Michael Tubbs is a nationally recognized civic leader, entrepreneur, and advocate working at the intersection of technology, economic opportunity, and public policy.
Tubbs first gained national attention when he was elected Mayor of Stockton, California, at age 26, becoming the youngest mayor of a major American city in history. During his tenure, he launched some of the country’s most closely watched efforts to address violence, poverty and economic insecurity, including the nation’s first mayor-led guaranteed income demonstration and a universal scholarship program, Stockton Scholars. That work helped spark a national movement around guaranteed income and new approaches to economic mobility.
Today, Tubbs is the founder of CivicGovOS, an AI-powered operating system for local government designed to help public agencies unlock institutional knowledge, improve workflows, and deliver better services to residents. He is also the founder of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, a national network that helped catalyze guaranteed income programs across the country, and End Poverty in California (EPIC), which advances bold solutions to economic inequality and expands opportunity for California families.
Tubbs currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the AI Youth Safety Institute, where his work focuses on artificial intelligence's implications for young people, families, and communities. He has been a fellow at the Aspen Institute, the Emerson Collective, Harvard Institute of Politics, and the USC Center for the Political Future. A graduate of Stanford University and a Truman Scholar, he is the author of The Deeper the Roots: A Memoir of Hope and Home and the executive producer of the documentary, It's Basic.
Across government, technology, advocacy, and philanthropy, Tubbs has built his career around a central question: how can institutions and emerging technologies expand opportunity, dignity, and agency for everyone, especially those too often left behind today?