Historic amounts of money were raised during the 2024 presidential election cycle. Many billionaires threw money at the campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and President-elect Donald Trump. Trump now has tech titan billionaires, who are frequently Democratic donors, courting him at Mar-a-Lago as they brace for a new era in America under a second Trump administration.
Here’s a look back at the mad scramble of the 2024 presidential campaigns and the billionaire donors who fought in the battle for control of the White House.
Harris’s campaign generated over $1 billion. She managed to raise this enormous amount courtesy of 81 billionaires, while her Republican rival had the backing of 51 billionaires.
There were 2,781 billionaires in the world as of April 2024, according to Forbes magazine.
Statistics from the Federal Election Commission and Bloomberg show Harris received enormous donations from former Meta Platforms executive Sheryl Sandberg, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Hollywood director Steven Spielberg. Twenty-eight Democratic billionaires donated $1 million to Harris.
Billionaire Mark Cuban of Shark Tank fame was seen stumping for Harris in the waning months of the presidential campaign. While campaigning for Harris, he made an appearance on ABC’s The View and raised the ire of Republican women when he suggested that Trump does not surround himself with strong, intelligent women. Swift backlash occurred, and Cuban backtracked on his statements. When the election concluded, he congratulated Trump and told him he had won the election “fair and square.”
Harris burned through an enormous amount of campaign funds between July and November, leaving her $20 million in debt after having raised over $1 billion.
The campaign made numerous high-priced expenditures, including paying celebrities and content creator influencers to participate in rallies and post content in support of the Democratic nominee. One TikTok influencer claimed that the campaign had offered her $50,000 to flip her support from Trump to Harris.
Numerous TikTok and Instagram influencers were cashing in thousands to post their support for Harris. People First, a firm hired by the Harris campaign, reportedly paid influencers anywhere from $200 to $100,000 for posts in 2024.
Left-wing megadonor Alex Soros, in charge of his father’s $25 billion kingdom, hosted Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), at his home in New York City, alongside his fiancée and former Hillary Clinton adviser Huma Abedin in September.
Trump’s circle of billionaire supporters made their own presence known in the 2024 election.
In June, tech investors David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya hosted a high-dollar fundraiser in San Francisco for Trump. Attendees paid anywhere from $50,000 to $300,000 to get in.
Billionaire X CEO Elon Musk jumped into the 2024 election with full-throated support for Trump’s campaign following the first assassination attempt on Trump in July. Musk created a super PAC named America PAC, which the Associated Press reports to have spent an estimated $200 million over a four-month span to help elect Trump by helping boost turnout and voter registration in battleground states.
The SpaceX executive joined the campaign trail, hosting events in Pennsylvania and appearing at Trump rallies to show his support.
Following Trump’s win, Musk spent time with him at Mar-a-Lago, helping advise on Cabinet plans for the new administration. CNN’s Gloria Borger gave him the nickname of “first buddy.”
Trump announced in late November that he asked Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to help lead the Department of Government Efficiency, a new commission to cut federal government spending.
As the president-elect has been preparing his transition, Cabinet picks, and policy agenda for his next term beginning in January 2025, influential tech billionaires have been lining up to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Meta executive Mark Zuckerberg visited Trump at the famous estate at the end of November. Zuckerberg, who has been a longtime supporter of Democratic causes, decided to opt out of endorsing candidates this election cycle. He admitted in July that he was stunned by Trump’s handling of his first assassination attempt.
Mark Zuckerberg just called Trump’s reaction after getting sh*t “One of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.”
pic.twitter.com/QeQ5JU7N4i
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 19, 2024
“Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most bada** things I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said in an interview.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, arrived at Mar-a-Lago on Dec. 18 to meet with Trump, alongside his fiancé, Lauren Sanchez. Following the meeting, he pledged to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Earlier in December, Bezos said in a New York Times interview that he is “very optimistic” about Trump’s incoming administration having a “growth mindset” to help entrepreneurial success in America. During the campaign, he stopped the Washington Post from endorsing a presidential candidate. In his written defense of stopping the newspaper’s endorsements, he said they create a “perception of bias.”
Prior to Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Trump and Musk at Mar-a-Lago on Dec. 13.
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Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who once called Trump’s 2016 win “deeply offensive,” met with the president-elect on Dec. 12. Brin was married to Nicole Shanahan, who became Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate. Shanahan was outspoken at the end of the election about how disturbed she was with the Democratic Party’s tactics to stop her 2024 presidential campaign with Kennedy.
Uber joined the list of tech companies pouring money into Trump’s inauguration fund by giving $1 million.