E24: Markets trend down, political manipulation via COVID "Zeroism," stimulus breakdown, biological Patriot Act

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data show the official U‑3 U.S. unemployment rate at 6.2% in February 2021 and 6.0% in March 2021, matching Sacks’s statement that unemployment was about 6% at the time of the podcast.(beautifydata.com)

Sacks predicted that unemployment would fall to “3 or 4% in two quarters”, i.e., roughly by September 2021. However, BLS figures for that period are:

• August 2021: 5.2% unemployment.(bls.gov)
• September 2021: 4.8% unemployment.(economy.fedprimerate.com)

Thus, by the end of the two‑quarter horizon (around September 2021), unemployment had not reached the predicted 3–4% range; it was still nearly 5%. Unemployment did eventually fall into that range later in 2021: BLS data show 4.2% in November 2021 and 3.9% in December 2021, but that is roughly 8–9 months after March 2021 (three quarters, not two).(bts.gov)

Directionally, Sacks was right that unemployment would keep dropping and eventually return to the 3–4% zone, but the timing in his prediction was too aggressive. Because his forecast explicitly specified the two‑quarter horizon, and the target range was not reached by then, the prediction is best classified as wrong on its stated terms.

Multiple lines of evidence show this prediction came true in the intended sense (national supply and eligibility, not that every willing person actually did get vaccinated by that date):

• On April 30, 2021, White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients stated that the U.S. had just shipped its 300 millionth COVID‑19 vaccine dose to states, tribes, territories and federal channels, and reiterated that by the end of May the U.S. would have enough vaccine supply for every adult American. (bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov)
• A CDC‑based cost analysis shows that about 284.6 million doses had been distributed to jurisdictions and 284.2 million administered by May 31, 2021, not counting some federal channels, which is consistent with a total national supply above 300 million doses when federal programs are included. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
• By April 19, all U.S. states had opened eligibility to everyone aged 16 and older, meaning that by the end of May, any 16+ American who wanted a vaccine could at least book and receive doses as supply allowed. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Independent analyses at the time (e.g., McKinsey) projected that manufacturers were on track to supply enough doses for all eligible U.S. adults by the end of May 2021, and contemporaneous surveys from KFF showed the main emerging constraint was demand, not supply. (mckinsey.com)
• News coverage in early May reported states beginning to turn down federal vaccine allocations because local demand had slackened, further indicating that vaccine supply was no longer the binding constraint for adults who wanted shots. (en.as.com)

Taken together, these data show that by the end of May 2021 the U.S. had shipped on the order of 300 million doses and had broad 16+ eligibility with excess supply, matching Sacks’s prediction that there would be sufficient vaccine (around 300 million doses) for every American over 16 who wanted one to be able to receive it by then.

Key parts of Sacks’s conditional prediction did not come true by Memorial Day 2021:

• His condition on vaccine access was largely satisfied. By early April 2021, President Biden directed states to make all adults eligible for vaccination by April 19, and by mid‑April essentially all states had opened eligibility to all adults 16+ with a site within about 5 miles for 90% of adults.(cnbc.com) While vaccine rollout was not perfect, access was no longer tightly rationed to small priority groups—substantially matching Sacks’s “let everyone who wants to get a vaccine get one” condition.

• The pandemic was not over as a large‑scale public health emergency by Memorial Day 2021.

  • The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ COVID‑19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) declaration, first issued in January 2020, was explicitly renewed in April 2021 and repeatedly thereafter; in a January 21, 2021 letter HHS told governors it expected the PHE to remain in place for all of 2021.(aspr.hhs.gov) The federal PHE did not actually end until May 11, 2023.(kff.org) That is directly contrary to his benchmark of “no longer a large‑scale public health emergency.”
  • Around Memorial Day weekend 2021, U.S. COVID data still showed substantial transmission and mortality: the 7‑day average of new cases was just under 20,000 per day, and the 7‑day average of deaths was roughly 500–600 per day.(cnbc.com) Contemporary coverage described cases as at their lowest level in a year but clearly still an ongoing pandemic, not "zero pandemic."(cnbc.com)
  • Globally and in the U.S., authorities still framed COVID‑19 as an active pandemic; WHO continued to treat it as a pandemic emergency well past 2021 and only ended the global Public Health Emergency of International Concern in May 2023.(who.int)

Given that (1) vaccines were broadly available by the relevant time, satisfying the spirit of his condition, but (2) COVID‑19 in the U.S. was still officially and substantively a major public health emergency with tens of thousands of new cases and hundreds of deaths per day, Sacks’s claim that there would be "zero pandemic understood as such" in the U.S. by Memorial Day 2021 is best classified as wrong.

