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In a heated rebuke, LA Mayor Karen Bass accused her one-time political rival, billionaire Rick Caruso, of “exploiting tragedy” by publicly criticizing her handling of January’s catastrophic wildfires.

At the Bloomberg Screentime Conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, Bass clapped back at Caruso, who she defeated in the 2022 mayoral contest, calling him “sad and bitter.” Earlier in the day, investigators announced the arrest of a 29-year-old man accused of deliberately starting the January blaze that later ripped through Los Angeles’ hillsides, killing a dozen people and destroying thousands of homes.

Despite the suspect's capture, the wildfires remain a key flashpoint in California politics. Caruso, who is considering either running for California governor or LA mayor, has blamed the crisis on Bass and City Hall’s lack of emergency readiness. A slow permitting process has helped fuel anger and, in turn, lay the groundwork for Caruso’s political ambitions. The real estate developer has been trying to position himself as a guy who gets things done, bolstering his image through his rebuild nonprofit, Steadfast LA.

The escalating divide between Bass and Caruso will be a key battle in defining what’s next for California’s politics. As voters navigate the fallout of one of the state’s most destructive wildfires, they might end up ultimately having to decide who’s best equipped to steer Los Angeles through its next wave of emergencies: A 72-year-old veteran politician or a 66-year-old billionaire who builds malls with a Disneyfied aesthetic. —John Gittelsohn

Watch: Bass speaks with Bloomberg’s Sarah McGregor at Bloomberg Screentime.

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Up Front

Few are benefitting as much from the boom in artificial intelligence than San Francisco and its mayor, Daniel Lurie. The breakneck surge in AI startups valuations, culminating in OpenAI’s $500 billion price tag last week, has helped the first-time mayor flip the script for a city that was once seeing companies decamp to places like Texas and Florida. Lurie, 48, talked with Bloomberg News on the sidelines of OpenAI’s Dev Day earlier this week. The conversation was edited for conciseness.

Q: The biggest AI story most recently was OpenAI’s secondary sale. Has the city felt any kind of trickle down economic benefit from that?

A: Well, I think you’re seeing the momentum build in our city. That sale just happened in the last few days, so I can’t say that we’ve seen trickle down. But what I can say is the energy is back in San Francisco, and we know OpenAI is having a big contributing effect to that.

Q: Does the city commission specifically study what AI is doing for the city?

A: I think we’ve done those in past years; I haven’t seen any recently. What I have seen is from Visa. Every month, credit card spending in San Francisco got stronger and stronger, higher than any other major city in the country. So we’re seeing the momentum build.

Let me be clear, we are the home of AI. And we’re going to continue to lean into that. I talk to mayors across the country and they all are desperate to get even one of the companies that we have. And we have them all—Anthropic, OpenAI, Salesforce. It’s all happening here and we’re happy about it.

Q: So OpenAI’s new headquarters was a ribbon-cutting moment for you, literally. But have you held discussions with them about expanding the real estate footprint? What is it that you’re asking for?

A: What I’m asking from the leadership, from Sam [Altman] and others, is that we want you here, we welcome you here, but we want you to be part of San Francisco. We want you to be part of our schools, our arts institutions, our parks. We want your employees engaged in the community. So that’s my big ask. My focus is creating the conditions so that small businesses and businesses like OpenAI and Anthropic can thrive. —Ed Ludlow

Watch: Lurie talks with Bloomberg Tech’s Ed Ludlow at OpenAI’s Dev Day in San Francisco.

More From Bloomberg California

Opinion

The push for a $100,000 H-1B visa fee has become a shiny distraction—allowing legislators to appear to “solve” immigration while real reform languishes, our editorial board writes. Rather than tweaking guest passes for foreign workers, Congress should tackle the foundational issues: A broken green card process, wage stagnation and border policy. Too often, these headline adjustments act as political theater—not meaningful progress.

More opinions:

• Smart AI investing isn’t about chasing the big one: Shuli Ren
• AI spending is big, but not unprecedented: Justin Fox
• OpenAI is diving into its boring is beautiful