Donald Trump boasts of being a strong man like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but that is probably wishful thinking. Even when he holds a California fundraiser, Trump keeps the location secret. This is what happened.
POTUS fly to the never-visited state this week for a fundraiser. Yet, he traveled under a heavy veil of mystery. The people around him said that they were worried about violence and the president’s safety.
Tickets for the clandestine event ran up to $100,000 for each couple. After people arrived at a pre-designated parking spot, the guests were “transported” to the fundraiser. Even the attendees were kept in the dark about where it was held and the host’s name.
Only a few dozen protesters with a Trump Chicken balloon uncovered where the fundraiser was being held. Angry Baby Trump balloon protesters had been searching for the location, too.
As it turned out, former Sun Microsystems CEO and current executive chair of Wayin Scott McNealy had that honor. The company he heads advises marketers how to use the social media. One of McNealy’s neighbors let the secret out after noticing tents outside of the Palo Alto home.
Big tech companies’ employees have leaned Democratic in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Trump avoided California tech people in the 2016 primary.
McNealy said in an earlier interview on CNBC that CEO’s were, according to The Wall Street Journal.
‘(Relieved) eight years of waterboarding” had stopped under the new administration (Trump).’ I’ve always said, the worst CEO is a thousand times better than the best politician in this job in the White House.’
Thus far according to public records, McNealy has not donated to the Trump campaign. He and his wife supported two other Republicans in the 2016 GOP primary.
Last November, Trump held an innovation roundtable for tech executives. Among those invited were:
‘Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Oracle Corp. co-CEO Safra Catz and Qualcomm Inc. CEO Steve Mollenkopf.’
However, not one of those executives has donated to his campaign FEC records indicated:
‘Prominent Republican donors in Silicon Valley who declined to support Mr. Trump in 2016 have largely stuck to their decisions. Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, spent $5 million backing Sen. Marco Rubio in the GOP presidential primary, but he has never donated to Mr. Trump. Republican billionaire Meg Whitman, the former Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. CEO, said in 2016 that she would back Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump. In April, FEC records show she donated to the campaign of John Hickenlooper, who has since exited the Democratic primary.’
GOP National Committeewoman from California Harmeet Dhillon raised $100,000 for the fundraiser. She noted:
‘(Protests were) a given. It’s one reason why no one’s going to tell you where the location is.’
Director of Engineering for software company Autodesk, Inc., Matthew Berggren donated to Trump in 2016. Berggren considers himself a libertarian and appreciated Trump’s loosening of regulations. Even so, when he got an invitation to Trump’s fundraiser, he tossed it. Berggren said:
‘We have this lunatic mouthpiece.’
There have been a few tech company supporters:
‘Mr. Trump does have a handful of major supporters in Silicon Valley. Peter Thiel, the PayPal Inc. co-founder and venture capitalist, late in the campaign poured $1 million into a super PAC supporting Mr. Trump and has continued to back him this cycle. His spokesman didn’t respond to a question about whether he planned to raise money for the president.’
Harmeet Dhillon, the Republican national committeewoman from California said she raised about $100,000 for the event. The president’s people believed the California fundraiser would bring in three million dollars.
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