It is too early to evaluate this prediction.

• The prediction cites a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) long‑term projection that U.S. federal debt held by the public will reach about 202% of GDP in 2051. That is a forecast for the year 2051, not a current or near‑term outcome.
• As of today (November 29, 2025), 2051 is still 26 years in the future, so we cannot yet know whether debt will actually reach that level.
• Available data today can only show where the debt‑to‑GDP ratio stands now and in recent years; it cannot confirm or refute a 2051 outcome.

Because the target year has not arrived and the underlying prediction is about a specific future ratio in 2051, the correctness of the prediction cannot yet be determined.

There is no real‑world policy outcome that directly matches Chamath’s hypothetical, so his quantitative claim can’t be cleanly scored as right or wrong.

Key facts:

• In March 2021, Congress passed and President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, largely as proposed rather than a smaller, highly means‑tested alternative.(en.wikipedia.org) Chamath’s scenario was explicitly instead of that $1.9T package.
• ARPA combined many elements: $1,400 recovery rebates, extended unemployment benefits, large state and local aid, school funding, health subsidies, expanded child tax credit, etc. It was not structured as a purely means‑tested transfer heavily concentrated on the poorest and excluding the richest, which is what his statement envisioned.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Analytical estimates suggest that some components of ARPA line up in magnitude with the range he mentioned. For example, the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated the $1,400 “recovery rebates” alone would cost about $416–465 billion, depending on the version,(budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu) and it estimated about $120 billion for the expanded child tax credit and roughly $350 billion for enhanced unemployment benefits within the broader Biden relief plan.(budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu) But deciding which combination of components corresponds to his hypothetical “really expansive” means‑tested program is subjective.

Because:

• The specific means‑tested‑only package he described was never enacted, and
• Any attempt to back‑fit his $500–700B estimate to pieces of ARPA relies on judgment rather than a clear empirical test,

we cannot definitively say his prediction was empirically right or wrong. It is therefore best classified as ambiguous rather than correct, incorrect, or merely “too early to tell.”

The prediction has two parts, and together they do not hold up.

1. “By June 2021, Covid as a pandemic is going to be over [in the U.S.]”
   • In early June 2021 the U.S. was still recording roughly 14,000 new cases and about 400 deaths per day, with tens of thousands of new infections each week and many restrictions and emergency measures still in place. (archive.cdc.gov)
   • Far from being “over,” the U.S. then experienced a large Delta surge starting in the summer of 2021, with cases and hospitalizations rising sharply as Delta became the dominant variant. (statnews.com)
   • This was followed by the massive Omicron wave in winter 2021–22, which produced the most intense phase of U.S. transmission, with daily new cases peaking at over 1.25 million and a seven‑day average near 600,000 cases in January 2022. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
   These large national waves after June 2021 indicate that Covid was still functioning as a pandemic in the U.S. well beyond the date he specified.

2. “There will always be cases… It’s going to return as a seasonal illness.”
   • The persistence part is correct: as of 2025, experts widely describe Covid as an endemic virus that continues to circulate year‑round in the U.S., causing recurrent waves rather than disappearing. (washingtonpost.com)
   • However, Covid has not clearly settled into a simple, flu‑like winter‑only pattern. Analyses through 2023–25 emphasize that SARS‑CoV‑2 still produces sizable waves in multiple seasons (including summer), and that its transmission has not yet fallen into a stable, predictable seasonal rhythm. (statnews.com)

Because (a) the time‑specific claim that the pandemic phase in the U.S. would be “over by June 2021” is clearly refuted by subsequent large national waves, and (b) the virus’s behavior to date is more accurately described as year‑round endemic with complex surges rather than a straightforward seasonal illness, the overall prediction is best judged wrong.

