Trump in liberal San Francisco for high-dollar tech fundraiser

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will attend a fundraiser hosted by two tech venture capitalists in San Francisco on Thursday, a high-dollar event expected to draw Silicon Valley investors turned off by the Biden administration's policies.

Venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, as well as Sacks' wife Jacqueline, will host the reception and dinner with Trump, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.

The gathering - where top tickets are $500,000 per couple - is sold out, a source with knowledge of the fundraiser told Reuters. It could raise between $10 million and $15 million, according to another source.

While San Francisco is heavily liberal - Democrat Joe Biden won 85% of the city's vote in the 2020 election against then-president Trump - a growing number of high-profile local venture capitalists have thrown their support behind Trump ahead of his November rematch against Biden.

Trevor Traina, a San Francisco-based tech executive and former Trump ambassador to Austria, said business regulations implemented during Biden's presidency had alienated some people in the tech industry.

Biden last week vetoed what he described as a Republican-led resolution that would "inappropriately constrain the SEC's ability to set forth appropriate guardrails and address future issues" relating to cryptocurrency assets.

"That might have been just the final domino," Traina said of why some tech executives were now backing Trump.

The crypto industry is increasingly trying to influence U.S. politicians as it faces heightened scrutiny from regulators, especially since bankruptcies at major crypto firms in 2022 spooked investors, exposed fraud and misconduct, and left millions of investors out of pocket.

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