Sen. Scott Wiener

Scott Wiener is the California State Senator representing the 11th Senate District, which encompasses San Francisco and portions of San Mateo County. First elected to the State Senate in 2016, Wiener has established himself as one of California’s most prolific and consequential governments, authoring landmark bills on housing, transportation, public health, and technology policy.

Wiener is the author of both SB-1047 (2024) and SB-53 (2025) — the two bills that defined California’s effort to govern frontier artificial intelligence and establish CalCompute. Introduced on February 7, 2024, SB-1047 was the first comprehensive attempt by any U.S. state legislature to regulate frontier AI development. Though vetoed by Governor Newsom in September 2024, the bill elevated California — and Wiener — to the center of the national conversation on AI policy. CalCompute, the public cloud computing cluster that would later be codified into law, originated as a provision within SB-1047.

Wiener returned in the 2025 legislative session with SB-53, the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, a more narrowly targeted bill focused on transparency requirements, whistleblower protections, and critical incident reporting for frontier AI developers. SB-53 also formally established CalCompute as a standalone initiative in California Government Code Section 11546.8. Governor Newsom signed SB-53 on September 29, 2025 — exactly one year after vetoing SB-1047. On the signing, Wiener said: “With this law, California is stepping up, once again, as a global leader on both technology innovation and safety.”

Before his time in the State Senate, Wiener served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2011 to 2016, where he focused on housing production, transit funding, and pedestrian safety. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, and previously worked as a deputy city attorney in San Francisco under City Attorney Dennis Herrera.

Wiener is currently a candidate for California’s 11th Congressional District in the 2026 election, seeking to succeed retiring Representative Nancy Pelosi in the U.S. House of Representatives.