After President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race on Sunday, Silicon Valley’s prominent Democrats weighed in on whether the party should crown Vice President Kamala Harris as nominee or run an open convention.
On Monday, Ron Conway, founder and managing partner at the venture firm SV Angel, tweeted his “unwavering support” for Harris. Former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg declared her support in an Instagram post, calling Harris “an accomplished leader, a fierce advocate of abortion rights and the strongest candidate to lead our country forward.”
The tech community must come together to defeat Donald Trump and save our democracy by uniting behind Vice President @KamalaHarris as the Democratic nominee for President. I have known Kamala for decades, and she's been a fighter, a leader, and an advocate for the tech ecosystem…
— Ron Conway (@RonConway) July 22, 2024
LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, a major Democratic donor, said Sunday that he “wholeheartedly” supports Harris.
The Democrats are the party of policy, progress, and action. When presented with the choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, I believe in the American people to make the right decision for our country. The Biden-Harris administration has put this country on the right…
— Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) July 21, 2024
But Vinod Khosla, the venture capitalist whose firm bears his name, on Sunday published several posts on X calling for an open convention.
“Too much is at stake to not have a proper process at the convention, hopefully with ranked choice voting there,” he said.
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The list of donors to Harris’ past campaigns is a who’s who of Silicon Valley: Conway, John Doerr of the venture firm Kleiner Perkins, former Apple design guru Jony Ive and Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff, among others.
Laurene Powell Jobs hosted a fundraiser for Harris in her backyard in 2013, according to the New York Times. And Harris’ brother-in-law is Uber’s chief legal officer, Tony West.
In the U.S. Senate, Harris tackled data privacy issues. As vice president, she helped the Biden administration advocate for regulations on artificial intelligence.
Silicon Valley donors have been increasingly vocal about their preferences around regulation of artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and other technologies; they’ll no doubt be scrutinizing Harris’ record for signs of what stances her administration might take on such issues.