Xavier Becerra's gubernatorial campaign has returned a $20,000 donation from Alex Xu, the CEO of Lotusland Investment Holdings, the firm developing the sprawling Guenoc Valley resort project straddling Napa and Lake counties. A campaign spokesperson said the contribution, made in September, had been refunded as of Thursday evening, October 29.
The donation drew scrutiny after reporting from the Daily Mail, which identified Alex Xu as the son of Yiming Xu, described as founder and chairman of Lotusland Investment Limited and a founding donor and trustee of Westlake University. The outlet reported that the refund followed its investigation into the contribution and the elder Xu's affiliations. A Becerra campaign spokesperson also said the campaign had no record of Alex Xu attending any of its fundraising events, according to the same report.
The donation is notable given Becerra's own history with the Guenoc Valley project. While serving as California attorney general, Becerra's office filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit challenging development in a wildfire-prone area of Lake County, according to a statement from the California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General. The state's involvement came after the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Native Plant Society sued Lake County over the project in 2020, with the Attorney General's Office intervening in support of them, as reported by Lake County News.
Years of Litigation Before Final Approval
The legal fight over Guenoc Valley stretched on for years. A Lake County Superior Court judge ruled in January 2022 that the project's environmental impact report inadequately analyzed community evacuation, Lake County News reported. Then, in October 2024, a California appellate court found that a new environmental review had to be prepared because the earlier document failed to disclose the project's wildfire ignition risks.
Lake County supervisors ultimately approved the project's environmental report, permits, and a development agreement resolution on August 26, 2025, per the same outlet's account. Lotusland has since said the project has received full entitlements and is moving into its initial phase of development, with site preparation and infrastructure work planned to begin in early 2026, followed by phased construction of hospitality and residential components, according to a statement posted on the company's own website.
Conflicting Numbers on Project's Size
Just how big the development is depends on who is describing it. Lotusland's own materials describe Guenoc Valley as a 23,000-acre private estate straddling Napa and Lake counties, while Lake County News has reported the project sits on part of a 16,000-acre property. The two sources do not reconcile the discrepancy, and it remains unclear whether the figures refer to different boundaries within the same site.
Alex Xu's father has his own notable profile beyond the resort venture. Yiming Xu is described in the Daily Mail's reporting as a founding donor, honorary trustee, and board of trustees member at Westlake University, a privately funded research institution in Hangzhou that the outlet describes as the first privately funded, CCP-backed research university. The newspaper said it sent multiple inquiries to Lotusland Investment, Westlake University, and Alex Xu about the donation and the university's ties before publishing its report.
What Comes Next
With the refund now complete, the question of whether the Guenoc Valley resort actually breaks ground on the timeline Lotusland has laid out remains to be seen. The company's early-2026 construction plans are, for now, just that — plans, with no independent confirmation that site work has begun. Becerra's campaign, meanwhile, has moved to close out the episode by returning the money rather than contest the scrutiny further.
