Trump kicks off Silicon Valley charm offensive with sold-out fundraiser

Donald Trump has raised $12mn at a fundraiser for top venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in San Francisco, marking the most significant sign yet that the former Republican president is making inroads in the Democratic stronghold.

Trump began a three-day West Coast charm offensive on Thursday at the sold-out event hosted by Silicon Valley investor David Sacks at his $20mn mansion on billionaire s row in the city s ritzy Pacific Heights district.

Ryan Selkis, the chief executive of cryptocurrency intelligence group Messari, who attended the event, told the Financial Times Trump spoke on artificial intelligence, energy and crypto and had his audience eating out of his hands .

It felt like a particularly wild moment in Silicon Valley politics, he said, adding: The blue wall has been breached.

The event, coming just days after Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of felony in New York last week, cost between $50,000 and $300,000 a head, according to Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican party official and lawyer whose firm represents the former president.

The fervour revealed the extent to which some luminaries of Silicon Valley, long considered a particularly liberal part of a blue state, are warming to Trump as they fret over issues such as free speech, technology regulation and taxes. The crypto sector in particular has felt aggrieved by what it sees as a hostile regulatory regime under President Joe Biden s administration.

via www.ft.com

And this is in the Financial Times, generally considered a leftish outlet, right Dearime?