The EU did introduce the EU Digital COVID Certificate (often called the Green Pass), a QR‑code‑based, digitally verifiable document used across all member states starting July 2021 to facilitate travel during reopening. It could certify that someone had been vaccinated, had a recent negative test, or had recovered from COVID‑19, and was explicitly designed to ease cross‑border movement within the EU. (en.wikipedia.org)

However, the legal framework stressed that neither vaccination nor possession of the certificate was to be a formal precondition for exercising free‑movement rights. EU Council and Parliament texts and Q&A documents repeatedly state that the EU Digital COVID Certificate is not a travel document and not a precondition for free movement, and that people must not be discriminated against for being unvaccinated; test or recovery certificates had to be accepted as alternatives. (consilium.europa.eu)

In practice, during 2021–2022 many member states did require an EU Digital COVID Certificate (or equivalent) for quarantine‑free or minimally restricted travel, so vaccinated travellers effectively used a digital vaccine passport to move freely. At the same time, unvaccinated travellers could often still move using test certificates, and the EU‑level rules never made vaccination alone a universal, formal requirement. (en.wikipedia.org)

Because the prediction can be read either as:

• broadly anticipating an EU‑wide digital system (which did happen and functioned very much like a vaccine passport in practice), or
• specifically claiming that being vaccinated would be a required condition for free movement at the EU‑law level (which did not happen), its accuracy depends heavily on interpretation. For that reason, the outcome is best classified as ambiguous rather than clearly right or wrong.

Sacks predicted that government proposals for digital vaccination passports would "fade away very quickly once Covid is over," i.e., would not persist long after mid‑2021.

In reality, governments expanded and institutionalized digital vaccine credentials well beyond that timeframe:

• The EU Digital COVID Certificate (EU DCC) was formally in force from 1 July 2021 until 30 June 2023, and its regulation was explicitly extended by one year to mid‑2023 rather than allowed to lapse in 2022. It was used across all EU member states, facilitated free movement, and became a global reference standard for travel, with over a billion certificates issued and dozens of non‑EU countries connected. (consilium.europa.eu)
• Instead of being retired when the WHO declared the end of the COVID‑19 global health emergency in May 2023, the EU DCC framework was handed over to the World Health Organization. WHO and the European Commission launched the Global Digital Health Certification Network in June–July 2023, explicitly building on the EU DCC to support ongoing verification of COVID‑19 and other vaccination certificates for future health threats. (who.int)
• In the United States, no single federal passport was issued, but a de facto national standard emerged: SMART Health Cards. By early 2022, at least 21 states plus DC and Puerto Rico offered SMART Health Cards as verifiable digital proof of vaccination, and more than 200 million Americans could obtain such credentials. These were explicitly described by public and private stakeholders as the national standard for digital vaccine verification and used for travel and access to venues. (forbes.com)
• New York’s Excelsior Pass, a prominent state-run digital vaccine passport used for entry to restaurants and entertainment venues, launched in 2021 and was not decommissioned until July 28, 2023—over two years after mid‑2021 and months after the U.S. federal public health emergency ended. (ny1.com)

While most day-to-day access mandates eased by 2022, digital vaccine-passport systems did not quickly disappear once the acute COVID period passed; they were extended, widely adopted, and repurposed into longer-term digital health credential infrastructure. That outcome is opposite to Sacks’s claim that such proposals would fade away very quickly once Covid was over, so the prediction is best judged as wrong.

Chamath’s prediction had two key elements: (1) scope – “most cities” would adopt some kind of vaccination/biological‑status passport, at least for sporting events and concerts; and (2) durability/structure – framed as a kind of ongoing “biological Patriot Act,” i.e., a stable post‑COVID infrastructure rather than a short emergency blip.

