Four years ago, tech adviser Jacob Helberg was raising money within his elite circle for the losing presidential campaign of Democrat Pete Buttigieg. But the pandemic, an artificial intelligence arms race against China, and taking up a crusade to ban TikTok in the United States began to shift his views and party allegiances, he says.
Today, Helberg’s previously unreported $1 million donation to the Trump campaign shoots him into the upper echelon of the former president’s donors at a time when Donald Trump’s campaign trails President Biden’s in the money chase. Helberg is part of a small but influential cohort of tech leaders that have decided to back the former president — despite their own waffling and the industry’s broader hostility toward Trump.
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The bulk of Helberg’s contribution — $844,600 — went to the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee. At least 20 donors had donated the maximum amount of more than $800,000 to the Trump 47 committee by the end of March, according to the most recent reports available from the Federal Election Commission. Trump has been urging more donors to join that elite circle as he has appeared at several high-profile fundraisers over the past month-and-a-half. Helberg is the only publicly known maxed-out donor who hails from the tech world.
