Venture capital investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz plan to donate a significant amount to Donald Trump’s campaign for president, according to a person familiar with their plans, making the famous VC duo the latest tech investors to throw their support to the Republican.
The leaders of the eponymous Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz are still evaluating which Trump-affiliated organization or organizations to back and will make the decision shortly, said the person, who asked to remain anonymous discussing private information. The donations will be personal contributions from the two men, not from the firm itself. And they won’t be as substantial as the $45 million a month billionaire Elon Musk has said he will contribute to Trump’s election. Other partners at the firm are also considering making their own contributions, the person said.
Andreessen Horowitz, one of the best-known firms in tech, has become more enmeshed in politics in recent months. The firm has been stepping up its Washington lobbying footprint, and last year Horowitz wrote that its partners would seek to back candidates who support an “optimistic, technology-enabled future” and oppose “misguided” tech regulations. In June, Andreessen spoke at a Trump fundraiser.
In a video posted Tuesday, Andreessen and Horowitz held a lengthy discussion about the upcoming election, and which candidate would be better for the startup world — a contingent the firm has nicknamed “little tech.” The pair also acknowledged that much of the industry is left-leaning, and both men said they had been long-time Democrats before switching their allegiance. “I’m going to have a lot of friends who are probably pissed off at me for saying anything nice about President Trump,” Horowitz said. “So here we are, and for little tech, we think Donald Trump is actually the right choice.”
The Information earlier reported some details of the donations.
Andreessen and Horowitz, who made fortunes by helping grow tech startups into behemoths, wrote a blog post earlier this month lamenting that the American government is now “far more hostile to new startups than it used to be.” Andreessen has also sounded the alarm about the impact of regulations on cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence — areas where some expect Trump to be more friendly to the industry.
The investors join a long line of prominent figures in tech and finance who are now backing Trump. The candidate has won endorsements from Musk, Sequoia Capital investor Shaun Maguire and VC David Sacks, who hosted a San Francisco fundraiser for Trump that brought in $12 million.
Crypto billionaires Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss made the maximum $844,600 to Trump’s reelection committees, and also combined to give $500,000 to the same super PAC Musk supports. Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman and Elliott Investment Management founder Paul Singer both donated to Trump.
The flood of cash has allowed Trump, whose war chest trailed Biden’s by nearly $100 million at the end of March, to overtake his rival. Trump entered July with $285 million cash on hand, topping Biden’s $240 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Andreessen and Horowitz could pad that advantage. They rank among the 10 biggest donors in the 2024 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets, and have each donated, either individually or through their venture capital firm, more than $24 million.
The biggest recipient of their largesse is Fairshake, a nonpartisan super PAC that supports or opposes candidates based on their positions on the cryptocurrency industry. Andreessen Horowitz donated $44 million to Fairshake under the name AH Capital Management, FEC records show. Their contributions are attributed to its founders, Andreessen and Horowitz, who were each the source of $22 million.