Venture capitalists are divided on Harris or Trump

LOS ANGELES — Being a venture capitalist carries a lot of prestige in Silicon Valley. We just have a difference of perspective on policy issues.” It remains to be seen if the more than 700 venture capitalists who’ve voiced support for a movement called “VCs for Kamala” will match the pledges of Trump’s well-heeled supporters such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Doug Leone, the former managing partner of Sequoia Capital, endorsed Trump in June, expressing concern on X “about the general direction of our country, the state of our broken immigration system, the ballooning deficit, and the foreign policy missteps, among other issues.” But Leone’s longtime business partner at Sequoia, Michael Moritz, wrote in the Financial Times that tech leaders supporting Trump “are making a big mistake.” Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia, posted on X that he donated $300,000 to Trump’s campaign after supporting Hilary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. “But in general I think he was surprisingly prescient.” Feinzaig, managing director at venture firm Graham & Walker, said that she launched “VCs for Kamala” because she felt frustrated that “the loudest voices” were starting to “sound like they were speaking for the entire industry.” Much of the VC discourse about elections is in response to a July podcast and manifesto in which Andreessen and Horowitz backed Trump and outlined their vision of a “Little Tech Agenda” that they said contrasted with the policies sought by Big Tech. U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat whose California district encompasses part of Silicon Valley, said Trump supporters are a vocal minority reflecting a “third or less” of the region’s tech community.