From Elon Musk to Reid Hoffman, where Silicon Valley spends millions in political donations, mapped

If it is hard for ordinary voters to ignore it, it may be even harder for politicians themselves to ignore it, as Oreskovic (Fortune(‘s tech editor) writes: “Silicon Valley’s enormous political contributions have made Washington increasingly dependent on these outspoken technologists.”

We dug through Federal Election Commission (FEC) data since 2020 to quantify those massive political contributions. As in many industries, Big Tech leaders tend to spread their donations across the political spectrum, so we looked at each person’s giving as a whole to determine their political leanings.

The charts below visualize the political donations of Silicon Valley’s most prominent figures to political parties, candidates, and PACs this election cycle, color-coded by whether their total donation is Republican (red) or Democratic (blue). Circle sizes correspond to the amounts donated. They are based on FEC data as of September 20, 2024, and include only individual donations, not those through a corporation or other entity.

The Paypal Mafia

The PayPal Mafia, a term coined in a 2007 report Fortune cover story, refers to a group of fintech innovators who launched the payments startup PayPal in 1998. These men (and they were all men) became some of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley. Other tech “mafias” have followed in their footsteps, but the PayPal mafia, which is the subject of an upcoming film, includes the richest person in the world, Elon Musk of Tesla, SpaceX, and X-fame; venture capitalist Peter Thiel; Reid Hoffman, who founded LinkedIn and was a co-founder of OpenAI; Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures; and David Sacks, an entrepreneur and investor and co-host of the popular podcast “All-In.”

The Crypto Bros

Cryptocurrency investors and proponents are also diving into the political arena. Several prominent figures in the movement lean conservative, opposing the Biden administration’s bitcoin regulations and raising concerns about whether more aggressive regulation is on the way.

Women of Silicon Valley

In an industry notoriously male-dominated, some of the super-rich women who use their fortunes to wield political influence are left-leaning.

Facebook connections

Each of these political power brokers had ties to Mark Zuckerberg’s social media platform and company, Meta. Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder who became CEO of Asana, is a prominent supporter of Democratic causes; so is Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s former chief operating officer. Meanwhile, Palmer Luckey, the maker of the Oculus virtual reality headset, and the Winklevoss twins, who accused Zuckerberg of copying their idea for the website while at Harvard in 2004, have donated to Republicans. Zuckerberg himself is noticeably absent as an individual donor, having funneled his donations through Facebook’s roughly nonpartisan PAC for the past four years rather than giving directly to political candidates.

Big VCs

The biggest names in tech investing are also putting their money into politics. a16z founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz lead the way with a conservative slant, followed by rival holdings at Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures.

The whole valley

For a more complete picture of Big Tech’s political giving, we’ve rounded up dozens of Silicon Valley’s big names and where they’re pouring their billions in the chart below. Hoffman and Moskovitz are the most prominent, having each given more than $55 million to Democrats over the past four years. They’re followed by a handful of conservative VCs: Thiel, Andreessen, and Horowitz.