The founders of Andreessen Horowitz say their choice to support Donald Trump’s presidential campaign came down to a few issues, including taxes and cryptocurrency regulation.
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz explained their choice in an episode of “The Ben & Marc Show” released on Monday.
The episode came the same day as a report that Andreessen and Horowitz are preparing to donate to PACs that are supporting Trump’s presidential campaign.
Andreessen recounted his decades of support for Democratic presidential candidates, including an endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008 and his support for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
But in the early 2010s, he said, he started noticing criticism of tech billionaires who were donating their wealth through philanthropy instead of paying more in taxes.
Andreessen said that the “final straw” for switching his support to Trump was Biden’s plan for taxing unrealized capital gains. The plan would mean that venture capitalists’ equity stakes get “whittled down to nothing,” he said.
“This makes startups completely implausible, because why on Earth is anybody going to go do this instead of going to work for Google and getting paid a lot of money every year in cash?” Andreessen said.
Trump isn’t the first GOP presidential candidate that Andreessen has supported. He donated money to a political action committee, or PAC, to back Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign.
Andreessen also said he isn’t happy with the proposals in Washington, largely from Democrats, to regulate cryptocurrencies.
By contrast, he said, he and Horowitz were impressed by the Republican stance on crypto in the party’s latest platform. Under the heading “Champion Innovation,” the document says that the GOP “will end Democrats’ unlawful and unAmerican crypto crackdown and oppose the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency.”
“We will defend the right to mine Bitcoin, and ensure every American has the right to self-custody of their Digital Assets, and transact free from Government Surveillance and Control,” it continues.
“It’s just like a flat-out blanket endorsement of the entire space, like a complete across-the-board uniform embrace of the entire thing,” Andreessen said. “It’s an absolute 180 from what we’ve been experiencing.”
The pair said that they haven’t been able to meet with President Biden, but they have had dinner with Trump and discussed a variety of topics, from AI to crypto, Horowitz said.
Andreessen and Horowitz are the latest wealthy figures in Silicon Valley to throw their support behind Donald Trump. Elon Musk formally endorsed Trump following the assassination attempt on the former president and has reportedly said he’ll give $45 million each month to a pro-Trump PAC.
Silicon Valley executives, venture capitalists, and others have often lent their support to Democratic candidates in the past. But the recent move toward Trump’s GOP marks a shift — and a friction point — for the industry.
Horowitz acknowledged that friction in the episode.
“For Little Tech, we think Donald Trump is actually the right choice,” he said.
“And sorry, Mom, I know you’re going to be mad at me for this, but we had to do it,” he added, looking into the camera.
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