Business
Why some Silicon Valley investors are backing the Trump-Vance campaign
For many years, Republicans and ardent supporters of former President Trump haven’t been super popular in Silicon Valley circles.
But the sentiment has shifted in recent weeks as conservative voices in San Francisco’s tech sector have grown increasingly strident in their support of a Trump-Vance ticket.
Trump attended a fundraiser last month at venture capitalist David Sacks’ Pacific Heights mansion that raised $12 million and was the former president’s first visit to San Francisco in at least a decade. Sacks said he hoped the event would “break the ice” on discussions around Trump and could create a “preference cascade, where all of a sudden it becomes acceptable to acknowledge the truth.”
And on Tuesday, Sacks posted a list of 17 prominent names in the tech industry — including Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, Sequoia Capital partner Doug Leone and Ben Horowitz, general partner of renowned venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz — with a photo of Trump giving a thumbs-up on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “Come on in, the water’s warm,” Sacks wrote.
Many of those tech investors celebrated the appointment of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance — a venture capitalist who built his career in Silicon Valley — as Trump’s vice presidential nominee out of a shared belief that he would help remove regulations they believe could stifle innovation in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.
“The future of our business, the future of new technology and the future of America is literally at stake,” Horowitz said Tuesday on “The Ben & Marc Show” podcast. “For little tech, we think Donald Trump is actually the right choice, and sorry, Mom, I know you’re gonna be mad at me for this, but we had to do it.”
But Gov. Gavin Newsom said the shift of Silicon Valley toward the right in this presidential election has been “wildly overstated.”
“I don’t think it’s a trend at all. Those pockets have always been there,” Newsom said in an interview Tuesday while touring a Northern California prison. “There’s been that libertarian energy in the valley for decades and decades. And frankly, I don’t see significant deviation.”
Newsom, who built close ties with the tech industry while mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011, said Silicon Valley donors supporting Trump are “looking at their own economic interests and are very transactional in their business practices.”
Nonethless, while Silicon Valley has long been home to prominent conservatives such as Peter Thiel and Sacks, such enthusiastic embrace for a Trump-Vance administration in San Francisco’s tech community is striking.
The Bay Area is well known nationally for its progressive politics and as the birthplace of prominent Democrats such as the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris. And Bay Area social media companies like Meta (formerly Facebook) have come under fire from some Republican legislators who accuse them of censoring conservative ideas and Trump.
The region is overwhelmingly represented by Democrats in the statehouse and the San Francisco, San Jose, Berkeley and Oakland mayors’ offices. And while big names in Silicon Valley have more recently donated large sums to the Republican Party and Trump’s election campaign, the Bay Area is more typically the favored cash cow of Democrats.
In 2020, 72.6% of Santa Clara County voters backed Joe Biden, and just 25.2% supported Trump.
Biden made a fundraising stop at billionaire environmentalist and former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer’s house in September. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, is another Democratic mega-donor who has hosted fundraisers for Biden, as has venture capitalist and Tesla investor Steve Westly.
In May, investor Vinod Khosla, who hosted a Biden Bay Area fundraiser that month, said he’s a huge supporter of the president.
“We have to absolutely at any cost make sure that donkey’s rump Trump doesn’t get elected and destroy democracy,” Khosla said at a Bloomberg event.
But others in the Silicon Valley have soured on Biden for a variety of reasons, including the government suing tech giants like Apple and Google over alleged monopolistic practices.
Some tech investors also believe the continuation of the Biden administration would restrict innovation in emerging technologies, hindering the nation’s ability to compete in the global tech race — and their own financial interests.
They point to what they call unnecessary investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into crypto startups and the challenges crypto businesses face in getting financing from banks.
“This is a brutal assault to a nascent industry that has never happened before,” Marc Andreessen said on “The Ben & Marc Show” podcast, acknowledging that his firm is one of the largest cryptocurrency investors in the world.
By contrast, the Trump campaign’s platform calls for the end of the “unAmerican Crypto crackdown” and pledges to “defend the right to mine Bitcoin, and ensure every American has the right to self-custody of their Digital Assets, and transact free from Government Surveillance and Control.”
If elected, Trump also said he would repeal Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence “that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology. In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing,” according to the Republican platform.
Another beef among tech investors: Biden’s capital gains tax proposal, which would tax the value of an individuals’ assets worth $100 million or more. Critics say that would affect startup founders, whose company valuations fluctuate and whose compensation is based on stock options.
“This makes startups completely implausible,” Andreessen said. “Venture capital just ends.”
A representative for the Biden administration did not immediately return a request for comment.
Trump’s appointment of Vance — who previously worked with Thiel at Mithril Capital — is expected to give his campaign a further boost among tech backers.
Thiel served on Trump’s transition team after he won the presidency in 2016 and backed Vance when he ran for office, pouring $10 million into Vance’s coffers during his 2022 race for Senate in Ohio, federal records show.
Sacks contributed $1 million to a PAC backing Vance and co-hosted a fundraiser in Miami for Vance and eight other Republican Senate candidates. Vance, who lived briefly in San Francisco, has called Sacks “one of his closest confidants” in politics.
“He’s perceived as one of them,” said Olaf Groth, chief executive of the think tank Cambrian Futures and a professional member of the faculty at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. “The people that are endorsing him are a very rare elite at the very top of the food chain of entrepreneurship and venture capital of Silicon Valley.”
Silicon Valley leaders are beginning to build the war chest of a new political action committee, America PAC, that is backing Trump’s reelection bid. America PAC reported spending $7.7 million on canvassing, text messages and get-out-the-vote operations over the last three months.
The group’s website and social media accounts are focused on voter registration and turnout, featuring a 15-second clip of Trump saying that “absentee voting, early voting and election-day voting are all good options.”
Multiple outlets reported this week that Musk has pledged to give $45 million per month to the group through November. Other Silicon Valley donors to the group include cryptocurrency executives Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss; Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Technologies; and Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, federal filings show.
Republican Party backers say more Bay Area businesses are getting frustrated at how local government is handling crime and other issues in San Francisco.
“These companies are being crippled by Democrat policies,” said Harmeet Dhillon, California’s Republican national committeewoman and a San Francisco-based attorney who acts as an official legal surrogate for the Trump campaign. “They have to make decisions that are the best for them, so that’s the calculus I’ve been seeing.”
Some Trump supporters, such as Andreessen, had previously supported other Democratic presidential candidates such as Hillary Clinton. Within Biden’s own Democratic Party there are schisms over whether he should be the next president, given concerns about his age.
“They’re voting with their pocketbooks, but by signaling that they’re not in lockstep with Democrat policies and Democrat disarray of our country, they’re signaling to their tens and hundreds of thousands of workers that it’s OK to be Republican,” Dhillon said.
Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this report.
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
A former female staffer who worked for Beast Industries, the media venture behind the popular YouTube channel MrBeast, is suing the company, alleging she was sexually harassed and fired shortly after she returned from maternity leave.
The employee, Lorrayne Mavromatis, a Brazilian-born social media professional, alleges in a lawsuit she was subjected to sexual harassment by the company’s management and demoted after she complained about her treatment. She said she was urged to join a conference call while in labor and expected to work during her maternity leave in violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act, according to the federal complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
“This clout-chasing complaint is built on deliberate misrepresentations and categorically false statements, and we have the receipts to prove it. There is extensive evidence — including Slack and WhatsApp messages, company documents, and witness testimony — that unequivocally refutes her claims. We will not submit to opportunistic lawyers looking to manufacture a payday from us,” Gaude Paez, a Beast Industries spokesperson, said in a statement.
Jimmy Donaldson, 27, began MrBeast as a teen gaming channel that soon exploded into a media company worth an estimated $5 billion, with 500 employees and 450 million subscribers who watch its games, stunts and giveaways.
Mavromatis, who was hired in 2022 as its head of Instagram, described a pervasive climate of discrimination and harassment, according to the lawsuit.
In her complaint, she alleges the company’s former CEO James Warren made her meet him at his home for one-on-one meetings while he commented on her looks and dismissed her complaints about a male client’s unwanted advances, telling her “she should be honored that the client was hitting on her.”
When Mavromatis asked Warren why MrBeast, Donaldson, would not work with her, she was told that “she is a beautiful woman and her appearance had a certain sexual effect on Jimmy,” and, “Let’s just say that when you’re around and he goes to the restroom, he’s not actually using the restroom.”
Paez refuted the claim.
“That’s ridiculous. This is an allegation fabricated for the sole purpose of sparking headlines,” Paez said.
Mavromatis said she endured a slate of other indignities such as being told by Donaldson that she “would only participate in her video shoot if she brought him a beer.”
“In this male-centric workplace, Plaintiff, one of the few women in a high-level role, was excluded from otherwise all-male meetings, demeaned in front of colleagues, harassed, and suffered from males be given preferential treatment in employment decisions,” states the complaint.
When Mavromatis raised a question during a staff meeting with her team, she said a male colleague told her to “shut up” or “stop talking.”
At MrBeast headquarters in Greenville, N.C., she said male executives mocked female contestants participating in BeastGames, “who complained they did not have access to feminine hygiene products and clean underwear while participating in the show.”
In November 2023, Mavromatis formally complained about “the sexually inappropriate encounters and harassment, and demeaning and hostile work environment she and other female employees had been living and experiencing working at MrBeast,” to the company’s then head of human resources, Sue Parisher, who is also Donaldson’s mother, according to the suit.
In her complaint, Mavromatis said Beast Industries did not have a method or process for employees to report such issues either anonymously or to a third party, rather employees were expected to follow the company’s handbook, “How to Succeed In MrBeast Production.”
In it, employees were instructed that, “It’s okay for the boys to be childish,” “if talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them” and “No does not mean no,” according to the complaint.
Mavromatis alleges that she was demoted and then fired.
Paez said that Mavromatis’s role was eliminated as part of a reorganization of an underperforming group within Beast Industries and that she was made aware of this.
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