Chamath Palihapitiya’s Fundraiser for Trump Signifies Growing Conservative Leanings of Silicon Valley Executives
- Harmeet Dhillon, one of Trump's attorneys based in the Bay Area, says she would have “never predicted that you'd have a sold-out fundraiser targeting tech leaders in Pacific Heights and for a Republican candidate.”
Sri Lanka-born American and Canadian billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya is co-hosting a fundraiser in San Francisco for former president Donald Trump along with former Paypal executive and billionaire venture capitalist David Sacks. Both Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Capital, and Sacks co-host the popular podcast “All-In,” which “gained popularity for giving an insider’s peek into their world of technology and wealth,” according to Reuters.
VIP tickets for the June 6 sold-out event started at $50,000, but those wishing to join the host committee needed to pay $300,000 each, NBC reported. The event will be held will be held at the home of Sacks, and his wife, Jacqueline Sacks, a clothing brand executive.
Politico notes that Palihapitiya’s decision to co-host the fundraiser “underscores the increasingly conservative leanings of some Silicon Valley executives.” His “embrace” of the former president has also “created tricky optics for some California Democrats who’ve accepted contributions from the tech provocateur this cycle,” the report added.
While the tech industry tends to skew left-wing — San Francisco voted 85% for Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election against then-president Trump – it also has some libertarian and conservative undercurrents, the Reuters report said.
Last month, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla hosted a fundraiser for President Joe Biden at his home in Silicon Valley. The cost of tickets “ranged between $6,600 and $100,000,” for the event which “raised more than $1.5 million,” according to reports in Indian media. This was the first fundraiser hosted by an Indian American in this election cycle.
Harmeet Dhillon, one of Trump’s attorneys based in the Bay Area, told KCRA 3 that she would have “never predicted that you’d have a sold-out fundraiser targeting tech leaders in Pacific Heights and for a Republican candidate.” The former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, and a National Committeewoman of the Republican National Committee for California, will be attending the fundraiser. The event “should be frightening for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign,” she told the news channel, adding that California and its tech community “have always been counted as squarely reliable Democrats, supporters and donors.”
Although Palihapitiya has backed Democrats in the past, he has increasingly expressed more conservative viewpoints. He previously contributed $6,600 each to to Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and ouse candidate George Whitesides, according to Axios. Most recently, he gave $1,000 to Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, “fter he finished first in the March 5 primary election for the safe blue Silicon Valley House seat held by retiring Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo.
As one user pointed out on X, Palihapitiya never thought highly of Trump. “I think that when Trump was elected, I was told that it was the end of the world, and that’s what I thought,” he said in a previous podcast, according to the post. “And I’d already underwritten him as an F, okay? And then, four years into the presidency, he was probably like a C in my mind. And then, as I get a little bit of distance away, I realized, no, hold on a second. This guy was like a B, B-plus. Like, he was pretty good,” he said. “But the further and further I get away from him and the less emotional I am, he did a pretty good job. He was a pretty good president.”