San Franciscans like to think of themselves as an enlightened bunch — from the love-parading nudists to the techno-utopian seasteaders, we know what's up. However, in recent years, the reputation of the quintessentially Bay Area technology industry has taken a beating as those employed within it seemingly do their best to be as clueless, sexist, and generally compassion-less as possible. And so, with an out-of-touch misogynist running for president, we braced ourselves for the possibility that campaign contribution numbers would reveal the tech industry and its nerd libertarians as a bastion of support for Donald J. Trump. Well guess what, the tech sector delightfully surprised us.
"We couldn't find any high-profile tech execs who have donated to Trump's campaign," reports Business Insider, "but according to Crowdpac, Trump ranked last among presidential candidates who have raised money from the technology sector. Trump has raised only $14,000 from tech, compared to Bernie Sanders' $3.2 million."
And that's not just because we're all a bunch of lefties here — indeed, the publication notes that "[despite] Silicon Valley's reputation for liberal politics, much of the money spent this election is going to the Republican Party." For example, Oracle founder (a.k.a. America's Cup guy) Larry Ellison gave $5 million in support of Marco Rubio, and PayPal founder Peter Thiel (really into seasteading) gave $2 million in support of Carly Fiorina. Angel investor Scott Banister gave $2 million to Rand Paul but now supports Ted Cruz. And Chicago-based venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker of the Pritzker family has given $1.9 million to the Hillary Clinton-supporting Super PAC Priorities USA Action.
It seems that despite the Donald's borderline obsessive love for iconic tech services like Twitter, the industry is just not that into him.
Related: SF Ranks 2nd In Highest Per Capita Campaign Contributions To Bernie Sanders