Photo: Julia Nikhinson Associated Press Elon Musk has been a vocal supporter of Trump in recent weeks. But other tech leaders have been energized by Harris’ emergence as Biden’s likely successor.
Posted at 12:00 am
Until November 5, billionaire investor Reid Hoffman has one task in mind: getting Kamala Harris into the Oval Office.
Since Joe Biden dropped out of the race, the LinkedIn co-founder has spent most of his time on the phone, he says. His work as an investor has taken a back seat as he rallies members of his elite Silicon Valley circle to put their money and influence behind the vice president.
Mr. Hoffman’s efforts come at a crossroads with tech heavyweights who backed former President Donald Trump, sparking a political awakening in the overwhelmingly Democratic region. While the CEO Tesla’s Elon Musk, investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Sequoia partner Doug Leone, and others have loudly endorsed Trump in recent weeks, seeming to signal a rightward shift in Silicon Valley, other tech leaders have been invigorated by Harris’ emergence as Biden’s likely successor.
As they fire up their networks, speak out against Trump, and prepare for a bitter public battle, this longtime blue bastion is facing something new: rival political camps putting their names, organizing power, and money behind opposing candidates.
When the president decided not to run, we felt relief that there was another path, and excitement. And also the urgency to move things forward.
— Andrew Byrnes
“It’s a growing wave,” Hoffman said in an interview. “I already have more people and icons in the Kamala Harris camp than I do in the Trump camp.”
A coalition of Silicon Valley leaders is jumping into action on behalf of the potential new Democratic ticket. Former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg said she was “excited” to endorse Harris in an Instagram post. Angel investor Ron Conway called on the tech community to rally around Harris, who has his “unwavering” support. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, one of the friends Hoffman said he called this week, has backed a pro-Harris political action committee (PAC) with a $7 million donation. Philanthropist Melinda Gates also said she supported the vice president because she has an “inspiring vision for America.”
The Bay Area executives’ money had started to dry up as donors worried about the viability of President Biden’s campaign, says Andrew Byrnes, a longtime campaign finance worker for Kamala Harris. But in the past week, he says he has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Harris, double what he raised for Joe Biden in more than a year.
“When the president decided not to run, we felt relief that there was another path, and excitement,” he says. “And also an urgency to get things done.”
The battle for the White House has driven a wedge through the tech industry, where many powerful players have grown up together, amassing their fortunes by building a handful of the world’s largest internet companies. The clash has torn apart decades-old friendships and business partnerships, sparked nasty spats on social media, and revived old tensions over gender, race, and civil rights—fault lines that first surfaced during Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.
While Democratic tech leaders largely viewed Barack Obama's White House as an ally, the Biden administration angered many in the industry with a tougher regulatory approach that increased oversight of megamergers and of artificial intelligence. Cryptocurrency investors have accused Mr. Biden of attacking their industry.
Still, the sudden surge of support for Trump came as a shock to some, who view the stakes surrounding the election as more important than the industry's bottom line. Thanks Grace, a former partner at investment firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, was devastated to see two friends working in venture capital publicly support Donald Trump, motivated in part by the pro-business approach his campaign took in the with regard to technology.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000Merci Grace, who tried unsuccessfully to have children for many years, underwent emergency surgery in 2022 to end a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. A national abortion ban, a policy previously supported by Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance, could make this lifesaving medical care harder to come by.
“I actually cried that day,” she says. “I felt like they were willing to trade my life for money.” »
For Lily Lamboy, a former tech executive in San Francisco, Silicon Valley’s rhetoric highlighted a familiar divide: those who support Trump to protect their companies’ profits, and those who support Democrats on social issues, such as abortion.
“I felt validated, in a weird way, to see this alignment with Trump put out there, even though I think it’s been there for years,” she says. Finally, she saw people saying “the silent part out loud.”
Among the elite, the fighting is on X, where an ancient code of respect between people with a shared history and love of technology has been broken.
Reid Hoffman said he was offended by investor David Sacks’s many online posts praising those who had spoken out against Mr. Biden. For Mr. Hoffman, who served as a PayPal executive alongside Mr. Sacks, the comments were a personal affront. “It was, OK, now are you going to show some integrity and stand up to Trump? ? Let’s meet this integrity challenge in your own way.” Mr. Sacks did not respond to a request for comment.
Personal conflicts have also erupted online among billionaires: Elon Musk, the owner of X, taunted Vinod Khosla, the Democratic investor and donor who co-founded Sun Microsystems, by encouraging him to support Mr. Trump in a post last week on X.
“It’s hard for me to support someone who has no values, who lies, cheats, rapes, demeans women, and hates immigrants like me,” Mr. Khosla responded. “He can cut my taxes or ease some regulations, but that’s no reason to accept depravity in his personal values.” »
Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a Republican donor, added that he knew Mr. Trump and Mr. Khosla well and thought the two men “would see eye to eye on many important issues.”
Mr. Khosla responded that he “nearly threw up” when his former partner compared him to Mr. Trump. (“Stop bringing family values into this,” Shernaz Daver, Vinod Khosla’s operating partner who worked for both men, told Scott McNealy. “You’re better than that!”)
Donald Trump supporters like Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen say the former president would reduce regulation and allow the tech industry to innovate and grow faster. Although Trump was skeptical of cryptocurrency during his presidency, he has since courted the industry, delivering a speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference. He has also proposed sweeping cuts to AI regulation, as the Washington Post reported earlier this month.
At the same time, Mr. Trump has criticized big tech companies, accusing them of bias. He has singled out Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in particular, and said he opposed banning TikTok in the United States because it would benefit Meta’s platforms, Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg banned Trump from Facebook after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
“The decision by some tech titans to support Trump highlights the changing dynamics within the tech industry, driven by regulatory changes, tax policies, economic strategies, and likely cultural shifts,” said Wendy Anderson, a former Obama-era Defense Department official who is now a senior vice president at Palantir, but spoke in her personal capacity.
Kamala Harris has been instrumental in Joe Biden’s push to craft regulations for the AI industry and may continue the current administration’s approach. But some Silicon Valley executives believe she could restore relationships and some of the trust that existed under the Obama administration, given her ties to the region as California’s former attorney general.
Reid Hoffman said his companies have been held back by the Biden administration’s approach. While he hasn’t spoken to Harris, he plans to make her voice heard as an “expert,” regardless of her actions as a donor.
Silicon Valley “has a culture of, ‘Technology is super important to creating the future,’” he says. “That’s one of the reasons the Valley has been very positive about Obama, because he’s been very clear about that. We need to get that momentum back.”
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