The Silicon Valley billionaire giving millions to Wisconsin Democrats

Using a loophole in state law left open by Republicans, the co-founder of LinkedIn and major tech investor has donated heavily to the state Democratic Party in recent years.

By Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT

In the last couple decades, Reid Hoffman has helped build many of the top tech companies Americans now use on a daily basis: PayPal, Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb.

But in recent years, and unlike the rightward tilt of fellow Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Hoffman has increasingly used the fortune made there to try and support the Democratic Party and its politicians.

Especially in America’s Dairyland. Since 2020, Hoffman has given the Wisconsin Democratic Party nearly $9 million, according to the Follow the Money database, which collects campaign finance reports from states.

Only Richard Uihlein, the Republican billionaire megadonor and founder of shipping supply company ULINE, has given more to politicians and parties in Wisconsin in that time — about $9.7 million.

Just a decade ago, this type of massive political donating would not have been possible. Campaign finance law in Wisconsin capped total political donations at $10,000 per year. Once you hit that, you couldn’t donate anymore until the following year.

But a United States Supreme Court case, McCutcheon v. FEC, issued in 2014, ruled that total limits on a person’s political giving violate their First Amendment rights.

That and other court cases have allowed politlical parties in Wisconsin to received and distribute unlimited amounts of political cash. Democrats have proposed installing limits on political parties, but Republicans who have controlled the legislature since 2011 have so far refused to do so.

So the Democrats and their megadonors have used it to their advantage.

It’s unclear why Hoffman, a lifelong resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, has taken so much interest in Wisconsin politics.

Messages to his investment firm, Greylock Partners, were not answered.

But because of the loophole in campaign finance law, his millions can go far in this vital swing state.

Hoffman’s first political donation in Wisconsin came in 2018, when he gave $5,400 — the maximum allowed by federal law at the time — to Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s reelection bid, according to campaign finance records. That was the first election after Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency.

He quickly pivoted to making donations to the Wisconsin Democratic Party, to which he can give millions.

And Hoffman has plenty of cash to send through that loophole. Forbes estimates his net worth at $2.5 billion. He was an early employee at PayPal in the early 2000s, and along with other members of the “PayPal Mafia” like Musk and Thiel, he made a boatload when it sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

He then helped launch LinkedIn, was an early investor in Facebook and now sits on the board of Microsoft. He is heavily involved in the development of Artificial Intelligence.

Hoffman has donated at least $7 million to Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. But he has also called for her to replace Lina Khan, the Biden Administration’s 35-year-old head of the Federal Trade Commission, a government agency that focuses on consumer protection. It tried and failed to block Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of the video game company Activision Blizzard.

Hoffman is not the only super-rich person trying to use his wealth to influence elections in Wisconsin. Many others are also taking advantage of the campaign finance loophole here to get millions to their preferred political party and candidates.

The Badger Project is an independent, reader-supported news nonprofit in Wisconsin.