A coalition of local labor unions and elected officials is calling for a boycott of Airbnb, saying the company is suing to force a refund of $120 million in business tax money that San Francisco desperately needs.
In a rally at the company’s Brannan St. headquarters, led by SEIU Local 1021 and IFTPE Local 21, the coalition asked San Franciscans to delete their Airbnb accounts and refrain from using the company’s services and rentals at home and on vacation.
A banner held by leaders of local labor unions lists three causes: tax avoidance, Trump cuts, and the housing crisis. They have since launched a website.
The groups say the company has profited substantially from the city’s allure and tax codes, and by filing to reclaim an amount that nears 15 percent of the city’s nearly $800 million budget shortfall in 2025, Airbnb is causing the city to hold hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that are needed for public and social services.
Supervisor Connie Chan said Airbnb’s legal action is an effort to evade paying its fair share of taxes. “Airbnb, who has made billions of dollars, starting with San Francisco… not only profiting from our housing prices, they are now also trying to rob us with this lawsuit,” she told us. “Funding that is for our food security programming, that is to make sure we safeguard against further Medicaid cuts, clean safe streets, our libraries, our public transit—all of this could be funded if Airbnb just dropped their lawsuit.”
San Francisco’s ability to fund local defenses to federal action is especially urgent to the coalition. Airbnb Co-founder Joe Gebbia worked alongside Elon Musk in the Department of Government Efficiency this year as the organization slashed federal and public programs. Gebbia is now a federal worker himself as President Trump’s appointee to lead the new National Design Studio. While he has not held an active role with Airbnb since 2022 and has sold some of his stock in the company this year according to SEC filings, Gebbia still has stake in Airbnb, and as a co-founder, reportedly retains voting and nominating power over its board of directors.
Anna Krasner with Indivisible San Francisco said Gebbia’s active role in the second Trump administration does not pair well with the magnitude of the company’s refund bid disrupting public services. “[Gebbia] is helping the Trump regime do what it’s doing right now,” she told us. “Our city is a target for ICE, we’re a target for [the] National Guard, and we can’t tolerate companies in our city being complicit.”
Labor unions reiterate that what the coalition calls Airbnb’s “tax avoidance” is one part of the story. Housing is another.
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SEIU 1021 Civic Center Chapter President Joy Zhan said Airbnb is one of the causes of San Francisco’s housing crisis: “I am someone who grew up in San Francisco. I am a resident of San Francisco. Hearing about Airbnb and how landlords were evicting tenants to flip their homes into becoming Airbnb units, that terrified me as a child. And I know that fear should not be instilled in young people and their families, and their parents, because the fear is homelessness is real and Airbnb is exacerbating that.”
Cassondra Curiel, president of United Educators of San Francisco, said fair corporate taxation and access to affordable living is critical to her union. “Boycotting Airbnb for its greed, for its lack of paying taxes, while my members who are lucky enough to own homes pay their property taxes in San Francisco—About 25 percent of San Francisco Unified [School District]’s extracurricular activities, the expanded arts programs, portions of our salaries are funded by parcel taxes, which are property taxes. So it really doesn’t make sense that a multibillion dollar company, and particularly the billionaire owner and co-founder, is able to somehow sidestep what the rest of us regular people manage to pinch together and make happen on an everyday basis.”
A spokesperson for Airbnb told us, “While we can’t comment on active litigation, the fact is that Airbnb pays its taxes. In 2024, the company contributed more than $3.8 billion in total tax revenue to the state alone. We will continue to work closely with local leaders to work towards the post-pandemic revitalization of the city we call home.”
The company also says they agree with the SF Chronicle Editorial Board’s May op-ed (“Yes, San Francisco has a budget deficit. No, it’s not Airbnb’s fault”), cites San Francisco’s Proposition M passing last November with support of nearly 70 percent of voters, and says Joe Gebbia’s personal views do not reflect the views of Airbnb.
The coalition is encouraging San Franciscans to attend the October 18th No Kings protest. SEIU 1021 President Theresa Rutherford told us there is a direct link between pro-democracy advocacy and the Airbnb boycott.
“Public resources are going to oligarchs and rich people who are super rich already, and it is clear that the federal budget is tied around cutting services to ordinary citizens… This is a microcosm of the bigger reality of a Trump administration. And so by holding Airbnb accountable, we’re literally messaging to folk that we all need to do that,” Rutherford said.
“We urge [Airbnb] to do the right thing and to make sure that history judges them right by them standing up and making sure that they give back, they pay their fair share to the community that has been supporting them and giving them the profits that they’ve been earning, that they have an obligation to do that, and they must.”
The boycott coalition includes Indivisible SF, the Chinese Progressive Association, San Francisco Rising, SOMCAN, Coalition on Homelessness SF, Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, Filipino Community Development Corporation, PODER SF, San Francisco Building Trades, United Educators of San Francisco, UNITE HERE Local 2, Teamsters Local 856, AFSCME 3299, UPTE-CWA, SEIU Local 1021, SEIU Local 2015, DSA SF, IFPTE Local 21, People’s Budget SF, Council of Community Housing Organizations, and Jobs with Justice SF.
