Speaking in an interview with Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow about a Silicon Valley fundraiser he recently helped host on behalf of former President Donald Trump, key Silicon Valley figure David Sacks, a member of the so-called “PayPal Mafia” who helped found and sell PayPal with Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and others, said that the fundraiser was a huge success.
Sacks, as background, is a venture capitalist who went on after PayPal’s success to do other great things in Silicon Valley. A former South African who, like Musk, immigrated to America, Sacks is much more of a committed conservative than Musk and, like fellow PayPal Mafia personality Peter Thiel, is a sometimes supporter of Trump.
He then co-hosted, following the Trump verdict in New York, a fundraiser to help support the former president’s 2024 campaign. The other host of the fundraiser was Chamath Palihapitiya, a fellow big hitter in Silicon Valley, though not known, unlike Sacks, for conservative politics. The two are also co-hosts of the “All-In” podcast, a huge hit among technologists and entrepreneurs.
In any case, speaking to Kudlow about the Bay Area event and the huge success it turned into, said, “When we agreed to do this event, we started off– the question was whether we could just raise $5 million, and that was the goal because as you well know, the Bay Area, is sort of a liberal bastion, and so we thought that $5 million might be a big lift.”
Continuing, he explained that, rather than being a hard goal to reach, the event blew well past $5 million, raking in $12 million for the former president, and was hugely attended. Sacks said the event had “tremendous turnout,” and “We couldn’t fit one more seat in the place.” He added, “We were completely sold out” and that the “enthusiasm” of the crowd could even be felt “outside the room.”
Sacks then explained that, though leftist protesters showed up, the Trump crowd was far more energetic. “Even with the protesters, there was a tremendous enthusiasm gap between the pro-Trump side and the pro-Biden side,” he said. Emphasizing what that could mean for the 2024 election, he noted, “And if that’s in liberal San Francisco, what does that tell you about the rest of the country?”
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That Bay Area fundraiser was just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to the huge amount he received after the verdict and from Sack’s event, Trump raked in donations from other fundraisers in California and Nevada. Between the Sacks fundraiser, two other California events, and a Las Vegas fundraiser, Trump managed to bring in, Fox News Digital reports, about $27.5 million.
Speaking to Fox News Digital about the successes, Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes noted that there were “massive turnouts at public events and fundraising events this weekend.” He then added that “donors at every level are giving us the resources we need, and enthusiastic voters in every corner of the country are creating an unstoppable movement to Make America Great Again.”