Former President Donald Trump is turning to Silicon Valley and ex-donors of onetime rival Ron DeSantis to boost his campaign coffers and cut into President Joe Biden’s hefty fundraising edge.
Bloomberg recently reported that venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya were in talks with the Trump campaign to hold a June fundraiser at Sacks’ residence in San Francisco. Trump would also participate in a taping of the pair’s podcast, All In.
Sacks, a cofounder of Craft Ventures, previously backed the Florida governor’s now-defunct presidential campaign.
Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR, will also host a June fundraiser for Trump in Newport Beach, a coastal city in Southern California, Bloomberg reported.
Before he entered the presidential contest last May, DeSantis was the top conservative alternative to Trump, attracting support from wealthy Republican donors leery of backing the former president’s campaign. But Trump never ceded his popularity among the GOP base and the former president subsequently won over key oil and gas executives, who began to open up their checkbooks.
The former president’s push to appeal to high-profile Silicon Valley donors follows a similar path.
Biden has long had considerable support among Silicon Valley tech luminaries. Just last week, the president traveled to the area for events hosted by onetime Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, part of his fundraising swing through California.
While Biden and Trump both emerged from their respective party primaries as the presumptive nominees early in the nominating process, the incumbent president is far ahead in the money race as the critical summer stretch of the campaign begins.
The Biden campaign closed out March with $85.5 million cash on hand. The campaign took in $43.8 million in that one month alone, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Biden’s numbers have so far dwarfed the Trump campaign, which raised $15.3 million in March and had $44.6 million cash on hand at the end of that month.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee announced earlier this month that they raised over $76 million for the former president in April.
Biden’s campaign, which has already beaten Trump to the punch in opening numerous campaign offices in critical battleground states, has not yet released its April figures.
