In 2021, David Sacks, a prominent venture capitalist and podcast host, said that former President Donald J. Trump’s behavior during the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol disqualified him as a future political candidate.
At a tech conference last week, Mr. Sacks said his views had changed.
“I have bigger disagreements with Biden than I do with Trump,” the investor said. Mr. Sacks said he and his podcast co-hosts were working to organize a fundraiser for Mr. Trump, which could include an interview for their show “All In.” They also extended an invitation to President Biden, he said, but the Trump camp was more open to it.
Such public support for Mr. Trump was once taboo in Silicon Valley, long considered a liberal stronghold. But frustration with Mr. Biden, Democrats and the state of the world is pushing some of the tech sector’s biggest venture capitalists further and further to the right.
Some investors, like Chamath Palihapitiya of Social Capital, have supported Democrats in the past. (He is expected to co-host the fundraiser for Mr. Trump alongside Mr. Sacks.) Others, like Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz and Shaun Maguire of Sequoia Capital, have criticized Mr. Biden without expressing support for Mr. Trump. Still others, like Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures, are focusing their efforts on electing Republicans to Congress.
This activity could represent more noise than formal support or personal donations to Mr. Trump’s campaign. And this is by no means the case for everyone. Much of Silicon Valley, including prominent donors like investors Reid Hoffman and Vinod Khosla, remains loyal to Democrats. Peter Thiel, the investor who has supported Mr Trump in the past, said he is disappointed by politics and plans to stay out of the 2024 race.
But well-read tech investors are influential, with huge social media followings and big money – and they are increasingly politically engaged. That reflects the growth of the startup sector — growing eightfold between 2012 and 2022 to $344 billion, according to PitchBook, which tracks startups — and the sector’s problems are becoming increasingly political in nature.
“When I started, everyone was concerned about tax issues and immigration issues,” said Bobby Franklin, who has led the National Venture Capital Association, a trade group, since 2013. “Now it’s so more complex.”
Delian Asparouhov, an investor at Founders Fund, the investment firm founded by Mr. Thiel, recently amazed how much the political tide had turned. This month, Mr. Trump made a virtual appearance at a venture capital conference in Washington. There, he thanked the participants for “keeping their heads high” and said he looked forward to meeting them.
“Four years ago you had to apologize if you voted for him,” Mr. Asparouhov wrote on X.
Mr. Sacks, Mr. Palihapitiya and Founders Fund did not respond to a request for comment. Sequoia Capital declined to comment.
The tech investor group’s comments and activity are particularly noteworthy given Silicon Valley’s blue backdrop. The circle of Republican donors in the nation’s tech capital has long been limited to a few tech executives such as Scott McNealy, founder of Sun Microsystems; Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay; Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard; Larry Ellison, executive chairman of Oracle; and Doug Leone, former managing partner of Sequoia Capital.
But above all, the technology industry cultivated close ties with Democrats. Al Gore, the former Democratic vice president, joined the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins in 2007. Over the next decade, tech companies such as Airbnb, Google, Uber and Apple eagerly hired former members of the Obama administration.
Mr. Thiel’s loud and enthusiastic support for Mr. Trump in 2016, which included a $1.25 million donation and a speech at the Republican National Convention, came as a shock. What was even more surprising to some in the industry was how, after Mr. Trump won the election that year, the world seemed to blame tech companies for his victory. The result “technology move» against Facebook and others caused some industry executives to reevaluate their political views, a trend that has continued despite the social and political unrest of the pandemic.
During this period, Democrats moved further to the left and demonized people who were successful and making a lot of money, further alienating some tech leaders, said venture capitalist Bradley Tusk. and Democratic political strategist.
“If you keep telling someone they’re bad, eventually they won’t like it,” he said. “I see that in venture capital.”
This sentiment has hardened under President Biden. Some investors have expressed frustration that his pick for Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, has moved aggressively to block acquisitions, one of the main ways venture capitalists make money . They said they were also upset that Mr. Biden’s pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, had been hostile to cryptocurrency companies.
The startup sector has also been in recession since 2022, with higher interest rates prompting capital to flee risky bets and a dismal market for IPOs reducing opportunities for investors to profit. their valuable investments.
Some also said they disliked Mr. Biden’s proposal in March to raise taxes, including a 25% “billionaire tax” on certain securities that could include startup stocks, as well as a higher tax rate on profits from successful investments.
Mr. Sacks told the tech conference last week that he believed such taxes could kill the startup industry’s system of providing stock options to founders and employees. “This is a good reason for Silicon Valley to think seriously about who it wants to vote for,” he said.
Some tech investors are also furious about how Mr. Biden has handled foreign affairs and other issues.
“It’s impossible to support Biden,” said Mr. Rabois of Khosla Ventures, who added that he was no fan of Mr. Trump either. “I am focused on electing a Republican Congress and Senate.”
Mr. Maguire of Sequoia Capital written on in May, that “Biden has gotten away with double standards throughout his career.” He added: “We will see what happens this time. »
Mr. Andreessen, founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm, said in a recent podcast, “there are real problems with the Biden administration.” Under Mr. Trump, he said, the SEC and FTC would be run by “very different types of people.” But a Trump presidency wouldn’t necessarily be a “clear victory” either, he added.
Last month, Mr. Sacks, Mr. Thiel, Elon Musk and other high-profile investors attended an “anti-Biden” dinner in Hollywood, where attendees discussed fundraising and ways to s ‘oppose the Democrats, said a person familiar with the matter. Dinner was early reported by Puck.
The shift in attitude reflects the country’s broader frustrations with both parties, said Mr. Franklin of the National Venture Capital Association. “Tech, venture capital and Silicon Valley are looking at the current state of affairs and saying, ‘I’m not happy with any of these options,'” he said. “I can no longer count on Democrats to support technology issues, and I can no longer count on Republicans to support trade issues. »
Ben Horowitz, founder of Andreessen Horowitz, wrote in a blog post last year, the company would support any politician who favored “an optimistic technology-based future” and oppose anyone who didn’t. Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Andreessen have each donated more than $11 million to political causes in the past year. Most of that went to Fairshake, a political action group focused on supporting crypto-friendly laws.
In November, a group of high-profile investors and startup founders signed an open letter to Mr. Biden criticizing an executive order aimed at creating safeguards around the development of artificial intelligence. They accused him of stifling innovation.
Venture capitalists also network with Washington lawmakers at events such as the Hill & Valley conference in March, hosted by Jacob Helberg, an adviser to Palantir, a technology company co-founded by Mr. Thiel. At the event, tech executives and investors lobbied governments against AI regulations and called for more government spending to support the development of the technology in the United States.
This month, Mr. Helberg, who is married to Mr. Rabois, donated $1 million to the Trump campaign. The donation was reported earlier by the Washington Post.
