Doug Leone, a Silicon Valley billionaire investor worth several billion US dollars, has announced his renewed support for former President Donald Trump’s re-election bid. Three years ago, after the January 6th Capitol Hill incident, Leone temporarily withdrew his backing for Trump. However, he has now publicly declared his intention to stand behind the former president once again.
On Monday, Leone took to social media to express his concerns about the country’s direction, citing issues such as a broken immigration system, growing deficits, flawed foreign policies, and other pressing matters. He stated his support for Trump in the upcoming elections, highlighting his worries about the state of the nation.
From 1996 to 2022, Leone has been running the venture capital firm Sequoia in the predominantly progressive Silicon Valley, making him one of Trump’s major donors. In 2020, he joined a special task force of around 200 business leaders advising the White House on rebooting the US economy amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, Leone condemned Trump’s role in the Capitol Hill incident, stating that the president had lost his support due to his actions and those of other rally speakers inciting the rioters. He emphasized the need for the country to move forward by supporting the newly elected president and addressing the challenges facing America.
Despite his condemnation of the Capitol Hill event, records from the Federal Election Commission show that Leone and his wife, Patricia Leone, continued donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaign activities and causes in the years following January 6th.
Leone is not the only billionaire recently reaffirming support for Trump’s candidacy. Stephen Schwarzman, CEO and co-founder of real estate giant Blackstone, announced his endorsement for Trump and other Republican candidates in the upcoming elections. While Schwarzman had been a supporter of Trump during his presidency, he had previously urged the Republican Party to seek new leadership following the 2022 midterm elections, where some Trump-backed candidates in key battleground states faced defeat.
However, Schwarzman’s stance changed due to what he described as a sharp rise in antisemitism in America, prompting him to pay closer attention to the upcoming elections’ consequences. Like many Americans, he expressed concerns about the country’s economic, immigration, and foreign policies heading in the wrong direction, leading him to support change and Trump’s presidential candidacy.
Just days before Leone’s announcement of renewed support for Trump, a jury in New York found Trump guilty in a contentious trial, making him the first former president in US history to be convicted. The trial stemmed from a payment made to a pornographic star before the 2016 election, which Trump vehemently denied and denounced as a manipulated and highly unfair conspiracy aimed at preventing his return to the White House.
Despite the verdict, Trump’s campaign team swiftly raised nearly $53 million within 24 hours of the Manhattan jury’s ruling of Trump committing “falsifying business records.”
On Monday, Trump’s campaign team and the Republican National Committee (RNC) released a statement revealing their overwhelming financial success in May, where they collectively received $141 million in donations. They attributed this significant financial achievement to over two million contributions with an average donation of $70.27, indicating that a quarter of May’s donors were first-time contributors, making it the highest donation-receiving month for Trump’s campaign thus far.
Expressing gratitude for the continued support, senior advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles from Trump’s campaign team highlighted the public’s skepticism towards the perceived manipulation in Joe Biden’s administration and the Democratic Party, sending a powerful message that the true judgment will come on November 5th.