According to the New York Times, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has cancelled a planned fundraiser with Donald Trump just hours after the event was announced, without explanation.
A spokesman at Intel told the Times that the CEO was planning to host a fundraiser at his personal home, and hoped to have a “full exchange of views” with the presumptive Republican nominee.
But, just hours after the event was announced, it was abruptly cancelled, while Krzanich took to Twitter to emphasize that he did not endorse any candidate:
I do not intend to endorse any Presidential candidate. We are interested in engaging both campaigns in open dialogue on issues in technology
— Brian Krzanich (@bkrunner) June 2, 2016
Given the strength of progressive values among tech CEOs, the turnaround is not surprising. As the New York Times explained, anti-Trump sentiment runs deep in Silicon Valley:
For all these reasons, support for Mr. Trump here is minimal. Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech maverick who backed Ron Paul’s presidential bid in 2008 with millions of dollars in support, is a Trump delegate. Mr. Thiel, who was revealed last week as a secret backer of the wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media, is the candidate’s first, and so far only, prominent enlistee in Silicon Valley.
In April, as Mr. Trump was wrapping up his quest for the nomination and beginning to look ahead to the general election, a handful of people who work in tech around the country gave a grand total of $5,395 to his campaign, according to figures that will be released Thursday by Crowdpac, a startup that tracks donations
. Add that paltry sum to the $16,420 that Mr. Trump raised since last summer from people who work in tech and it is still nowhere near enough to cover the cost of a year at Stanford. Hillary Clinton has raised $2.7 million from tech donors since beginning her campaign, while Bernie Sanders has raised $6 million, according to new Crowdpac research.
Mr. Trump was largely selffunding his campaign. Now, however, he requires cash — and lots of it. “Out of the millions of people who work in technology, from engineers to Uber drivers, just 52 have given to Trump. He’ll need many more if he truly intends to build a worldclass finance organization,” said Mason Harrison, a Crowdpac spokesman. “Mitt Romney raised over $8 million from the technology sector in 2012.
That’s a lot of money to leave on the table.” Whether those tech backers are out there, however, is an unsettled question.
Read the full story at the New York Times.
You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitter, add him on Facebook, and download Milo Alert! for Android to be kept up to date on his latest articles. Email tips and suggestions to abokhari@breitbart.com
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.