Two of Silicon Valley’s most venerated investors — who once partnered to back the same startups and earned billions in the process — are now funding opposing sides of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50 redistricting campaign.
Michael Moritz, the former Sequoia Capital venture capitalist and current chairman of The Standard, donated $2.5 million in support of Prop. 50 in September. Meanwhile, his longtime Sequoia partner Doug Leone shelled out $250,000 earlier this month toward a committee opposing the measure.
Prop. 50, which Newsom has dubbed the “Election Rigging Response Act,” will appear before voters in a Nov. 4 special election. (opens in new tab) If approved, the measure would scrap California’s independent congressional maps for the next three election cycles and replace them with districts drawn to favor Democrats. Newsom paints the measure as retaliation against President Donald Trump and Texas Republicans, who have redrawn their own state congressional maps (opens in new tab) to favor the GOP and give the party a better chance to maintain a House majority in the 2026 midterms.
This is simply the latest example of the longtime Sequoia leaders being on opposite sides of the country’s increasingly fractious politics.
Moritz, a prominent Democratic donor, contributed more than $15 million to Democratic candidates in 2024 and has also supported the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. Leone, a longtime Republican benefactor, gave $50,000 (opens in new tab) to a super PAC backing Trump’s 2020 reelection and $2 million to one supporting Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid in 2023. Though he initially condemned Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Leone later renewed his support (opens in new tab) for the former president during the 2024 race.
Both Moritz and Leone joined Sequoia in the 1980s and are credited with growing the firm from a more modest fund into an international powerhouse managing $85 billion in assets. The firm’s investments include Google, PayPal, Airbnb, and Stripe.
Moritz stepped back from day-to-day management in 2012 and left the firm in 2023. Leone remains a partner after giving up Sequoia’s top leadership role in 2022.
Sequoia Capital has long allowed its partners wide latitude to speak their minds publicly — a tradition that has recently sparked internal turmoil. After partner Shaun Maguire posted Islamophobic remarks about New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani over the summer, Sequoia’s chief operating officer, Sumaiya Balbale, resigned in August, the Financial Times reported this week (opens in new tab).
“Mamdani comes from a culture that lies about everything. It’s literally a virtue to lie if it advances his Islamist agenda. The West will learn this lesson the hard way,” Maguire wrote on X (opens in new tab) in July.
Balbale, a practicing Muslim, reportedly raised concerns with senior partners about Maguire’s comments, but Sequoia declined to discipline him, citing his right to free expression. Maguire, who is one of the firm’s most successful investors and has a close relationship with Elon Musk, later walked back some of his comments.
Moritz declined to comment on his Prop. 50 donation and recent developments at Sequoia, and Leone did not respond to a request for comment.
The campaigns for and against Prop. 50 have reported astonishing fundraising amounts, though proponents have amassed far more donors (opens in new tab). Collectively, both sides have raised more than $100 million in the last two months.
Mimi Haas, the mother of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, has given $750,000 to Newsom’s redistricting campaign. Billionaire investor John Pritzker has given $250,000, Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings has donated $2 million, and George Soros’ Fund for Policy Reform has doled out $10 million.
Leone joins the ranks of Charles Munger Jr., a physicist and Republican donor who has donated $30 million opposing the measure. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has also given $1 million from his campaign account to block Prop. 50.