Tech billionaires donated a toptal of nearly $400 million in total to the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, according to data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) analyzed by The Guardian. The majority of the amount, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, came from a single donor, the world's richest man Elon Musk, who became Trump's biggest supporter during the election campaign.
Traditionally, Silicon Valley has been identified with supporting Democratic candidates. However, in the current election campaign, there has been a shift, and a number of prominent figures have expressed support, both vocally and financially, for Trump. Of the reported $394.1 million that tech billionaires donated to campaigns, most of the amount, $273.2 million, went to Trump’s campaign.
In addition to Musk, who donated $242.6 million to the campaign, other notable donors are Marc Andreessen, who donated $5.5 million to Trump (his a16z venture capital partner, Ben Horowitz, initially supported Trump but later switched his support to Harris), and WhatsApp founder Jan Koum, who donated $5.1 million.
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Harris raised $120.9 million in donations from Silicon Valley, led by $51.1 million from Facebook founder Dustin Moskovitz, $17 million from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and $11.7 million from from Ripple CEO Chris Larsen.
Some of Trump's most prominent donors were, until recently, supporters of his opponents. Anderson was a prominent supporter of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and a vocal critic of Trump's immigration policies. Sequoia's Doug Leon previously blamed Trump for the attempted coup at the Capitol on January 6, 2020, but donated $3.5 million to his campaign this year.