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A now-former Democratic donor and current big tech executive explained during an interview late last week why he and dozens of others in the industry are now supporting former President Donald Trump.
Jacob Helberg, a senior policy advisor to Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, and a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission explained why he and others had switched from supporting President Joe Biden and other Democrats to Trump during an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.
“Deep blue turning red as the tide turns. Trump in Silicon Valley, members of California’s starkly liberal technology community turning out to support the from the prison the massive fundraiser last week in the Trump campaign, raking in $12 million at the event,” Bartiromo said to begin the segment before nothing that Helberg was present.
“You were once a prominent Democrat donor and gave to Biden in his last presidential campaign, but you were there this week supporting President Trump. What happened?” she asked.
“Part of what we have seen over the last four years I came from a one-party state and like a lot of people in California and in Silicon Valley, I saw the Democratic Party get hijacked by the Squad and woke theology,” Helberg said. “President Biden campaigned as a moderate and ultimately has governed as a radical progressive. He has spent all of his time catering to his base, and ultimately, he is now completely out of step with where the rest of the country is.”
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The extremely liberal city has been a stronghold of Democratic politics for decades. The fundraising amount reportedly did not come from the city’s average citizens but rather from large-dollar donors with ties to Silicon Valley, Just the News reported.
Located in the Bay Area, the Valley hosts numerous tech and venture capital firms. In recent weeks, many of its leading figures have, for various reasons, expressed their support for the former president.
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Silicon Valley, located near San Francisco—Nancy Pelosi’s district—has been a stronghold of Democratic politics for decades. Just the News reported that the fundraising amount reportedly did not come from the city’s average citizens but rather from large-dollar donors with ties to Silicon Valley.
Located in the Bay Area, the Valley hosts numerous tech and venture capital firms. In recent weeks, many of its leading figures have, for various reasons, expressed their support for the former president.
“In 2016, the number of people from Silicon Valley I knew who supported Trump was a sample of one, which was Peter [Thiel],” Helburg told Reuters following the event. “Today, I count them in the dozens, if not more than that. Over the course of the past six months, we’ve started to see the dam break.”
A Trump campaign official told Just the News that “[t]he event hosted by David Sacks and Chamath Paliphapitiya had over 100 attendees. Some of the most important investors and innovators from the tech industry sector were in attendance and they raised $12 million dollars.”
Sacks has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s approach to foreign policy, particularly regarding the Ukraine War. His analysis and advocacy for negotiations with Moscow have generated significant online interest.
Sacks outlined his reasons for supporting Trump in a lengthy X post last week, citing the economy, foreign affairs, border security, and “lawfare” targeting the former president.
“With Biden, our choices are limited to fighting the proxy war to the last Ukrainian, or fighting Russia ourselves,” Sacks wrote. “President Trump has said he wants the dying in Ukraine to stop, and that he will seek to end the war through a negotiated settlement. Ukraine will no longer be able to get the deal we talked them out of in April 2022, but we can still save Ukraine as an independent nation and avert world war.”
Sacks also pointed to a number of economic metrics and insisted “[w]e can’t afford another four years of Bidenomics.” He also accused Biden of enabling a “de facto open border policy” and insisted that the administration had pursued “elective prosecutions against his political opponents.”
