Yahoo Finance Trump-friendly billionaires from Elon Musk to Bill Ackman offer new support following conviction
Donald Trump’s conviction on falsifying business records led to an immediate reaction from his stable of friendly billionaires.
In the hours after the verdict, figures like Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, investor David Sacks, and Pershing Square Capital CEO Bill Ackman all offered their support online.
It’s just the latest example of billionaire supporters flocking to Donald Trump. They have already helped reshape the 2024 race in recent months with Trump vacuuming up magnate money to lessen his fundraising gap with Joe Biden.
One show of support came from David Sacks, a billionaire tech investor who is reportedly set to host a Silicon Valley fundraiser for Trump in the coming weeks.
He immediately reacted to the verdict by posting that "there is now only one issue in this election: whether the American people will stand for the USA becoming a Banana Republic."
Trump and his supporters have long dismissed the trial as politically motivated.
The former president was convicted Thursday on 34 counts related to falsifying business records around a $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The prosecution successfully convinced the jury that Daniels was paid in order to influence the results of the 2016 election.
There is little expectation that Trump’s multiple convictions will lose him support in donor corners.
In a Yahoo Finance Live appearance after the verdict, Veda Partners director of economic policy Henrietta Treyz pointed out that many donors have been giving in recent months even as they watched for this verdict.
“I don't think he will lose any support from the high-dollar donors,” she said.
Increasing billionaire engagement
Another quick respondent was Musk, who weighed in quickly with a series of posts on the "troubling" verdict.
"Great damage was done today to the public’s faith in the American legal system," he said in one.
The posts came after a new Wall Street Journal report earlier this week revealed Musk's close engagement and access with Trump, with the two men having phone conversations multiple times a month.
Musk has said he doesn’t plan to give Trump money but has thrown his support behind him while other billionaires are opening their wallets.
Figures from Blackstone (BX) CEO Steve Schwarzman and hotel tycoon Robert Bigelow to Continental Resources founder and chairman Harold Hamm have all been prominent Trump givers in recent months.
The influx has helped Trump raise about $76 million in April and best Biden's $51 million total that month. Trump raised over $50 million at a single event with billionaires in early April.
But Biden is still ahead when it comes to cash in the bank, with $192 million saved across his operation at the beginning of May.
Biden’s campaign has been slamming Trump’s coziness with these elites but has nevertheless raised some money from business leaders himself.
A West Coast fundraising trip from Biden in early May saw the President stop at an event co-hosted by Marissa Mayer, the former CEO of Yahoo. Another stop, according to pool reports, was at the home of Jon Shirley, the former president of Microsoft (MSFT).
But, at least this week, much of the most vocal business leader commentary has come in on Trump’s side.
Take Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital. The Financial Times reported on his Trump leanings just this week, and the billionaire himself made it more official after Thursday's verdict.
He reposted (and seconded) a message from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that said that the verdict was a result of "the political agenda of some kangaroo court."
How this high-dollar support translates to votes remains to be seen.
Treyz pointed to DeSantis (whom Ackman had previously supported) as an example of a candidate who was able to attract high-dollar donors — but less adept at translating that into votes.
“Everybody gets one vote no matter how much money you give,” she noted.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
Click here for politics news related to business and money
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