What actually happened (2021–2025):

• Many jurisdictions did introduce vaccine or COVID‑status passes in 2021–early 2022. Examples include:

  • New York City’s Key to NYC program, requiring proof of vaccination for indoor dining, gyms, and entertainment venues, including concerts and clubs, from August 2021 until it was suspended March 7, 2022. (ny1.com)
  • San Francisco’s requirement for proof of vaccination at indoor restaurants, bars, gyms, and large indoor events beginning August 2021, which was dropped for most businesses March 11, 2022. (sf.gov)
  • Multiple other U.S. cities (Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Philadelphia, Newark, etc.) briefly required proof of vaccination for indoor dining, gyms, and entertainment venues. (lonelyplanet.com)
  • Numerous countries in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere rolled out vaccine‑passport or COVID‑certificate systems for domestic venues and events – e.g., Italy’s Green Pass, France’s passe sanitaire, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Azerbaijan, and others. (en.wikipedia.org)

• At the same time, large swaths of the U.S. and other regions never adopted such systems and in fact banned them:

  • U.S. states including Texas, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, and several others enacted laws or executive orders prohibiting government‑issued vaccine passports and often restricting businesses from requiring proof of vaccination. (gov.texas.gov)
  • Major cities in those states (e.g., Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville) therefore never had city‑wide vaccine‑passport mandates for general event and venue access.
  • Many populous cities in India, Africa, and parts of Latin America also did not implement comprehensive vaccine passports for everyday access to concerts, sports, or restaurants; global summaries of vaccine‑passport use list dozens of adopting countries, not a majority of the world’s major cities. (en.wikipedia.org)

• Crucially, most of the systems that did exist were temporary and have been rolled back:

  • NYC ended Key to NYC in March 2022; businesses have discretion but there is no city‑mandated proof‑of‑vaccination requirement for patrons. (ny1.com)
  • San Francisco ended its proof‑of‑vaccination requirement for most indoor businesses on March 11, 2022; only large “mega events” briefly retained stricter rules. (sf.gov)
  • EU member states stopped requiring the EU Digital COVID Certificate even for travel by August 2022, and domestic “Green Pass”‑style rules in places like Italy and France were also phased out around 2022. (en.wikipedia.org)

By late 2025, there is no enduring, near‑universal system of vaccine or biological‑status passports for concerts and sporting events in “most major cities.” Instead, a subset of cities and countries briefly adopted such measures, while many others explicitly rejected or banned them, and almost all such requirements have since been lifted.

Because:

• the prediction said “most cities will have to have them” (a majority, not just “some” or “many”),
• and implied a lasting post‑COVID security infrastructure (“biological Patriot Act”),
• yet in reality adoption was partial, heavily contested, and largely temporary,

the prediction, taken as stated, did not come true.

So the outcome is best classified as wrong: events moved in that direction briefly, but not to the extent or permanence Chamath forecast.

Chamath predicted that: (1) legal challenges over business vaccination requirements would reach the U.S. Supreme Court, and (2) the Court would issue a narrow ruling affirming that private businesses may decide to require vaccination as a condition of service or employment.

Here is what actually happened:

1. Supreme Court COVID‑vaccine cases

   • The Court heard major vaccine‑mandate cases in January 2022, most prominently National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA, which challenged OSHA’s federal vaccine‑or‑test rule for large private employers, and Biden v. Missouri, which concerned the federal CMS mandate for health‑care facilities. In NFIB v. OSHA, the Court held that OSHA’s broad vaccine‑or‑test Emergency Temporary Standard exceeded the agency’s statutory authority and stayed the rule. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Those cases were about what the federal government can require of employers, not about whether private businesses, acting on their own, have a constitutional or statutory right to impose vaccine requirements on employees or customers.

2. No Supreme Court merits ruling on private businesses’ own vaccine policies

   • There is no U.S. Supreme Court merits decision squarely addressing a purely private employer’s or private business’s self‑imposed COVID‑19 vaccine requirement for employees or customers.
   • Litigation over employer mandates has been decided mainly in lower courts and state supreme courts. For example, the Louisiana Supreme Court in Hayes v. University Health Shreveport, LLC upheld a private hospital’s right to require staff vaccination and terminate non‑compliant at‑will employees, and the Fifth Circuit in Horvath v. City of Leander upheld an employer vaccine requirement with religious accommodations—but neither case is from the U.S. Supreme Court. (druganddevicelawblog.com)
   • The Supreme Court did receive emergency applications related to mandates (e.g., Klaassen v. Indiana University), but Justice Barrett’s one‑sentence denial of relief there did not create a written, precedential ruling that "businesses may decide" to require vaccines. (en.wikipedia.org)

