Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s candidacy for president is receiving financial backing from top Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
The billionaire Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, donated $250,000 to a pro-Haley super PAC, SFA Fund Inc. Before making the donation, Hoffman’s team reached out to the PAC and asked if his money would be welcomed. The PAC answered in the affirmative, Hoffman’s team told The New York Times.
Hoffman has also donated $759,600 to help re-elect President Joe Biden, Bloomberg reported.
Hoffman moved to support Haley in the GOP primary after another Democratic megadonor, Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, urged Democrats to back Haley last week. Dimon and a cadre of other business leaders are supporting Haley for the Republican nomination.
“Even if you’re a very liberal Democrat, I urge you, help Nikki Haley, too,” Dimon said at a summit for global business elites. “Get a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump.”
Hoffman has a long history of funding Democratic politicians and leftist causes through a network of nonprofits and super PACs. From 2017 to 2023, Hoffman donated roughly $43 million toward electing Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 election cycles, according to an analysis of Hoffman’s political spending by the conservative nonprofit Restoration of America.
Hoffman also has ties to late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died while in prison in 2019. The LinkedIn co-founder has since apologized for his work with Epstein.
Hoffman connected with Epstein in 2014 and says he met with him at the request of the former director of MIT’s Media Lab, Joi Ito, who was looking to raise money for the lab. From there, the relationship seemed to progress with multiple plans made for Hoffman to visit Epstein and ride on the Lolita Express plane. Hoffman said he visited Epstein’s infamous private island, Little St. James, only once and that his last contact with Epstein was in 2015, the same year that Hoffman invited Epstein to attend a dinner with Silicon Valley’s elite in Palo Alto.
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Around the same time, Epstein was attempting to rehabilitate his image after he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of solicitation of prostitution involving a minor in 2008. Part of the plan to cleanse Epstein’s reputation involved getting close to prominent activists and philanthropists such as Bill and Melinda Gates.
“It gnaws at me that, by lending my association, I helped his reputation and thus delayed justice for his survivors,” Hoffman told The Wall Street Journal in an email. “While I relied on MIT’s endorsement, ultimately I made the mistake.”
“I am sorry for my personal misjudgment,” he said.