself – I’ll serve no more than five terms – and then I’ll probably go back to the private sector. Service should be a business, not a job. And honestly, I don’t think it serves your voters well when it becomes a career. Even if a term limits bill doesn’t pass, I will still impose it on myself. That’s what I really believe.
[That also echoes something from Khanna’s early campaigns — the outsider who arrives with no interest in becoming a career politician except a mandate from the tech industry to shake things up. Whether Agarwal gets further than Khanna’s first attempt did in 2014 may depend on whether Khanna develops any vulnerabilities of his own. Right now, introducing sweeping national legislation with Bernie Sanders and sitting on $15 million in campaign cash, he appears to be doing everything he can to ensure he doesn’t.]
