(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump raised millions of dollars from technology industry leaders at a campaign event in San Francisco hosted by investor David Sacks, which signaled Silicon Valley’s growing interest in the former president’s comeback bid.
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Wealthy donors converged on Sacks’ San Francisco home Thursday, where the presumptive Republican nominee spoke to attendees for about an hour on topics ranging from cryptocurrency to artificial intelligence and preventing deep fakes.
The sold-out dinner raised $12 million for Trump’s re-election effort, Harmeet Dhillon, a member of the Republican National Committee who attended the fundraiser, posted on the social media site X. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a asked to comment on the money raised.
“It was a crowd writing huge checks,” said Dhillon, a lawyer who counts Trump as a client. Many cryptocurrency founders were in attendance, she said, along with donors who had supported other Republican or Democratic candidates in the past. “It was very encouraging.”
Sacks co-hosted the event at Broadcliff, his home in the Pacific Heights neighborhood, along with investor Chamath Palihapitiya.
With tickets starting at US$50,000 for a reception and photo and US$300,000 for dinner, the event generated intense interest in Silicon Valley, mainly because it occurred shortly after Trump’s conviction in New York on 34 counts of falsification of records.
On Thursday night, several blocks of the Pacific Heights neighborhood were blocked off with barricades for the event. Perplexed passersby stopped to watch crowds of flag-waving pro-Trump protesters.
That verdict was followed by a wave of support for Trump in some corners of the technology world, including from Doug Leone, the former leader of the prestigious venture firm Sequoia Capital, and Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia who said last week that he was giving US$300,000 for Trump’s re-election. Other donors include Jacob Helberg, a senior adviser to the CEO of Palantir Technologies Inc., who also planned to participate in the fundraiser, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private information.
The crowd included tech industry figures such as crypto entrepreneurs and investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Dhillon said, the twins most famous for claiming they came up with the original idea for Facebook. Trump implied they were cheated out of fair returns.
Trump has enjoyed unusually vocal support from the tech industry this election cycle — a contrast to 2016, when billionaire Peter Thiel was one of his only visible supporters. (Thiel has said he plans to sit out this cycle.) In addition to dining with Sacks and Palihapitiya this week, Trump will travel to Southern California, where he is expected to attend another fundraiser on Saturday hosted by Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril Industries Inc., a technology company that makes defense and weapons technology and does business with the U.S. government.
David Friedberg, an investor who co-hosts the popular podcast All-In with Sacks and Palihapitiya, said in an email that technology’s interest in politics is not new. “Silicon Valley has always been politically engaged, going back more than 20 years, many of the senior leaders and investors I met in Silicon Valley were politically active in one way or another,” he wrote. “Perhaps political activism gets more attention these days, given the growing influence Silicon Valley has on the world and the reshaping of the media landscape.”
While the industry tends to lean Democratic and San Francisco is a staunchly blue city, tech leaders’ political preferences are often diffuse. Key issues include taxes, tech antitrust and crypto regulation – as well as foreign policy and immigration rules. Many technology players donated to both parties. For example, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of the prominent firm Andreessen Horowitz have contributed to a range of causes and rejected political affiliations. Instead, they took an anti-regulation stance. The company has said it will support pro-technology candidates regardless of other issues – espousing a “techno-optimist” philosophy laid out by Andreessen in a manifesto last year.
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Sacks, an investor and friend of Elon Musk, previously supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis before supporting Trump. He says he wants to end Biden administration policies, such as support for the war in Ukraine. “The world is on fire,” he said in a recent interview, adding that when Trump was previously in power, “they had four years of relative peace in the world.” Palihapitiya previously supported Democratic candidates in previous races.
Trump is widely expected to appear alongside them on the All-In podcast, although an exact date for the recording has not been set.
“Voters lived through four years of President Trump and four years of President Biden. In technology, we call this A/B testing,” Sacks posted on social media. “When it comes to economic policy, foreign policy, border policy and legal justice, Trump performed better. He is the president who deserves a second term.”
For much of this cycle, President Joe Biden has been at the forefront of fundraising, including among donors from technology-related industries. The president and allied political action committees had raised $18.1 million from donors linked to the electronics and communications industries as of May 21, according to campaign finance data compiled by OpenSecrets. Trump and his allies received just $1.4 million from this sector during that period.
While Trump’s event this week attracted the most attention, Biden has also been in Silicon Valley for fundraising, including events hosted by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures and former Yahoo executive Marissa Mayer. This week, Vice President Kamala Harris is also in the Bay Area and participating in fundraising events.
–With assistance from Lizette Chapman and Laura Davison.
(Updates with fundraising totals, event details, and comments on Sacks.)
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