Formation | 2019 |
---|---|
Founders | JD Vance and Chris Buskirk |
Purpose | Political advocacy |
The Rockbridge Network is a conservative political advocacy group founded by JD Vance and Chris Buskirk.
The Rockbridge Network was founded in 2019 by JD Vance and Chris Buskirk. [1]
The group was first reported on in 2022 by The New York Times . The Network held a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in 2022. [2] Backed by Silicon Valley investors, it became known for its connections to tech investors and its support of Donald Trump's nationalist agenda. [3]
The network has a significant budget for the 2024 U.S. elections. [3] In April 2024 Donald Trump called in to a meeting the group was hosting at Mar-a-Lago. [1] James Blair, political director for the Trump campaign, and Donald Trump Jr. have also spoken to the group. [4] [5]
The group describes itself as a "political venture capital firm.” [2]
The Rockbridge Network aims to influence U.S. politics by supporting right-wing media, voter turnout efforts, and election polling. [3]
The group is backed by Silicon Valley figures, including some without a history of political giving. Other funds come from traditional Republican donors looking for new innovative organizations to give to. [1] Major donors include Peter Thiel and Rebekah Mercer. [6] Vance and Thiel have a long history of working together with Thiel backing many of Vance's commercial and political ventures. [7] As of 2023, the group had approximately 125 members. [5]
Peter Andreas Thiel is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. As of July 2024, Thiel had an estimated net worth of $11.2 billion and was ranked 212th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Reid Garrett Hoffman is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman is the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking. He is also chairman of venture capital firm Village Global and a co-founder of Inflection AI.
David Oliver Sacks is a South African-American entrepreneur, author, and investor in internet technology firms. He is a general partner of Craft Ventures, a venture capital fund he co-founded in late 2017. Additionally, he is a co-host of the All In podcast, alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg. Previously, Sacks was the COO and product leader of PayPal, and founder and CEO of Yammer. In 2016, he became interim CEO of Zenefits for ten months. In 2017, Sacks co-founded Craft Ventures, an early-stage venture fund. His angel investments include Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, and Airbnb.
Timothy Mellon is an American businessman, the grandson of Andrew Mellon, and an heir to the Mellon banking fortune. As of June 2024, Forbes estimated the Mellon family's net worth at $14.1 billion.
Joseph Lonsdale is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He co-founded companies including Palantir Technologies, Addepar, and OpenGov, and co-founded and serves as the managing partner at the technology investment firm 8VC.
Keith Rabois is an American technology executive and investor. He is a managing director at Khosla Ventures. He was an early-stage startup investor, and executive, at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide, and Square. Rabois invested in Yelp and the Xoom Corporation prior to each company's initial public offering (IPO). For both investments he insisted on being a board of directors member.
Robert Leroy Mercer is an American hedge fund manager, computer scientist, and political donor. Mercer was an early artificial intelligence researcher and developer and is the former co-CEO of the hedge fund company Renaissance Technologies.
Blake Gates Masters is an American venture capitalist and former political candidate. Frequently referred to as a protégé of businessman Peter Thiel, Masters co-wrote Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future with Thiel in 2014, based on notes Masters had taken at Stanford Law School in 2012. He later served as chief operating officer (COO) of Thiel's investment firm, Thiel Capital, as well as president of the Thiel Foundation.
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a 2016 memoir by JD Vance about the Appalachian values of his family from Kentucky and the socioeconomic problems of his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, where his mother's parents moved when they were young.
James David "JD" Vance is an American politician, author, and Marine veteran who has served since 2023 as the junior United States senator from Ohio. A member of the Republican Party, he is its nominee for vice president in the 2024 presidential election.
Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations is a book by American legal scholar Amy Chua. It was published in February, 2018, and covers the topic of how loyalty to groups can be more important than ideology, and applies this idea to both failures of American foreign policy abroad and the rise of Donald Trump within the United States.
Karla Jurvetson is an American physician, philanthropist, and major Democratic donor. She has particularly focused on supporting candidates who are women, people of color, and from underrepresented communities, and she is a prominent activist in the movement to protect voting rights and American democracy. Jurvetson is vice chair of EMILY's List, which supports Democratic pro-choice women and has more than five million members.
The net worth of former president Donald Trump is not publicly known. Forbes has estimated his wealth for decades and estimates it at $4.3 billion as of August 2024, with Trump making much higher claims. He received gifts, loans, and inheritance from his father, who was a real-estate developer and businessman. Donald Trump's primary business has been real estate ventures, including hotels, casinos, and golf courses. He also made money from Trump-branded products including neckties, steaks, and urine tests. Money received through political fundraisers is used to pay for guest stays at properties owned by the Trump Organization and to pay his and his allies' lawyers.
The 2024 Republican National Convention was an event in which delegates of the United States Republican Party selected the party's nominees for president and vice president in the 2024 United States presidential election. Held from July 15 to 18, 2024, at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, it preceded the 2024 Democratic National Convention, which took place from August 19 to 22 at United Center in Chicago, Illinois.
The 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio was held on November 8, 2022, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Ohio. Republican writer and venture capitalist JD Vance defeated Democratic U.S. Representative Tim Ryan to succeed retiring incumbent Republican Rob Portman.
Rumble is an online video platform, web hosting, and cloud services business headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, with its U.S. headquarters in Longboat Key, Florida. It was founded in 2013 by Chris Pavlovski, a Canadian technology entrepreneur. Rumble's cloud services business hosts Truth Social, and the video platform is popular among American conservative and far-right users. Rumble has been described as "alt-tech".
Jacob Helberg is an American author and technology advisor. Helberg currently serves as a commissioner for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and senior advisor to Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies. Helberg has commented extensively on US-China relations, and the national security implications of Chinese-developed web apps like TikTok.
The America PAC is a political action committee (PAC) created by Elon Musk with the backing of a number of prominent tech businessmen to support Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.
During his time in the U.S. Senate, JD Vance has been described as national conservative, right-wing populist, and an ideological successor to paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan. Vance describes himself, and has been described by others, as a member of the postliberal right. He is known for his ties to Silicon Valley. Vance has said he is "plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures" online. Vance has endorsed books written by Heritage Foundation leader Kevin Roberts and far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec.