A Silicon Valley mogul who previously supported a variety of Democratic campaigns has switched his allegiance and donated $1 million to Donald Trump.
Jacob Helberg, who works as a senior advisor at Palantir and also heads up the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, has admitted that Trump was “right on a lot of make-or-break issues for America” and that “the social cost of supporting [him] isn’t as great as it was.”
The Washington Post reports:
Four years ago, tech adviser Jacob Helberg was raising money within his elite circle for the losing presidential campaign of Democrat Pete Buttigieg. But the pandemic, an artificial intelligence arms race against China, and taking up a crusade to ban TikTok in the United States began to shift his views and party allegiances, he says.
Today, Helberg’s previously unreported $1 million donation to the Trump campaign shoots him into the upper echelon of the former president’s donors at a time when Donald Trump’s campaign trails President Biden’s in the money chase. Helberg is part of a small but influential cohort of tech leaders that have decided to back the former president — despite their own waffling and the industry’s broader hostility toward Trump.
…
The bulk of Helberg’s contribution — $844,600 — went to the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee. At least 20 donors had donated the maximum amount of more than $800,000 to the Trump 47 committee by the end of March, according to the most recent reports available from the Federal Election Commission. Trump has been urging more donors to join that elite circle as he has appeared at several high-profile fundraisers over the past month-and-a-half. Helberg is the only publicly known maxed-out donor who hails from the tech world.
However, it appears that Joe Biden’s lack of support for Israel is what really pushed Helberg towards Trump and the Republican Party.
“This one’s for Israel,” he wrote on the X platform after reports of his donation emerged.
This one’s for Israel. https://t.co/YR1lb0aM9Y
— Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg) May 15, 2024
Despite the apparent softening towards Trump from some in the industry, Silicon Valley remains an extremely hostile environment for conservatives and the Republican Party.
The only major industry figure to have previously supported Trump is PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who has also put money behind various legislative campaigns.
Most notably, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has become a stalwart opponent of the far-left progressive agenda. However, Musk has repeatedly expressed skepticism over Trump himself and recently indicated that he would not be donating to his 2024 campaign.
The post Silicon Valley Mogul Ditches Democrats and Donates $1 Million to Trump, Cites Biden’s Anti-Israel Stance appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
