San Francisco techies, VCs react to Donald Trump’s guilty verdict

As Donald Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes, San Francisco’s tech and finance elite took to social media to weigh in—and pop off—on Thursday’s historic verdict.

Trump was found guilty of 34 counts in his New York hush money trial. He faces up to four years in prison and is due to be sentenced on July 11—just days before the Republican National Convention, where he is expected to officially become the party’s nominee for president.

Craft Ventures co-founder David Sacks, who is due to host Trump next Thursday for a fundraiser dinner at his Pacific Heights home, quickly pounced on the news, calling the trial “a sham.”

Meanwhile, Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire announced on X that he just donated $300,000 to Trump’s campaign.

“The timing isn’t a coincidence,” Maguire posted.

Mike Solana, chief marketing officer for Founders Fund, quipped, “ah, yes, a return to norms (jailing the frontrunner presidential candidate).” Then he posted a gif of Heath Ledger’s Joker hanging out the window of a cop car from “The Dark Knight.”

Fellow Founders Fund partner Delian Asparouhov outed himself for being on President Joe Biden’s campaign email list with a joke. (He claims a “troll friend or enemy” signed him up.)

RootVC partner Lee Edwards (and Standard op-ed contributor) tried an appeal to reason to Trump supporters.

And X employee and former startup CEO Chris Bakke used the opportunity to drop an IYKYK venture capital joke in a since-deleted post.

“Me if investing in pre-revenue companies at $45M valuations was illegal:” Bakke wrote, quote tweeting another post listing out the verdict for each count.