What do Paul Pelosi, Jimmy Buffett, Conan O’Brien, Michael Bloomberg, and Eric Schmidt have in common? They were all members of the ultra-secretive, men-only Bohemian Grove society as recently as 2023.
We know this because independent journalist Daniel Boguslaw obtained the Bohemian Grove camp membership list for that year and published it Wednesday on Substack (opens in new tab). In doing so, Boguslaw joins the rarified ranks of reporters who have succeeded in shedding light on the world’s most secretive redwood grove. Reached for comment, one club member confirmed it is a real membership list from 2023.
Since the 1980s, journalists have been trying to get inside the Bohemian Grove campground in Monte Rio in Sonoma County by posing as waiters, lost hikers, and guests. San Francisco-based magazine Mother Jones was the first to succeed, publishing an inside scoop (opens in new tab) in 1981 that described the club as the place where “men who make decisions that affect us all gather quietly.” Alex Jones famously managed to film a ceremony at the grove that fueled conspiracy theories for decades. Vanity Fair reporter Alex Shoumatoff was arrested (opens in new tab) after posing as a member in 2008. And in 2018, Outside magazine reporter Chris Colin was threatened by Bohemian Grove security (opens in new tab) simply for kayaking up to the high water line of the compound’s beach along the Russian River.
Boguslaw didn’t pull any of those tricks. He obtained the list in 2024 by pestering a San Francisco club member.
“I went to this person’s office for a week straight,” Boguslaw said. He had driven to the Bay Area from Massachusetts after getting his hands on a 2017 attendance list, he said, and stayed in a Tenderloin single-room-occupancy hotel while he hounded the local member.
Weeks passed, and he found longer-term lodging in West Oakland. One night, while he was drinking at Eli’s Mile High Club, a courier appeared with two manila envelopes.
Inside was the 2023 camp membership list. This does not necessarily represent the full membership to the club, which meets at a building in San Francisco. Bohemian Club spokesperson Sam Singer said the club is private and does not disclose its list of members or guests.
Boguslaw’s story was supposed to run in The Intercept, but the outlet got cold feet, he said. The Intercept did not respond to a request for comment.
“They spiked it in this really stupid way,” he said. “They were so freaked out.”
This, too, has a long tradition. In 1991, People magazine reportedly killed (opens in new tab) a story about Bohemian Grove by San Francisco bureau chief Dirk Mathison, who had hiked into the secretive compound. He was recognized by an executive from Time Warner, the magazine’s parent company, who promptly axed his story.
Boguslaw isn’t worried about blowback. “I’m confident in my reporting, and I’d like to see them try to fuck with me,” he said.
The 2023 camp membership list (published below) contains around 2,200 people, many of whom are not well known. As far as celebrities go, you’ve got Florida man Jimmy Buffett, documentarian Ken Burns, and the actor Jim Belushi. Henry Kissinger, to absolutely no one’s surprise, was a member. Then there are the famously rich people: Mike Bloomberg and Charles Koch, in particular.
But most members are rich people you’ve never heard of, politicians you’ve maybe seen on CSPAN, and a smattering of scientists and cultural figures thrown in to make good on the “Bohemian” part of the group’s name. Perhaps unsurprising for a boys club filled with powerful American elites, the most common first names to appear are John (128 times), Robert (115), William (85), James (84), and David (75).
Here, we highlight the Bohemian Grove members with the strongest San Francisco ties, broken down by industry. There are notably fewer tech industry people than one might have expected. This is a list of old money and power. The names are divided into “camps,” which a source tells us are like fraternities; people in the same camp party together during visits to the compound.
We reached out to some of these people for comment; none responded. It’s against the rules of the club to discuss members, their guests or any club-related activities with the press. But if you’re on this list and want to share your thoughts on this leak, please get in touch.
Politics
Carlos Bea (Tarry Town), judge at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco.
Paul Pelosi (Stowaway), venture capitalist and husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi; longtime San Francisco resident and businessman.
Bobby Inman (Hillside), retired four-star admiral and former NSA director; significant ties to the Bay Area defense and intelligence community.
Edwin Meese III (Cave Man), U.S. attorney general under Reagan; fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
Sam Singer (Interlude), president of PR and crisis communications firm Singer Associates; has represented clients including Garry Tan, Chevron, BART, and, we learned today, the Bohemian Club.
Tech
Eric Schmidt (Aviary), former Google CEO and executive chairman of Alphabet; CEO of aerospace manufacturing company Relativity Space. Among the richest people in the world.
Brook H. Byers (Hill Billies), senior partner at Kleiner Perkins; early Silicon Valley investor in biotech companies and longtime Stanford University benefactor.
Business and Finance
Riley and Gary Bechtel (Mandalay and Care Less), billionaire heirs to the Bechtel fortune who party in different camps while at the Grove, apparently.
Tim and William Draper (Hill Billies and Hualapai), father-and-son investors, who also party in different camps in El Rio.
Robert, John, and William Fisher (Hill Billies, Midway, Owl’s Nest), brothers whose parents, Doris and Donald, founded Gap Inc. in San Francisco in 1969. They also party separately at camp.
Richard Kovacevich (Mandalay), former CEO and chairman of Wells Fargo & Company, headquartered in San Francisco.
Charles Johnson (Mandalay), cofounder and former chairman of Franklin Templeton Investments, headquartered in San Mateo.
Rupert Johnson Jr. (Owl’s Nest), vice chairman of Franklin Templeton Investments, based in San Mateo.
Haig Mardikian (Cave Man), real-estate-investing son of chef-turned-developer George Mardikian.
Mario Rosati (Tie Binders), senior partner at Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Media and the arts
Charles Desmarais (Dragon), former SF Chronicle art critic and former San Francisco Art Institute president.
John Berggruen (Uplifters), owner of Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco.
Nion McEvoy (Poison Oak), CEO of Chronicle Books in San Francisco.
Peter Steinhart (Shoestring), San Francisco-based naturalist and writer for Audubon Magazine.
Food and wine
Robert Michael Mondavi Jr. and Michael Mondavi (Santa Barbara and Midway), sons of Robert Mondavi, whose namesake Napa winery helped transform California wine into a global powerhouse.
John Haig Mardikian (Cave Man), grandson of son of chef-turned-developer George Mardikian.
Science
Karl Deisseroth (Silverado Squatters), Stanford neuroscientist best known for his work on optogenetics.
Robert Tjian (Hill Billies), former president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; biochemist and professor at UC Berkeley.
Stanley Prusiner (Silverado Squatters), Nobel Prize-winning neurologist who discovered prions; director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at UCSF.
Alexei Filippenko (Sundodgers), astronomer and distinguished professor at UC Berkeley.
David Patterson (Sons of Toil), pioneering computer scientist and professor emeritus at UC Berkeley; Turing Award winner and Google distinguished engineer.
As The Standard continues to go through the leaked list, we will update our story with other notable Bay Area figures. Probably their names will be John, David, or Robert.