3. Effect of NFIB v. OSHA is indirect, not the predicted ruling

   • After NFIB v. OSHA, legal commentators and law‑firm client alerts emphasized that the decision blocked OSHA’s mandate but left private employers generally free, under other applicable laws, to adopt their own vaccination policies if they wished. (phillipslytle.com)
   • However, that is an implication of the absence of a federal mandate, not a narrow Supreme Court holding that affirmatively establishes private businesses’ right to impose vaccine conditions on service or employment. The NFIB opinion itself is framed as an administrative‑law and statutory‑authority decision, not an employer‑rights decision. (en.wikipedia.org)

4. Enough time has passed

   • By late 2025, COVID‑19 emergency conditions have receded, and there is still no Supreme Court precedent matching the specific description Chamath gave (a narrow ruling affirming that private businesses may decide to require vaccination as a condition of service or employment). Overviews of U.S. COVID‑19 vaccine mandates list NFIB v. OSHA and Biden v. Missouri as the key Supreme Court cases, but none describe a decision of the type predicted. (en.wikipedia.org)

Because the Court did not issue the kind of narrow, pro‑business‑discretion ruling described—even though it did hear related vaccine‑mandate cases—the prediction’s core outcome is incorrect.

Evidence indicates that by June 1, 2021, COVID-19 vaccines were broadly available in the U.S., but public‑health authorities still judged that emergency powers and some mask requirements remained justified, and subsequent events (e.g., the Delta wave) confirmed that such measures were in fact needed.

Vaccine availability by June 1, 2021

• All U.S. adults 16+ were eligible for vaccination by April 19, 2021; all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico had opened eligibility by that date. (cdc.gov)
• By June 1, 2021, about 50–51% of the total U.S. population had received at least one dose and about 40–41% were fully vaccinated. (usafacts.org) Among adults 18+, roughly 57% had at least one dose by May 22, 2021. (cdc.gov) Supply was no longer the binding constraint; experts were already warning that supply would outstrip demand by May. (mckinsey.com)
• So the narrow claim that vaccines would be “available” by around June 1 was broadly accurate.

But emergency powers and mask justifications did not disappear by June 1

• The federal COVID‑19 public‑health emergency, first declared in January 2020, was renewed on April 15, 2021 and repeatedly thereafter; HHS explicitly stated that a nationwide public‑health emergency still existed due to the ongoing consequences of COVID‑19. (aota.org) That is directly contrary to the idea that there was “no more justification” for emergency powers by June 1, 2021.
• CDC’s May 13, 2021 guidance allowed fully vaccinated people to forgo masks in many settings, but still required or recommended masks in specific contexts (e.g., public transportation, crowded indoor spaces) and continued to advise masking for the unvaccinated. (dw.com) Thus, the leading federal public‑health authority did not consider masks categorically unnecessary after June 1.
• Many state and local mandates and emergency orders remained in force past June 1. For example, Pennsylvania’s statewide mask mandate was not lifted until June 28, 2021, and even then masks were still required on planes, trains, buses, and other public transportation. (en.wikipedia.org) Several states (e.g., Hawaii and others listed in state‑by‑state mask‑policy summaries) maintained some form of mask requirements or emergency orders well beyond that date. (en.wikipedia.org)

Subsequent developments showed non‑pharmaceutical measures were still needed

• In June 2021, the more transmissible Delta variant was rapidly spreading in the U.S. and internationally; CDC and other experts warned that multicomponent prevention strategies, including indoor masking irrespective of vaccination status in high‑incidence areas, might be needed alongside vaccination. (cdc.gov)
• Delta became the predominant U.S. variant in late June 2021 and drove a major surge in cases during July–September 2021. (cdc.gov) CDC data show the 7‑day average of U.S. cases bottomed around 11–12k in mid‑June, then climbed to over 130k by early September 2021. (archive.cdc.gov) During this wave, many jurisdictions re‑imposed or tightened mask guidance and other public‑health measures, confirming that such tools were still needed even with substantial vaccine availability.

