When word reached San Francisco City Hall that federal immigration agents were preparing to flood the Bay Area, Mayor Daniel Lurie didn’t panic. He didn’t hold press conferences or fire off angry tweets. Instead, he did what comes naturally to someone raised in the world of philanthropy and power. He reached for his phone and started mapping connections.

Lurie, 48, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune who took office in January with zero previous experience in elected office, began visualizing what his team calls a power map. Concentric circles of tech billionaires, venture capitalists and business titans who might persuade President Donald Trump to reconsider. The goal was simple but delicate: Convince the White House that San Francisco wasn’t the hellscape depicted on conservative media without picking a public fight.

Within hours, some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful figures were making calls. Four people familiar with the discussions spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the private conversations.

Billionaires on speed dial

Lurie leaned heavily on Sam Altman, the OpenAI chief executive who lives in the city’s Russian Hill neighborhood and served on the mayor’s transition team. He contacted Marc Benioff, the Salesforce leader who had previously called for Trump to send the National Guard to San Francisco before recanting and apologizing. Jensen Huang, the Nvidia chief executive who owns a mansion on Billionaire’s Row, joined the effort. Ron Conway, the legendary venture capitalist known as the Godfather of Silicon Valley, worked his Republican contacts.

The strategy reflected Lurie’s approach since taking office with quiet, methodical, relentlessly non-confrontational work. No grandstanding. No theatrics. Just careful coordination behind closed doors, the kind of work that made him successful in philanthropy but has frustrated some Democrats who wanted a louder voice against Trump.

A late-night phone call

Trump called Lurie late Wednesday night. By the time they hung up, the president had agreed to cancel Saturday’s planned enforcement surge in San Francisco. He posted about it on Truth Social, praising the mayor for asking very nicely and crediting tech leaders for vouching for Lurie’s public safety efforts.

The post represented perhaps the most positive message Trump has delivered about any Democratic-run city this year. He has falsely claimed Portland is burning and Chicago is a war zone. But San Francisco, at least for now, had escaped his crosshairs.

Brian Brokaw, a Democratic strategist who ran a fundraising committee supporting Lurie’s mayoral campaign, said the behind-the-scenes approach fits perfectly with who Lurie is. Despite pressure from donors and activists demanding he become more combative, the mayor refused to change tactics.

Brokaw noted that at his core, he’s not a politician. Performative actions for the sake of performance have never been his calling card.

Questions about compromise

Not everyone celebrated. Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who represents the heavily Latino Mission District, texted Lurie on Thursday calling his actions shameful. She argued that welcoming any federal agencies risked immigrant arrests and violence. Others worried that Lurie secured safety for San Francisco without extending protections to surrounding Bay Area cities.

Across the bay in Oakland, Mayor Barbara Lee and local activists feared Trump might redirect enforcement efforts to their majority Black city. The president mentioned Oakland in August, citing high crime rates. Some wondered whether race influenced his decision to spare San Francisco, noting that most cities targeted so far have Black mayors, though Portland has a white mayor.

Trump’s administration maintains it targets cities based on crime data, not mayoral demographics.

Two different strategies

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has taken the opposite approach, publicly battling Trump as the president attempts to deploy the National Guard there. In a Thursday interview, Johnson said the influence of wealthy tech leaders in saving San Francisco proved the federal incursions are not about safety.

Johnson said it is very obvious that this is political, and the president essentially only listens to billionaires. He added that if the only way to communicate with this president is to be a billionaire, that leaves out the vast, vast majority of everyday people.

Johnson insisted continued resistance remains paramount regardless of what worked in San Francisco. Closing your eyes and hoping Trump leaves you alone, he said, isn’t how democracy gets protected.

A city grateful but divided

Many San Francisco leaders praised Lurie’s maneuvers. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called his work exceptional leadership, saluting him for standing up for the city and reinforcing its strength and optimism.

Lurie’s low-key demeanor stands in stark contrast to the city’s history of bold personalities like Pelosi, former Mayor Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown. The 91-year-old Brown, holding court at his regular corner table at Sam’s Grill downtown, credited Lurie with ensuring Trump received accurate information about San Francisco.

Brown, considered one of California’s savviest politicians, said Lurie clearly had very good, quality, smart advice on dealing with Trump. Brown assessed that the new mayor is really either unusually talented or lucky, adding that he goes with luck.