Silicon Valley Tech Mogul Responds to Trump Verdict With Whopping $300K Donation

  

After New York jurors handed down a unanimous guilty verdict against Donald Trump on Thursday, a few things happened.

Former president Donald Trump spoke about the verdict and the judge outside the courthouse (if you missed his remarks, you can watch them in the second piece below).

READ MORE: BREAKING: Jury Returns Guilty Verdict Against Former President Donald Trump

WATCH: Donald Trump Reacts to 34-Count Guilty Verdict in NY Case

Then the Trump donation page crashed amid the deluge of folks hopping on it; many people reported it on the X platform:

Our colleagues at Townhall.com covered  both the site crashing and its intermittent reappearance — with a noticeable rebranding in place:

Shortly after former President Trump was found guilty on all charges in the hush money trial, his campaign website redirected visitors to a fundraising page, which promptly crashed.  

“Is this the end of America? I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial: I DID NOTHING WRONG! They’ve raided my home, arrested me, took my mugshot, AND NOW THEY’VE JUST CONVICTED ME!” the message on the site read before it temporarily went down. 

…

Once the former president’s campaign site got back online, it was updated to identify him as a political prisoner. It also features his mugshot from his arraignment in the Georgia election case along with the words “NEVER SURRENDER.” 

Here’s the “new look” donation site:

My colleague at sister site Hot Air, Ed Morrissey, was kind to point out a “very lengthy Twitter ‘article,’ a new form of publishing on the platform,” which tech mogul Shaun Maguire wrote and shared Thursday in the wake of the verdict–and it’s not going to make Biden or the progressive Democrats all that happy/secure about the momentum going into the summer conventions.

Why’s that? His article is a companion to a generous $300,000 donation to the Donald Trump For President page.

I’ll share just some excerpts here; you can read the full article at the direct X link.

Here’s the disclaimer Maguire shared at the end, which frames the testimonial well:

*Note that everything in this post reflects my personal views and not the views of my employer. I work in Silicon Valley which traditionally leans very far left. I’m lucky to work at a place that tolerates spirited debate and independent thinking. If the truth is in the middle, it’s impossible to find it without sharing our ideas and debating each other.

But it was with this stunning lede that Shaun Maguire opened his pitch: “I just donated $300k to Trump. I’m prepared to lose friends. Here’s why.”

He continued:

Back in 2016 I had drunk the media Kool-Aid and was scared out of my mind about Trump. As such I donated to Hilary Clinton’s campaign and voted for her.

By 2020 I was disillusioned and didn’t vote – I didn’t like either option.

Now, in 2024, I believe this is one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I’m supporting Trump.

I know that I’ll lose friends for this. Some will refuse to do business with me. The media will probably demonize me, as they have so many others before me. But despite this, I still believe it’s the right thing to do. 

I refuse to live in a society where people are afraid to speak.

Adding to the surprising move, Maguire admitted “something provocative”: He still believes the Russia collusion story about 2016 (sort of). He wrote, in part:

I’m going to start off with something provocative, but I think it leads to a different take on the most controversial Trump issue, which is obviously January 6th. So here goes nothing.

I believe the 2016 election was manipulated to hurt Hilary Clinton and to help Donald Trump.

…

Russia (and others) interfering in the 2016 election was nothing new, this happens in every election, everywhere in the world. Obviously.

But for me, as someone that used to work in National Security, Russia’s implicit support for Trump made me deathly afraid of him getting elected as President.

I was wrong, and Russia miscalculated. President Trump turned out to be a master of foreign policy and particularly strong towards Russia.

As Ed Morrissey mentioned in his heads-up on the news, linked above, the piece is not short. But I cannot leave out this part near the end, where Maguire gave a masterful pitch for supporting Donald Trump:

Do I agree with Trump on everything? Of course not. The area where I disagree with Republicans the most is on Women’s rights [abortion; although Macguire agrees in another bit of the piece that the law on it should be decided by the states]. And I’m sure I’ll disagree with some of Trump’s policies in the future.

But in general I think he was surprisingly prescient, such as with the border wall, and he was also a masterful negotiator, such as with the Abraham accords.

There’s a real chance President Trump is convicted of felony charges and sentenced to prison. Bluntly, that’s part of why I’m supporting him. I believe our justice system is being weaponized against him.

If abortion is your most important issue, then I get it, vote for Biden. If any other topic is your most important issue, then do your homework and investigate the manipulation I outlined above.

Given the two choices, I believe President Trump is overwhelmingly the stronger candidate. Again, this is something I couldn’t have imagined saying in 2016. 

As one X user suggested, this courageous donation could just be the start of the dam breaking in Silicon Valley: