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Donald Trump fundraiser latest sign of support in Silicon Valley

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Donald Trump fundraiser latest sign of support in Silicon Valley

Donald Trump has raised $12mn at a fundraiser for top venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in San Francisco, marking the most significant sign yet that the former Republican president is making inroads in the Democratic stronghold.

Trump began a three-day West Coast charm offensive on Thursday at the sold-out event hosted by Silicon Valley investor David Sacks at his $20mn mansion on “billionaire’s row” in the city’s ritzy Pacific Heights district.

Ryan Selkis, the chief executive of cryptocurrency intelligence firm Messari, who attended the event, told the Financial Times said Trump spoke on artificial intelligence, energy and crypto and had his audience “eating out of his hands”.

“It felt like a particularly wild moment in Silicon Valley politics,” he said, adding: “The blue wall has been breached.”

The event, coming just days after Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of felony in New York last week, cost between $50,000 and $300,000 a head, according to Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican party official and lawyer whose firm represents the former president.

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The fervour revealed the extent to which some luminaries of Silicon Valley, long considered a particularly liberal part of a blue state, are warming to Trump as they fret over issues such as free speech, technology regulation and taxes. The crypto sector in particular has felt aggrieved by what it sees as a hostile regulatory regime under the Joe Biden administration.

Dhillon posted on X that crypto leaders from exchange Coinbase as well as the Winklevoss twins were present at the event.

She said the ex-president was “relaxed, happy, and cracking jokes” about AI at the reception, after being introduced by Republican senator JD Vance as well as Sacks.

Jacob Helberg, a senior Palantir executive who recently announced a $1mn donation to the Trump campaign after donating to Biden in the 2020 election, was among those seen arriving at the hilltop mansion for the event. A Trump campaign spokesperson said there were more than 100 attendees.

Helberg said: “This event was proof that president Trump’s campaign is creating a generational realignment among technology founders . . . and makes him more competitive in even the most traditionally blue communities.”

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He added the former president will “save AI and crypto from the Biden administration’s penchant for strangulation”.

When Trump last visited San Francisco in 2019, he was confronted by crowds of protesters. By contrast, ahead of his arrival this week a group of loud pro-Trump supporters gathered around Sack’s usually quiet residential street, chanting “USA, USA, USA” and “We want Trump”, waving American flags and facing off against several counter-protesters. 

“David Sacks hosting is significant,” said Michelle Sine, a self-employed real estate agent and resident of nearby Marin who attended the rally. “The intellectual elite and that group [who supported Trump were] almost going into witness protection four years ago. Now everyone is being more public about it.”

Sacks formally endorsed the former president on X just ahead of the event, citing his “economic policy, foreign policy, border policy, and legal fairness”, while arguing President Biden had “colluded with tech platforms to censor the internet”.

Billionaire Tesla chief executive Elon Musk responded the post was “thoughtful”.

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While the entrepreneur has been vocal in his opposition to Biden, it is unclear whether he will formally endorse or donate to Trump.

Musk last week denied a report that he had been in talks with Trump over an advisory role in his administration, should the former president win in November.

The event came a week after Trump was found guilty of conspiring to buy the silence of a porn actor ahead of the 2016 election and covering his tracks in business records. The unanimous verdict enraged his longtime supporters but also prompted new endorsement and funding, including from Silicon Valley.

Within hours of the decision, Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia, posted he had donated $300,000 to Trump, adding the timing “isn’t a coincidence”.

Billionaire investor and Sequoia partner Doug Leone this week took the rare step of making a public statement via X, writing he too was supporting Trump, despite renouncing his backing for the ex-president in 2021 in the wake of the Capitol riots.

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“I have become increasingly concerned about the general direction of our country, the state of our broken immigration system, the ballooning deficit, and the foreign policy mis-steps, among other issues,” he wrote.

Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committee member from California, said PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, previously a Republican megadonor, had played a part in pro-Trump momentum by helping to build networks of young tech-savvy party members, describing him as “one of our great teachers”. “The libertarian instinct has finally emerged in the valley,” he added.

Thiel is refraining from publicly endorsing or donating to any candidate, however, said a person familiar with his thinking.

Despite the shift to the former president there remains a group of central Silicon Valley donors who support Biden and are leading a fierce pushback against Trump, including venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.

Hoffman warned in The Economist this week that “American business should not empower a criminal”.

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Trump is continuing his West Coast tour with a Los Angeles event on Friday followed by a fundraiser in Newport Beach hosted by Palmer Luckey, founder of defence group Anduril and Oculus VR.

With a US flag blowing against his face, one supporter at the rally outside Thursday’s event said: “As you can see the wind has shifted directions in San Francisco and there is a growing red wave for Trump.”

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

President Trump announced a three-week extension of a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon that had been set to expire in a few days, after hosting a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese diplomats at the White House on Thursday.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, did not have representatives at the meeting and did not immediately comment on the announcement. The prime minister of Israel and the president of Lebanon also did not comment.

A successful peace agreement would hinge upon Hezbollah halting attacks, which Lebanon’s government has little power to enforce because it does not control the militia. Lebanon’s military has mostly stayed out of the fighting and is not at war with Israel.

The cease-fire, which was scheduled to end on April 26, would last until May 17 if it takes effect as Mr. Trump described it. Before the cease-fire was brokered last week, nearly 2,300 people were killed in Lebanon and 13 in Israel. Since then, the number of Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks have been dramatically reduced, though the two sides have continued exchanging fire.

The Lebanese Ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh, credited Mr. Trump for extending the cease-fire, saying that “with your help and support, we can make Lebanon great again.” Mr. Trump replied, “I like that phrase, it’s a good phrase.”

