This past week, Donald Trump made a big impression in Silicon Valley, indicating his intention to run for the wealthy Bay Area seat.
But don’t expect President Biden to give up those donors easily.
The president is still very much in the running for Big Tech funding in 2024, according to an analysis of campaign finance records that includes information on Biden’s top individual donors thus far this campaign season.
According to data gathered by campaign finance trackers at OpenSecrets, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman tops Biden’s list with more than $9 million in donations to the president and outside organizations backing Biden.
Hoffman has contributed millions more to organizations that back Democratic candidates for Congress.
Just before Trump left for San Francisco for a much-anticipated event that looks to have added almost $12 million to the former president’s finances, he even published an essay on Thursday expressing his support for Biden.
The Hoffman piece essentially rebutted Trump’s gains among tech leaders and Wall Street in general, arguing that Trump’s actions and contempt for the law would be detrimental to business.
“Unfortunately, many American business leaders have recently developed a kind of myopia, miscalculating what politics, and which political leaders, will truly support their long-term success,” concluded Hoffman.
He is by no means the only one on the West Coast who thinks that way. This campaign, eight of Biden’s top 20 backers have links to Silicon Valley. These numbers range from Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital, who has donated $7.3 million thus far, to Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Facebook (META), who has contributed more than half a million.
Adding Biden’s major Hollywood backers to the list makes it longer. Actor Seth MacFarlane and co-founder of DreamWorks Jeffrey Katzenberg have each donated more than $1 million, according to the documents.
Given that disclosure laws force campaign funding reports to be delayed, the totals may already be much higher. Due to the various disclosure restrictions, certain updates are not anticipated for weeks or months. The majority of the data that has been gathered in recent days pertains to April.
Of course, there were other wealthy gifts given to both candidates that will never be made public, with some organizations permitted to receive so-called “dark money” that isn’t declared.
Dueling trips to the valley
During Trump and Biden’s recent trips to the region, the competition for Big Tech’s financial resources was on display.
Early in May, Biden made a visit to Silicon Valley. To raise money, he initially went to Vinod Khosla’s house in Portola Valley, the wealthy co-founder of Sun Microsystems.
The governor of California’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made another fundraising stop in Palo Alto. As Biden was speaking, he described the two ladies as “emblematic of how America is changing.”
After that, Biden took off right away for Seattle to visit the house of former Microsoft (MSFT) president and art collector Jon Shirley in order to scoop up more Big Tech cash.
As he started his speech, Biden made a joke about “welcome to the Seattle art museum.” Microsoft president and current vice chair Brad Smith was also present.
Tech billionaires opened their wallets after Trump’s visit to Silicon Valley this week. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya and investor David O. Sacks co-hosted the event on Thursday. Notable figures from the cryptocurrency world were also there.
Additionally, Sacks published an essay in which he officially endorsed Trump and restated his motivations for doing so.
One of the participants, Ryan Selkis, the CEO of Messari, praised Sacks in a statement on social media for “making it feel safer for tech leaders to support President Trump this year.”
A money race that is tightening overall
In 2024, Biden had an advantage in funding; but, in recent months, this advantage has diminished as Republicans unite behind Trump after his victory in the primary season.
The campaign and outside organizations combined claimed to have raised close to $300 million in May thanks to the strength of Donald Trump’s relationship with billionaires combined with a spike in support from small-dollar contributions.
Nearly 69% of Trump’s money, according to OpenSecrets, have come from large contributions, with the majority of the remaining monies coming from modest individual contributions of less than $200.
Just slightly more evenly distributed is Biden’s ratio, which comes from roughly 54% major donations and 46% smaller checks.
Biden hasn’t yet released his fundraising totals for May, but the most recent data available showed his campaign had more than $84 million on hand through the end of April.
His overall operation, including outside SuperPACs, has millions more stowed away for the coming campaign.