Silicon Valley leaders get behind Kamala Harris

(NEW YORK) — After several of its brightest stars declared support for former President Donald Trump last month, Silicon Valley has now come out in force for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Though Silicon Valley remains a stronghold of support for Democrats, the Biden’s administration’s hawkish approach to tech has alienated many in the industry, and in recent months a number of high-profile entrepreneurs and investors including Elon Musk have backed Trump. But Harris, a Bay Area native with ties to the industry, could forge a stronger relationship with the Valley and has already received pledges of support from a new group called VCs for Harris — representing hundreds of prominent venture capitalists.

Leslie Feinzaig, the venture capitalist who started VCs for Harris, said she recently wrote a pledge and bought a URL to host its site without expecting much.

Within days, billionaire entrepreneur and television personality Mark Cuban and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman joined the group.

“I basically haven’t slept since,” Feinzaig said.

Feinzaig’s efforts have resulted in more than 700 pledges of support for Harris, and could signal a friendlier relationship between the vice president and the Valley than Biden has had.

“Silicon Valley had no friends in Washington during the Biden administration,” said Georgetown Law Center professor and technology regulation expert Anupam Chander. “You have the Department of Justice, which has filed those antitrust lawsuits. You have the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative, who have been retreating from efforts to ensure free flow of data across the world.”

And, of course, Chander said, you have Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who has gained an army of fans — and detractors — for leading an ambitious effort to regulate giants such as Amazon and Meta.

The Biden administration did, however, work to pass the CHIPS Act, which allocated billions to onshore the production of semiconductors used in many electronics — an achievement celebrated by the leading tech industry advocacy group as “a major victory.”

Still, leading venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the co-founders of investment fund Andreessen Horowitz, cited concerns about Biden’s policies in a podcast episode announcing their support for Trump.

“The future of our business, the future of technology, new technology and the future of America is literally at stake,” Horowitz said.

Despite continuing frustrations with the Biden administration, according to industry insiders, Democrats appear to retain the support of most in Silicon Valley.

“Many of us are frustrated with Biden administration’s sort of anti-technology, anti-business stance,” said Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Merci Grace.

Grace said voting against Trump would be “pretty easy” for her and most of her peers, 70 or 80 percent of whom she estimates will ultimately support Harris.

Feinzaig said some of the high-profile figures in the industry who have come out in support of Trump “weren’t speaking for the full industry.”

Still, Trump has made inroads in certain corners of Silicon Valley. In June, a fundraiser hosted by tech billionaire David Sacks in coordination with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance — a former venture capitalist with ties to another prominent conservative tech mogul, Peter Thiel — raised $12 million for the former president’s campaign.

Trump has also received endorsements from a number of prominent entrepreneurs in the cryptocurrency sector, promising in his 2024 platform to “end Democrats’ unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown.” Also, he spoke at the annual Bitcoin Conference in late July.

The former president has taken a stern stance on big tech companies, calling them “too big” and “too powerful” in a July interview with Bloomberg, but saying “I don’t want to destroy them.”

Some expect Harris, meanwhile, to assuage concerns in the Valley by taking a more dovish approach than the Biden administration, though they say her policy views on tech remain an open question.

“I would expect to return to a more technocratic stance,” said Rob Merges, a law professor at U.C. Berkeley who spent several decades working in the tech industry. “A traditional Clinton, Obama — you know, friendly to the benefits of technology, reasonable in regulation, and cautious to not go too far in any one direction.”

Chander said he thinks Harris is “someone who recognizes the importance of innovation, but also worries about some of the harms that might follow.”

But, he noted, “because Harris didn’t go through a regular primary, we haven’t seen her stake out positions on some issues.”

Since Biden announced he would not seek reelection on July 21, Harris has not mentioned the tech industry in public campaign remarks and her campaign declined to comment on whether she would keep Khan at the head of the FTC (high-profile donors including Hoffman have recently urged her to do the reverse).

But the Valley needs no introduction to the vice president.

Harris dealt with the tech industry as California’s attorney general and has headed some of the Biden administration’s efforts surrounding artificial intelligence, working with top AI companies to agree on voluntary guidelines for the responsible use of generative AI. The vice president’s brother-in-law, Tony West, also serves as chief legal officer for Uber, headquartered in San Francisco. In remarks about AI in November, she said she and Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.”

Grace said she gets the sense that Harris is “a reasonable person who is very intelligent, and we can have a discussion with her.” She added that Trump “is just someone who you can’t trust.”

“It’s not worth the temporary alignment to make a little bit more money on top of the billions that you already have — to get in bed with someone who you can’t trust,” Grace said.

Feinzaig also shared her trust in Harris.

“I feel like we have a candidate that is listening,” Feinzaig said.