(2024-08-16) Why Ben And Felicia Horowitz Made A Shocking Political Uturn

Why Ben and Felicia Horowitz made a shocking political U-turn. In July 2018, at one of Ben Horowitz and Felicia Horowitz’s annual star-studded backyard barbecues at their Atherton estate, Black entertainment and media luminaries Gayle King, Tina Knowles, Terry Crews, and Van Jones mingled with Silicon Valley royals Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan... These kinds of gatherings — of liberal politicians dancing and partying with left-leaning celebrities and tech moguls — were typical for the Horowitzes, who became Silicon Valley power players through Ben’s role in the influential venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz. And their guest list made sense: The Horowitzes were committed Democratic donors. Flash forward to today, and Ben Horowitz has publicly endorsed Donald Trump and — in partnership with co-founder Marc Andreessen — plans to give a “significant” amount of money to his campaign.

The couple’s philanthropic foundation, the Horowitz Family Foundation, gave more than $1 million to the American Jewish World Service, a human rights organization with which Felicia traveled to advocate for sex workers in Cambodia and the transgender community in Uganda, and to the T.D. Jakes Foundation, a self-described “DEIA organization” (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) founded by a prominent Texas pastor.

Several Horowitz friends and acquaintances, who wished to remain anonymous in order to speak freely about the couple, said they noticed a shift in the couple’s politics sometime after 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter demonstrations. The couple enjoyed perhaps their highest ever profile at the start of the pandemic, largely thanks to the social media app Clubhouse, a virtual hangout space in which Andreessen Horowitz led a $100 million fundraising round.

But with the heightened notoriety came increased scrutiny. Andreessen Horowitz drew criticism for not immediately issuing a statement in support of Black Lives Matter; then, after starting a fund for underserved founders, for pledging what some commentators saw as too little.

Multiple sources close to the couple said the social media backlash affected them deeply.

The couple moved out of their longtime home in Atherton, relocating to a $14.5 million estate in Las Vegas set behind four gates.

Other Horowitz associates said they had questioned the couple’s commitment to their causes even before the pandemic. One previous recipient of the couple’s philanthropy said he’d noticed a “conservative streak that was pretty evident.” He added: “They buy their way into these cultural spaces, and I don’t know what they contribute besides money.”

Still, this person was surprised the couple had made their support for Trump public. “I think for such savvy people, it was a very bold statement to say what they said,” he said.

In recent days, tech leaders have questioned whether the couple had staked their bull position on the Trump campaign too early. Andreessen and Horowitz endorsed the former president on July 16, less than one week before Biden dropped out.

Two founders repeated a joke that has been traveling around tech circles, that it was “such a VC thing to buy at the top.”