Trump’s tech backers are wrong

As leading tech investors continue to vocally take sides ahead of the 2024 presidential election, legendary venture capitalist Michael Moritz is making his preference clear.

In a Financial Times opinion piece published on Monday, Moritz wrote that those in the industry who are supporting Donald Trump “are making a big mistake.”

Moritz, who joined Sequoia Capital in 1986 and went on to make hugely lucrative bets on companies including Google, PayPal and LinkedIn, criticized Trump’s Silicon Valley backers as self-interested and asked why so many smart and successful people are “prepared to turn a blind eye to Trump.”

“I doubt whether any of them would want him as part of an investment syndicate that they organised,” wrote Moritz, who stepped down from Sequoia last year, over a decade after giving up a management role at the firm. “Why then do they dismiss his recent criminal conviction as nothing more than a politically inspired witch-hunt over a simple book-keeping error?”

Andreessen Horowitz co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz recently threw their support behind Trump. Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly endorsed him moments after the assassination attempt last month. Other Trump backers include venture capitalists David Sacks and Joe Lonsdale as well as Doug Leone, Moritz’s longtime partner at Sequoia.

Moritz, who is currently a senior advisor at Sequoia’s wealth management arm, wrote that Trump’s tech financiers and supporters were “making the same mistake as all powerful people who back authoritarians.” Moritz was referring to Trump’s conviction, earlier this year, on 34 felony counts in New York State court. Trump has said he will appeal, and many of his allies have dismissed his trial as a “sham.”

Moritz said he doesn’t think Trump will prevail in Silicon Valley come November, noting his historically weak performance there. He’s hardly alone in vocalizing his opposition.

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman has been a major Democratic backer, throwing his weight behind Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden before that. And last week, more than 100 VCs pledged their support to Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee, as she ramps up her campaign to take on Trump. As of Monday, more than 700 people have signed the “VCs for Kamala” pledge.

Moritz has a multibillion-dollar fortune that allows him to give generously to charity. He was knighted in 2013 in part for his philanthropic work. Moritz has made major gifts to Democratic causes, including a $4.8 million donation earlier this year to American Bridge 21st Century, which is planning a $140 million anti-Trump ad blitz. He has also given to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.

His Republican giving included earlier support for Arnold Schwarzenegger, when he was governor of California, Mitt Romney in 2007, and John Kasich’s 2010 and 2014 gubernatorial runs in Ohio, according to OpenSecrets.

Moritz wrote that wealthy financiers believe “they will be able to control Trump,” or else are committing “another cardinal error: deluding themselves that he will not do what he says or promises.”

“That has not been the modus operandi of authoritarians over the centuries,” he wrote.

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