Assessment

• Sacks’ prediction tied vaccine availability to the end of any public‑health justification for emergency powers and masks: he argued that “on June 1st, there is no more justification for government having these extraordinary powers” and that “we even need to wear a mask beyond June 1st” would no longer be true.
• While vaccine supply was indeed ample by around that date, the continued federal public‑health emergency, ongoing CDC mask recommendations (especially for unvaccinated people and in specific settings), persistent state‑level mandates, and the rapid emergence of the Delta‑driven surge all show that significant public‑health justification for such powers and measures remained.

Because the central, time‑bound claim—that after June 1, 2021 there would be no public‑health justification for emergency powers or masks—was contradicted by policy, expert guidance, and eventual outcomes, the prediction is best categorized as wrong.

Evidence shows that the substance of Sacks’ prediction was borne out, with only a minor miss on the exact election date:

• Signatures surpassing 2 million by end of the period: The recall campaign ultimately submitted 2,117,730 signatures by the March 2021 deadline, exceeding 2 million, as recorded in the California Secretary of State–summarized history of the 2021 recall petition. (en.wikipedia.org) This matches his claim that they would be “at or over 2,000,000 in 2 weeks, which is the end of the signature period.” Contemporary coverage in early March 2021 already had organizers announcing about 1,950,000 collected signatures and “nearing 2 million.” (californiaglobe.com)

• Validation rate around the mid‑80s: An early–February 2021 status report from the Secretary of State, cited by the Los Angeles Times, found about 84% of the signatures submitted at that point were valid. (latimes.com) The final official tally after the March 17 deadline was 1,719,943 valid of 2,117,730 submitted, about 81%, still a high validation rate and reasonably close to his “about 84%” statement, which reflected the then-current official figure. (en.wikipedia.org)

• Certified recall election taking place: On April 26, 2021, the Secretary of State announced that the recall effort had enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot; after the withdrawal window, a final count of 1,719,900 valid signatures confirmed that the recall election would be held. (en.wikipedia.org) This fulfills his prediction that “this is clearly going to pass. There will be a recall election.”

• Timing of the recall election (“around August”): After certification on July 1, 2021, Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis set the recall election date for September 14, 2021. (sos.ca.gov) That’s roughly one month later than “around August,” but still in late summer 2021 and within the same general timeframe he anticipated.

Given that:

• the petition did surpass 2 million signatures by the deadline,
• the validation rate was indeed high and in the low‑ to mid‑80% range at the time of his comment,
• and a recall election was duly certified and held in late summer 2021,

the forecast’s key claims proved accurate. The only notable miss was that the actual election date landed in mid‑September rather than “around August,” which is a relatively small deviation from the predicted timing. Therefore, the overall prediction is best scored as right.

Key falsifiable elements of Sacks’s prediction did not occur, despite COVID being an important backdrop to the recall.

1. California as a continued “laggard” by summer 2021 and Newsom clinging to a zero‑COVID style over‑restrictiveness
   • On April 6, 2021, Newsom announced that California would end most COVID restrictions and retire its tiered Blueprint system on June 15, shifting to broad reopening with few capacity limits and focusing mainly on vaccination and masking. The Blueprint and statewide mask mandate were in fact ended June 15; by June 8 most Californians were already under the least‑restrictive “Minimal” tier. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Many states (e.g., Texas, Mississippi, various others) did reopen earlier in spring 2021, but by late May discussion in national coverage and even casual commentary noted that Michigan and some others, not California, would be among the last to fully reopen, and Hawaii had not even set a date. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Exit‑poll analysis from the recall shows that while the pandemic was top of mind, roughly two‑thirds of voters thought Newsom’s COVID policies were about right or not strict enough; only about one‑third saw them as too strict. (latimes.com) Taken together, California was no longer clearly a reopening “laggard” by summer 2021, and the electorate as a whole did not broadly see Newsom as absurdly over‑restrictive in that period.

