The Silicon Valley billionaires who brought Democrats to historic fundraising highs in 2024 have officially stepped off their white horses. Many major Bay Area donors — tech executives and VCs who each poured millions into last year’s presidential election — have so far appeared to donate nothing to national politics in 2025, while their Republican counterparts have kept the money flowing.
According to the latest tranche of mid-year Federal Election Commission filings, major tech-related figures like Laurene Powell Jobs, Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, and venture capitalist Michael Moritz, who is also chairman of The Standard, appear to have not donated a dime to federal candidates or fundraising committees so far this year — contributing to a shortfall of tens of millions that Democrats face nationally compared with Republicans.
Burned by a decisive loss in last year’s presidential election and frustrated with how party leadership handled the race, Silicon Valley power players are putting away their pocketbooks.
“[Donors] are very discouraged, more than I’ve ever seen,” said one Democratic donor adviser who asked to remain anonymous to discuss private conversations. “They are withholding the money until they see a plan and until they see strong leadership that stands up to Donald Trump.”
“When Trump was first elected, people were like, ‘We are strong. We can do this. We need to get together,’” he added. “I'm not seeing any of that now.”
While newly right-wing venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz poured millions into GOP-aligned PACs this year, their Democratic peers stayed largely silent. Moritz, a fellow venture capitalist who donated more than $15 million to the Democratic ticket in 2024 but had given nothing this year as of June 30. Moskovitz, the largest Bay Area donor of the last election cycle, at $51 million, also gave nothing.
Moritz declined to comment; Moskovitz did not respond to a request for comment. The Standard calculated 2025 giving by searching donations to the major Democratic Party PACs and searching for individual contributions on the FEC database; some donations may not have been entered into the FEC system at the time of publication.
Some of the drop-off may be simply because 2025 is a political “off year” without a midterm or presidential election. Moskovitz, for example, similarly donated nothing in 2021 and 2017, the last two off years.
But some of the Democrats hiding their pocketbooks this year have donated generously during off years in the past: By this time in 2021, Moritz had handed $1 million to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump PAC; Powell Jobs by this point in 2021 and 2017 had already donated tens of thousands of dollars to candidates and committees.
And the off year hasn’t stopped Republican tech-industry donors from funneling money to their candidates and committees, leaving the Republican National Committee with a whopping $80.7 million in cash on hand, compared with the Democrats’ $15.2 million — in part thanks to donations from Silicon Valley luminaries like Peter Thiel, Oculus VR inventor Palmer Luckey, and Google cofounder Sergey Brin.
A spokesperson for the DNC said the group had raised more than $50 million since the start of the year, “largely thanks to Chair Ken Martin raising more than any other new DNC chair in committee history in their first months on the job.” Still, both the RNC and NRCC out-raised their Democratic counterparts last month, with the RNC bringing in double the haul of the DNC.
Powell Jobs and Moskovitz were both major supporters of Future Forward, the top Democratic PAC last cycle, which raised a historic $900 million. But even that wasn’t enough to secure Democrats a victory, and Future Forward and the Harris campaign have pointed fingers at each other, leaving some major donors frustrated with both.
“There is animus [among donors] toward some of the federal super PACs that raised and spent unprecedented amounts of money and, by their own admission, fell short,” said Brian Brokaw, an adviser who consults regularly with wealthy donors.
“A number of major donors were told by the Harris campaign up until the very end that they were likely to win,” he added. “So when every book comes out saying the campaign knew in the final days and weeks they were toast, there's some residual ill will.”
Even American Bridge, the Democratic PAC looking to take the mantle from Future Forward in the face of last year’s defeat, has failed to attract any big-name Silicon Valley donors so far this year, despite hosting a lavish conference at the San Francisco Four Seasons this spring. The group disclosed that it has raised $4.8 million this year, compared with nearly $10.3 million at this point in 2021.
Other major donors who sat out the first half of this year include Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson and his wife Erica, who gave nearly $4 million last election cycle; and Tom Steyer, who donated at least $1.6 million. Former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who donated more than $1 million in the last election cycle, has given just one donation of $3,500 to an Arizona House candidate. None of these donors responded to requests for comment.
A few major donors, however, stayed steadfast: Venture capitalist Ron Conway gave more than $500,000 to Democratic candidates and committees; Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings wrote a $1.7 million check to the House Majority PAC; and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman has given more than $470,000 to Democratic candidates and party-aligned PACs.
Those who did not contribute to federal candidates may be donating to local races, such as the California gubernatorial race, or to philanthropic endeavors. Powell Jobs, for instance, reportedly funded a February summit on how to use social media to win elections; Moritz, meanwhile, recently gave $3.4 million to the San Francisco government through his Crankstart foundation to support legal defense work for immigrants.
The donor adviser said he recently met with a wealthy client who told him she was pivoting away from political giving after the last election and toward direct causes like LBGTQ+ equality and abortion rights. “She was like, ‘What I did last time didn't work,’” he said.
There are some fledgling signs of political excitement: One adviser to high-net-worth donors said many of them are animated by the concept of "abundance," a political theory pushed forward by The New York Times journalist Ezra Klein that encourages deregulation in order to build quickly.
“Donors love that,” the adviser said, also requesting anonymity in order to share private discussions. At a recent Senate Democratic retreat, he witnessed Klein autographing dozens of copies of his book “Abundance,” written with Derek Thompson, for lawmakers. “Everyone’s trying to say nice things about abundance, because the donors like it,” he said.
Brokaw said he has seen donor excitement around the effort to redistrict California in a way that’s more favorable to Democrats. He added that he expects donations to return to normal levels as the midterms approach and the stakes get higher next year.
“It was inevitable that a lot of the heavy-hitter donor class was gonna keep their checkbooks in their pockets until this dust has settled,” he said. “But as we approach a primary election and midterms, you’re going to see much more of a typical investment.”