Stephen Cloobeck, the billionaire real estate mogul who bankrolled more than a million dollars of Eric Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign, told the New York Post on Sunday that he had thrown the congressman out of his $26 million Beverly Hills mansion and severed all ties, just hours before Swalwell announced he would suspend his run for California governor.
The break came fast. Only a week earlier, Cloobeck had publicly called Swalwell his "little brother." By Sunday, the relationship was over, and so was Cloobeck's four-decade membership in the Democratic Party.
The fallout follows a cascade of sexual misconduct allegations against Swalwell that have upended California politics and left the Democratic establishment scrambling. Swalwell has since announced he will resign from his seat in the House, and the Manhattan DA has launched an investigation into the accusations.
Cloobeck's account of the split, as reported by the Daily Caller, paints a picture of a donor who went from fierce loyalty to total rejection in a matter of days. Swalwell had been staying at Cloobeck's 9,700-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion, the same home where the congressman filmed his Friday denial video, in which he called the allegations against him "flat false."
Cloobeck described his home with obvious pride, telling the New York Post:
"I built a gorgeous place, my dream home, I relish it, and I'm a very generous man. I'm very thoughtful, and I'm very kind."
That generosity had extended well beyond lodging. Cloobeck spent more than a million dollars backing Swalwell's campaign for governor and had offered him a $31,000 trip to France in 2024. Now the billionaire says he wants to talk to his attorney about getting a refund.
The New York Post detailed Cloobeck's account of the final conversation, in which the billionaire said he told Swalwell bluntly: "I'm shocked, I'm disturbed and get the f, k out of here." Cloobeck also declared he would provide Swalwell with "zero financial help" going forward.
In a separate interview, Cloobeck put it even more directly, as Fox News reported: Swalwell "would no longer be welcome at his California residence."
On April 11, Swalwell posted a video to social media insisting the accusations were fabricated. In the post, attributed to his official @RepSwalwell account on X, he said:
"Hear it directly from me. These allegations are flat false. And I will fight them."
He also acknowledged he had "certainly made mistakes in judgment", a phrase that did little to slow the political collapse already underway. Within days, Swalwell suspended his gubernatorial campaign amid what multiple outlets described as growing pressure from within the Democratic Party itself, including from House Democratic leadership.
His resignation from Congress followed almost immediately. Governor Gavin Newsom has since scheduled a special election to fill the vacant House seat.
The speed of the unraveling is worth noting. A sitting congressman who was running for governor of the nation's largest state went from filming defiant denial videos in a billionaire's mansion to losing his campaign, his congressional seat, and his most prominent financial backer, all in roughly the span of a long weekend.
Cloobeck did not stop at cutting off Swalwell. He turned his anger on the entire party he had supported for what he described as "almost 40-year plus." His language left no room for interpretation. He told the New York Post:
"F, ing tell everyone I'm a libertarian. F, you, Democrat Party. I'm a libertarian now."
He elaborated further in a separate comment, saying:
"I'm going to change my Godd, party affiliation, because I cannot stand this Democratic Party at all."
And then the closing line: "I am done. Finito."
In an interview with FOX 11 Los Angeles, the Washington Examiner reported, Cloobeck described his new affiliation as "Libertarian-Republican" and said flatly: "Mad? I am no longer a Democrat." He also dismissed any lingering connection to Swalwell with three words: "Eric who?"
Whether Cloobeck has formally filed a party-affiliation change remains unclear. But his public statements amount to a full-throated repudiation, not just of one politician, but of the institution that elevated him.
Cloobeck's comments suggest a man who feels personally betrayed. He told the New York Post he was blindsided by the allegations and would never have backed Swalwell had he known about them. "There's no way I would've endorsed him," he said, as Breitbart reported.
He also told the Post he was uncertain where the facts would ultimately lead: "I don't know where these facts are going to end up, you hear or read all this stuff."
That uncertainty, combined with the scale of his financial investment, explains the talk of lawyers and refunds. A million dollars is a meaningful sum even for a billionaire when it was spent on a candidate who, in Cloobeck's telling, deceived him about the kind of man he was backing.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans had already moved to force the issue. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced a resolution to expel Swalwell from Congress before his resignation made the question moot.
The Swalwell implosion leaves the California governor's race in disarray. Swalwell had been a prominent contender, backed by serious money and a national media profile. Now the field has lost a major candidate, the party has lost a major donor, and the Democratic brand in California has taken a hit that no amount of messaging can easily repair.
Cloobeck's defection matters beyond the dollar signs. A billionaire who spent decades writing checks to Democrats, and who was close enough to a gubernatorial candidate to let him live in his mansion, does not walk away over a policy disagreement. He walked away because the party, in his view, had become something he could no longer tolerate. His words were not the polished language of a donor quietly redirecting funds. They were the words of a man who felt conned.
Swalwell, for his part, has not publicly responded to Cloobeck's comments. His last known public statement on the allegations was the April 11 video, filmed inside the very mansion from which he was soon ejected.
When a party's own donors start asking for refunds and changing their voter registration on camera, the problem is not one bad candidate. It is a pattern, of tolerance, of excuse-making, of looking the other way until the story gets too loud to ignore. Cloobeck may call himself a libertarian now. But the bill he is trying to collect belongs to the Democratic Party.