2. “He still probably won’t have an agreement with the teachers unions to go back to school”
   • Los Angeles Unified School District and United Teachers Los Angeles announced a tentative agreement on March 9, 2021 to reopen campuses for in‑person instruction beginning mid‑April, with detailed safety protocols; the school board endorsed it. (lausd.org)
   • At the state level, on March 1 California agreed on a $6.6 billion school‑reopening framework that conditioned funds on districts offering in‑person learning for younger and high‑needs students by the end of March. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • UTLA and LAUSD then reached another agreement effective June 23, 2021, setting conditions for full, five‑days‑a‑week in‑person instruction for the 2021–22 school year. (utla.net) By summer 2021, the largest district and its teachers union clearly did have reopening agreements in place, directly contradicting this part of the prediction.

3. Did Newsom’s supposed over‑restrictiveness become “the big issue” in the recall?
   • The recall petition’s surge was indeed “widely credited” to anger over lockdowns, job losses, and school and business closures, combined with the French Laundry incident. (en.wikipedia.org) COVID policy was central to why the recall qualified.
   • But by the time of the September 14, 2021 election, California had low COVID rates, a large budget surplus, broad economic reopening, and schools back in session, and analysts noted that other issues (homelessness, taxes, cost of living) were also salient. (latimes.com)
   • Exit polls found the pandemic was the single most important issue overall, yet most voters approved of Newsom’s COVID approach, and his campaign successfully framed the recall as a referendum on pro‑versus‑anti‑mandate COVID policy; this helped him defeat the recall by roughly 62%–38%. (cbsnews.com) COVID was important, but not in the predicted way of Newsom being punished for an obviously over‑restrictive, laggard stance.

Because (a) California did not remain a conspicuous reopening laggard under a continuing “zeroism” posture into summer 2021, (b) major school‑reopening agreements with teachers unions were in place well before and during that summer, and (c) while COVID was central, it did not become the dominant issue in the specific punitive way Sacks described, the overall prediction is best characterized as wrong, notwithstanding some partial correctness about COVID being a major context in the recall.

Gavin Newsom did in fact face a statewide recall election in California in 2021. The official election date was September 14, 2021, as confirmed by the California Secretary of State and contemporaneous election notices. (sos.ca.gov)

Sacks’s timing was slightly off—he said the recall would be “around August,” while the election was ultimately set for mid‑September. However, key election activity (such as mailing vote‑by‑mail ballots) began on August 16, 2021, which is indeed in August and part of the same late‑summer window he was pointing to. (sos.ca.gov)

Because:

• A recall election did occur, as predicted, and
• Its timing (mid‑September with election processes starting in mid‑August) reasonably matches “around August,”

the prediction is best classified as right, with a minor timing inaccuracy rather than a substantive failure.

Jason Calacanis’ co-host David Sacks predicted that the progressive district attorney of Los Angeles County (George Gascón), the district attorney of San Francisco (Chesa Boudin), and California Governor Gavin Newsom would all be successfully recalled.

What actually happened:

1. Chesa Boudin (San Francisco DA) – Was recalled.

   • San Francisco held a recall election on June 7, 2022. Voters approved removing Boudin from office by roughly 55–60% "yes" on the recall (122,588 yes to 100,177 no). (en.wikipedia.org)

2. George Gascón (Los Angeles County DA) – Was not recalled.

   • A major 2022 recall effort submitted about 715,000 signatures, but after verification only ~520,000 were deemed valid, short of the 566,857 required. County officials therefore rejected the petition and no recall election was held. (abc7.com)

3. Gavin Newsom (Governor of California) – Was not recalled.

   • A statewide recall election was held on September 14, 2021. Voters rejected the recall by a wide margin (about 61.9% "No" to 38.1% "Yes"), and Newsom remained in office. (en.wikipedia.org)

Because only Boudin was successfully recalled, while Gascón’s recall never made the ballot and Newsom survived his recall election, the prediction that all three officials were “going to get recalled” is incorrect overall.

Gavin Newsom was not successfully recalled. In the September 14, 2021 California gubernatorial recall election, 61.9% of voters chose No on the recall versus 38.1% Yes, so Newsom remained governor and served out his term. (en.wikipedia.org)

Because the core prediction was that “Newsom's going to get recalled,” that part is clearly falsified by the election result. Even though crime and education were issues raised by recall proponents, post-election reporting and exit polls indicate COVID-19 and related pandemic management were the dominant statewide concerns, further undercutting the claim that crime and education would be the key drivers of a successful recall. (cnbc.com)