Big Tech executives will be the “most notable billionaire winners” of the presidential election if former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) are sworn in as president and vice president in January 2021, according to Forbes.
If Biden takes office, four billionaires will have come out on top as a result of their quest to unseat President Donald Trump, according to Forbes. Three of those billionaires are from Silicon Valley, California’s tech industry where a handful of multinational corporations have monopolized power.
Forbes notes:
Dustin Moskovitz: Mark Zuckerberg’s college roommate, the Facebook and Asana cofounder spent big to fight Trump. He gave more than $800,000 to Biden and made a $20 million-plus donation to Future Forward, a super-PAC that shelled out $100 million to fund a last-minute TV ad blitz attacking Trump. “It’s raining in San Francisco, which is actually just perfect,” Moskovitz tweeted the day after Biden was named the victor. “5 star weekend.”
Reid Hoffman: The LinkedIn cofounder was one of Biden’s top fundraisers, helping the former vice president haul in record sums for his campaign. Hoffman himself gave more than $12 million this cycle, including at least $500,000 to Biden and $1.5 million to Unite The Country, a pro-Biden super-PAC. He told Axios in the days before the election that he would put $1 million into a digital ad campaign urging voters to be patient as votes are counted. Ahead of the 2016 election, Hoffman trolled Trump with his own Cards Against Humanity-style game called “Trumped Up Cards.”
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Reed Hastings & Patty Quillin: The Netflix cofounder and co-CEO and his wife, Patty Quillin, reportedly co-hosted a fundraiser for Pete Buttigieg in December 2019 but ended up giving at least $1.4 million to Biden. Quillin was also one of the biggest political donors to California propositions this year. She put $2 million into opposing Proposition 20, which would have made it more difficult for convicted felons to qualify for early parole. It was struck down by voters. She put a quarter-million dollars into supporting Proposition 17, giving parolees in the state the right to vote, which won.
The other billionaire set to win big if Biden is sworn into office is former hedge fund executive Jim Simons who is worth more than $23 billion and who spent more than $20 million to defeat Trump.
Biden’s choice to make Harris his running mate elated not only Wall Street, but also Silicon Valley as she represents their interests in the United States Senate and has close family connections to tech executives. Harris’ brother-in-law is the chief legal officer for Uber, the ride-sharing corporation that has become a billion-dollar business by shifting most of the risk to its drivers.
In his transition, Biden has reportedly stacked positions with special interests from Big Tech. Most recently, the former vice president announced that former Obama official Susan Rice would become head of his Domestic Policy Council. Rice currently sits on the board of Netflix.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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