Steve Hilton’s CalDOGE released a second report alleging that roughly $928 million intended for a California solar program was diverted, asserting just $72 million of $1 billion in public funds paid for installations and accusing political groups of benefiting from the rest.
Steve Hilton, running for California governor and leading in early polling, published the second major CalDOGE report while still a private citizen. The report zeroes in on a long-standing, publicly funded effort to install solar panels for low-income households and claims the accounting simply does not add up. Hilton’s team says this is not a bookkeeping error but evidence of deliberate diversion and mismanagement. That allegation lands as a clear political and fiscal challenge for Sacramento.
The nonprofit at the center of the report is GRID Alternatives, which the report notes has been installing no-cost solar panels for income-qualified households since 2015. According to CalDOGE, state and local funding routed to the program totaled roughly $1 billion, yet just $72 million went toward those actual installations. Those numbers, if accurate, suggest a massive gap between money collected from Californians and the direct on-the-roof work the funds were supposed to finance.
Hilton’s team says the missing dollars weren’t lost—they were repurposed. Investigators tied the shortfall to payments and transfers that, the report contends, prioritized political organizing and allied nonprofits over hardware and installation costs. That allegation frames the claim as not only wasteful but political, and it fuels calls from the campaign for accountability and legal action. “This is our second report from CalDoge, our second fraud report,” Hilton said. “I’m here with Jenny Rae Le Roux, the director of CalDoge. We’re standing in front of an organisation called GRID.”
Since 2015, $1 billion has been taken from Californians from taxes on gas and electricity,” he said. “That’s why we pay the highest gas prices and the highest electric rates in the country. Some of that money, $1 billion, $100 million every year, has been sent to this organisation with the intention of putting solar panels on the roofs of apartment buildings.
Do you know what’s happened to that $1 billion since then? How much of it has actually been spent on solar panels? $72 million out of $1 billion. It’s supposed to be $100 million every year for 10 years. $928 million have been stolen. Your money, do you know where it’s gone? Voter registration by leftist groups supporting the Democratic Party. It is an absolute scandal. Just the latest in the amount of money that’s been stolen from you.
“$1 billion, supposed to be for solar panels, only $72 million was spent. This is why we set up CalDoge,” he said. “To get to the bottom of the fraud and the theft and the corruption, and we’re only just getting started.”
The new report follows Hilton’s earlier CalDOGE release, which looked at another state funding stream tied to substance abuse prevention and related programs. That first report claimed hundreds of millions meant for treatment and prevention were routed through an unelected nonprofit and diverted into activism, organizing, and voter registration efforts. It also highlighted a striking valuation change for the intermediary group, saying the organization’s valuation grew from $11.8 million in 2018 to $197 million in 2024, a spike CalDOGE flagged as suspicious.
From a Republican viewpoint, these findings are a simple problem: taxpayers paid for services and the traceable work on the ground is far smaller than the money spent. That gap demands more than press statements; it requires audits, prosecutions when laws were broken, and reforms to stop public money being used as a political gravy train. Hilton’s campaign is positioning CalDOGE as the mechanism to force audits and legal action and to return money to taxpayers.
Hilton made the enforcement case explicit in a social post tied to the report, promising a political and legal follow-through if elected. “As governor, with my running mate for State Controller @Herb4Controller, we will STOP the fraud. Attorney General @MichaelGatesESQ will PROSECUTE the fraud and get our money back,” Hilton added on X. “And I will make sure it goes back to YOU. We’ve had enough of this nonsense.”
At the time of the report’s release, California Governor Gavin Newsom had not issued a response to the allegations. That silence leaves a high-profile accusation sitting between a gubernatorial hopeful and the current administration, setting the stage for aggressive scrutiny, legislative inquiries, or legal challenges depending on how the state reacts. For voters and watchdogs alike, the central question remains whether the numbers can be verified and whether anyone will be held accountable for the shortfall.
