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SANTA MONICA, California — On the cusp of Muscle Beach, overlooking the Pacific to the west and the mountains of Malibu to the north, lies a $7.2 million home owned by Britain’s prime minister — and a wealth of questions about his future.
Rishi Sunak is fighting for political survival in the U.K.’s July 4 snap election, with polls predicting an astonishing defeat for his Conservative Party. That’s fueled speculation given his ties to California that he could relocate if he soon finds himself out of the top job.
The Golden State has become an issue in the election campaign, so much so that “sending Sunak to California” is political shorthand for ousting him from office.
The British prime minister has made no secret of his affinity for and ties to California, saying his time living and working here — he studied at Stanford, met his wife there and ran a hedge fund in Santa Monica before returning to the U.K. to enter politics — have helped shape how he thinks as a leader.
It’s also defined how other leaders think of him.
During a meeting last year with Joe Biden in San Diego, the U.S. president joked: “I want to welcome you back to California — he’s a Stanford man, and he still has a home here in California. That’s why I’m being very nice to you, maybe you can invite me to your home in California.”
Sunak has rejected the notion that he will leave for California if he loses the election, amid suggestions his former Stanford pals are lining up lucrative gigs for him in Silicon Valley, especially since he’s sought to be a leading voice on artificial intelligence, becoming friendly with key figures like Elon Musk.
But that hasn’t stopped his political opponents — and the British public — from wondering whether he might decamp to warmer climes if the Conservatives do as badly as polls suggest.
If he did, he’d be able to trade the cloudy skies of London for the warm ocean breeze of Santa Monica, which boasts around 3,250 sunshine hours per year — nearly twice that of London — as well as a thriving tech scene that has earned the area the moniker of “Silicon Beach.”
On a recent afternoon in Santa Monica, the palm trees swayed in the afternoon sun next to the luxury apartment building in which Sunak and his wife own their penthouse. The building, constructed in 2014, offers a Starbucks on the ground floor and a brunch spot serving a $34 eggs Benedict with fresh crab and wasabi hollandaise sauce.
Just two blocks down the street, tanned and toned athletes worked out on Muscle Beach; locals rode bikes along the sandy shore while tourists snapped photos with the iconic sign at the Santa Monica Pier nearby. And should Sunak find himself missing the halls of government, his apartment is only a few minutes’ walk away from the art deco façade of the Santa Monica City Hall.
His children would likely have their pick of elite schools in the area, rubbing shoulders with the children of celebrities — if they moved immediately after the election, they’d be here in time to start the new school year in California. Santa Monica is home to the prestigious Crossroads School, for example, which led a recent Vulture list of top schools for “nepo babies.” And not far away is Harvard-Westlake, which touts Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Lee Curtis and Ethan Peck as famous alumni.
The neighborhood also has plenty to offer a British expat: Were Sunak to grow homesick here, he’d need to walk only a few blocks to Ye Olde King’s Head, a British shop and pub downtown.
On the day of England’s first soccer match in the UEFA European championship in mid-June, the pub was full of jersey-wearing England fans whose reactions to the prospect of Sunak coming to California ranged from mild enthusiasm to indifference to, in one case, profanities and a rude hand gesture.
James Stokes, an English expat living nearby, said he didn’t realize Sunak owned a home in the area until a week prior, when he saw an Instagram reel about Sunak’s past. Initially hopeful that Sunak would bring much-needed diversity to the office of prime minister, “he’s just disappointed me,” Stokes said.
“If he ended up moving back here, I think he’d be a bit of a target,” he said. “There’s a big expat community, and I don’t think he’d be welcomed particularly warmly here.” (“I don’t think many people here would buy him a pint,” said his friend, Tom Walker, gesturing around the pub.)
“I could see them being very happy here with the resources they have,” said Tatiana Bicat, who’s originally from Oxford but has lived in California for nearly 20 years. “I’m sure [Sunak] would be attracted to all the things we were when we moved here.” (Asked if she’d realized he had a condo nearby, she said yes — in a city full of Hollywood stars, he’s “just another celebrity” with a place in the area, she shrugged.)
Many wondered why Sunak wouldn’t choose to relocate to sunny Santa Monica if he had that option, and why he’s even running to stay in Downing Street in the first place. “I mean, who wouldn’t move back to California” Fraser Bradbrook, a young English man, told POLITICO while sipping a pint just ahead of game time. “If I were him, I’d do the same thing.”
Strong ties to California
Sunak wouldn’t be the first former government official to cross the pond and take a cushy job in California, but the state plays a particularly special role in his biography.
He has recalled in interviews how he met his wife Akshata Murty during his time studying at Stanford, where he won a Fulbright scholarship to get his MBA. Sunak recently revealed that he took up running in and around the Stanford campus as a ploy to ingratiate himself with Murty, an avid runner herself.
A British journalist, who knew Sunak and his roommates and stayed at the house for a period of time, told POLITICO they were surprised by how little Sunak discussed politics at the time.
“I was trying to become a journalist at the time and fascinated by politics, both in the U.K. and beyond, so I generally spoke to most people about politics before too long,” said the journalist, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly. “He never spoke about politics to me [and] I was very surprised when he first ran to be an MP.”