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Asked about the potential of a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, Mr. Trump said that “I think there’s a great chance. They are friends about the same things and they are enemies on the same things.”

But Lebanon and Israel have periodically been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948. Israel has invaded Lebanon for the fifth time since 1978, incursions that have destabilized the country and the delicate balance of power between Muslim, Christian and Druze communities.

In the hours before the president’s announcement on social media, Israel and Hezbollah were trading attacks in southern Lebanon, testing the existing cease-fire.

Mr. Trump said the meeting at the White House had been attended by high-ranking U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon.

Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh killed three people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Hezbollah claimed three separate attacks on Israeli troops who are occupying southern Lebanon, though none were wounded or killed.

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Hezbollah set off the latest round of fighting last month by attacking Israel soon after the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran. Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks by launching airstrikes across Lebanon and widening a ground invasion of the country’s south.

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira in Venezuela on Jan. 3, 2026 after U.S. forces seized the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

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Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment against a U.S. Army soldier, accusing him of using his insider knowledge of the clandestine military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January to reap more than $400,000 in profits on the popular prediction market site Polymarket.

The Justice Department says Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, was part of the team that planned and carried out the predawn raid in Caracas earlier this year that resulted in the apprehension of Maduro.

The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed the actions against Van Dyke, the first time U.S. officials have leveled criminal charges against someone over prediction market wagers.

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According to the indictment, Van Dyke now faces counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, misusing non-public government information and other charges.

Trading under numerous usernames including “Burdensome-Mix,” Van Dyke allegedly traded about $32,000 on the arrest of Maduro, resulting in profits exceeding $400,000.

“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Those entrusted to safeguard our nation’s secrets have a duty to protect them and our armed service members, and not to use that information for personal financial gain.”

Van Dyke’s defense lawyer is not yet publicly known. Polymarket did not return a request for comment.

The charges against Van Dyke come at a sensitive time for the prediction market industry, which has been growing exponentially, despite calls in Washington and among state leaders for the sites to be reined in.

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Van Dyke is the first to be charged in the U.S. for suspected Polymarket insider trading, but Israeli authorities in February arrested several people and charged two on suspicion of using classified information to place bets about military operations in Iran on Polymarket.

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

The Senate early Thursday morning adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement and the eventual reopening of the Department of Homeland Security.

Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.

Republicans, who are using the budget plan to lay the groundwork to eventually push through a filibuster-proof bill providing a multiyear funding stream for President Trump’s immigration crackdown, used the all-night session to highlight their hard-line stance on border security, seeking to portray Democrats as unwilling to safeguard the country.

Democrats tried and failed to add a series of changes aimed at addressing cost-of-living issues, seizing the opportunity to hammer Republicans as out of touch with and unwilling to act on the concerns of everyday Americans.

Here’s what to know about the budget plan and the nocturnal ritual senators engaged in before adopting it.

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The budget blueprint is a crucial piece of Republicans’ plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end a shutdown that has lasted for more than two months. After Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without new restrictions on agents’ tactics and conduct, the G.O.P. struck a deal with them to pass a spending bill that would fund everything but ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans said they would fund those agencies through a special budget bill that Democrats could not block.

“We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the Budget Committee chairman. “Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril.”

In resorting to a new budget blueprint, Republicans laid the groundwork to deny Democrats a chance to stop the immigration enforcement funding. But they also submitted themselves to a vote-a-rama, in which any senator can propose unlimited changes to such a measure before it is adopted.

The budget measure now goes to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can draft the legislation funding immigration enforcement. That bill will provide yet another opportunity for a vote-a-rama even closer to the November election.

Democrats took to the floor to criticize Republicans for supercharging funding for federal immigration enforcement rather than moving legislation that would address Americans’ concerns over affordability.

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“This is what Republicans are fighting for,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Democratic leader. “To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs.”

Democrats offered a host of amendments along those lines, all of which were defeated by Republicans — and that was the point. The proposals were meant to put the G.O.P. in a tough political spot, showcasing their opposition to helping Americans afford high living costs. Fewer than a handful of G.O.P. senators crossed party lines to support them.

The G.O.P. thwarted an effort by Mr. Schumer to require that the budget measure lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans. Two Republicans who are up for re-election this year, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, voted with Democrats, but the proposal was still defeated.

Republicans also squelched a move by Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, to create a fund that would lower grocery costs and reverse cuts to food aid programs that Republicans enacted last year. Ms. Collins and Mr. Sullivan again joined Democrats.

Also defeated by the G.O.P.: a proposal by Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, to address rising consumer prices brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran; one by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to require the budget measure to address rising electricity prices, and another by Mr. Markey to create a fund to bring down housing costs.

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Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is up for re-election in Georgia, also sought to add language requiring the budget plan to address health insurance companies denying or delaying access to care, but that, too was blocked by Republicans.

While Republicans had fewer proposals for changes to their own budget plan, they also sought to offer measures that would underscore their aggressive stance on immigration enforcement and dare Democrats to vote against them.

Mr. Graham offered an amendment to allocate funds toward a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the apprehension and deportation of adult immigrants convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor after illegally entering the United States. It passed unanimously.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sought to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other services, and criticized the organization for providing transgender care to minors. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, also attempted to tack on the G.O.P. voter identification bill, known as the SAVE America Act. Both proposals were blocked when Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, voted to strike them as unrelated to the budget plan.

The Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose their own party’s proposals for new voting requirements were Ms. Collins along with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

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Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also opposed the effort to block payments to Planned Parenthood.

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