Reid Hoffman Sees 2024 Election Rancor Disrupting Silicon Valley

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, a high-profile supporter of Kamala Harris’s campaign against Donald Trump, said that division in Silicon Valley has interfered with business during the contentious 2024 election cycle.

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The Greylock Partners investor told Bloomberg Television on Thursday that political rancor had cooled some normally warm relationships in tech. “I don’t think it’s just retaliation in business circumstances from folks who are supporting Trump,” Hoffman said, describing the divisions as deep and potentially long lasting.

Hoffman said that certain limited partners, or investors in venture capital firms, were “very supportive of Trump” and that he had seen some of them withdraw support from firms whose partners are supporting Harris. Hoffman said Greylock was not affected by such moves, but didn’t provide details on the investors or firms.

Support for Trump in liberal Silicon Valley has surged in recent months. Elon Musk and venture investors including 8VC General Partner Joe Lonsdale and Sequoia Capital Partner Shaun Maguire have donated heavily and publicly squared off against Hoffman, Vinod Khosla and other Harris supporters on the Musk-owned social platform X.

Hoffman said that under a Harris administration he hopes Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan will rethink policies around mergers and acquisitions to encourage more activity, and that Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler will revise regulations to provide more certainty in emerging industries.

Hoffman also said he hasn’t thought through what exactly will happen if Trump wins. But he added that businesses would need to build in more resilience to what he said could be a chaotic and uncertain period, marked by “grifter capitalism” involving “sweating various businesses for his own political favor.” Hoffman also said he hopes that if Musk takes a role in a Trump government, that the billionaire CEO will treat competing businesses fairly.

“Obviously I’m very hopeful that Vice President Harris will win the election,” Hoffman said. “And so therefore haven’t done enormous contingency planning yet.”

--With assistance from Paayal Zaveri.

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