The journalist said Sunak and his friends lived a life that was “very comfortable for students, though not lavish.” They weren’t a hard-partying crowd, opting instead for an active lifestyle and a lot of time riding their bikes.
“He — and they — struck me as a high-achieving, very well-mannered, friendly bunch who spent their holidays raising money for charity with pretty high-end physical challenges,” the journalist said. “They were all people with big ambition.”
After graduating from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in 2006, Sunak went to work in investment for Goldman Sachs and the British hedge fund TCI in London — but moved back to California again a few years later to run his own hedge fund, Theleme Partners.
Even since becoming prime minister in October 2022, Sunak has maintained his ties to California. He has taken only one overseas family holiday since the Covid-19 pandemic — to their home in Santa Monica. Official images from the trip showed Sunak, Murty and their two daughters playing games at the sun-soaked Santa Monica Pier.
The family also went to Disneyland in nearby Anaheim: Sunak, a self-avowed Star Wars superfan, said at the time that he was particularly excited to spend time dragging his family around the section of the theme park dedicated to the series.
One local shop owner in Santa Monica said she saw the Sunaks arriving to eat at a restaurant down the street from her store during the same California visit. Locals are used to celebrity sightings, so seeing Sunak didn’t faze her — but the security they brought with them, which the shop owner said consisted of eight to 10 high-end SUVs, was notable and stopped traffic.
A campaign issue
Despite Sunak’s public denials about a potential post-election future in California, his ties here have become an issue in Britain’s election campaign.
The prime minister has been repeatedly pressed about whether he would escape to California, and critics point out that compared with the cramped, official flat above Downing Street he has lived in for the past 18 months, his California bolthole is clearly a place he feels comfortable.
After coming under intense pressure to say whether or not he would leave London, Sunak finally spoke out during a campaign stop in the traditional Conservative shire of Amersham, committing to remain as an MP for the next five years if the Tories lose on July 4.
“It’s simply not true. I mean, it’s just simply not true,” Sunak said in an interview with ITV late last month, adding that “of course” he’s committed to staying in the U.K.
“This is my home,” he said. “I mean, my football team just got promoted back in the Premiership and I hope to be watching them for years to come in the Premier League.”
For many, however, a move west seems to make sense. During his short time in office, Sunak has sought to position the U.K. as a global leader in AI, leading to reports that he could seek refuge from the turbulent British political scene by heading to Silicon Valley to work in the field.
In April, a spokesperson was forced to deny a report that a Stanford friend, who works at a leading tech firm, had told colleagues people were “putting together plans for an AI venture capital fund for Rishi to run when he’s no longer prime minister.”
The opposition Labour Party seized on a chummy interview Sunak conducted with X owner Elon Musk last November at the U.K.’s AI Safety Summit at the historic Bletchley Park to accuse him of cozying up to American tech titans instead of platforming British startups.
Sunak himself has played up his California ties as he built his political persona in the U.K.
“I actually think it’s one of the reasons that I would be good at this job,” he said in 2022 during the Conservatives’ leadership contest that year. “Because what I will bring to this job is a way of thinking that is different.”
“When we think about growth and in a modern economy, how do you drive growth — you drive it through innovation,” he continued. “Because of my experience, I know how to build that type of economy.”
This isn’t the first time Sunak’s ties to the U.S. have been a political liability. He came under fire in 2022 when it emerged that he held a U.S. green card, which grants permanent residency, until 2021, returning it ahead of his first official trip to the U.S. as a U.K. government minister.
The news that he’d kept his green card while serving as an MP and as chancellor of the exchequer came shortly after it emerged that his wife, the daughter of the Indian billionaire founder of Infosys, has kept “non-dom” status since the couple returned to the U.K., meaning she may have avoided millions of pounds in U.K. taxes on her overseas earnings.
The couple are now so wealthy they are officially richer than King Charles, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List.
A well-trodden path
Were Sunak to return to California, he’d be far from the only British politician — or European conservative leader — to give in to the allure.
Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister from the Liberal Democrats, joined Facebook in 2018, a year after leaving parliament, and now serves as Meta’s president for global affairs.
And when Austria’s Sebastian Kurz resigned as chancellor over a corruption scandal in 2021, he took a job with Peter Thiel’s Thiel Capital, splitting his time between California and the Austrian capital of Vienna.
There’s also Steve Hilton, the former Downing Street aide to David Cameron, who moved to the San Francisco Bay Area for a fellowship at Stanford University — and has stayed in Silicon Valley with his family ever since.
Hilton didn’t have any particular advice for Sunak, telling POLITICO that he hoped (though was not optimistic) the Conservatives would hold onto power and Sunak would remain in Downing Street: “I want him to succeed — I don’t want him to lose the election and then come to California,” he said.
But California is the “land of opportunity for many,” he added, and were Sunak and his family to come here, “he could have a great future here.”
“I’m here to be a welcome-to-California guide if such a role is needed,” Hilton quipped.
Stefan Boscia, Joseph Bambridge and Tom Bristow in London contributed to this report.
