Tech donor network co-founded by JD Vance seeks to push America to the right

Tech donor network co-founded by JD Vance seeks to push America to the right

Before JD Vance began his rapid rise to vice presidential candidate, he co-founded a Silicon Valley-backed donor organization to finance right-wing news stories, voter turnout operations and election polls with a goal of spreading U.S. President Donald Trump’s brand of nationalism, according to previously unreported documents on the group.

Founded in 2019, Rockbridge Network seeks to influence U.S. politics through a centrally controlled network of right-wing political groups backed by some of the same deep-pocketed tech investors who helped bankroll Vance’s political rise.

The existence of Rockbridge and Vance’s link to it have been previously reported. But three internal Rockbridge documents reviewed by Reuters and half a dozen sources familiar with the group reveal the scale of its ambitions, its roughly $75 million budget for 2024 and its role in seeking to influence November’s presidential election.

Rockbridge showcases how Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate could empower a new set of Republican businessmen: heavyweight tech investors who favor far-reaching deregulation. Many want to weaken the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates Wall Street, and reduce oversight of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence.

Their financial backing of Rockbridge illustrates Silicon Valley’s growing influence in conservative politics and marks an evolution from more traditional deep-pocketed Republican activists, whose political networks have lost influence since Trump took over the party.

Rockbridge oversees five political groups and one super PAC focused on financing right-wing investigative reporting, underwriting polls, turning out voters in battleground states and spurring churchgoers into political activism, according to a seven-page Rockbridge prospectus issued to donors ahead of an April retreat in Palm Beach, Florida. Super PACs – short for political action committees – can spend unlimited amounts of money to campaign independently for candidates.

Vance, identified in the prospectus as Rockbridge’s co-founder, appears to retain no formal relationship with the group. He maintains informal ties to it, however, and spoke to more than 100 of its members and donors gathered at its bi-annual retreat in April, according to an attendee and a memo outlining the event’s agenda.

A longtime associate of Vance’s, Republican businessman Chris Buskirk, is Rockbridge’s other founder. Rockbridge Network’s donor outreach is run by Rockbridge Network LLC, a for-profit Delaware company that helps manage donations for the network’s political groups. Its owners are not identified in corporate records.

Two Rockbridge officials, who handle donor contacts and donations, are also members of Vance’s current fundraising team, according to two of the internal documents and a campaign official. Many of Rockbridge’s donors support Vance politically.

A spokesperson for Vance declined to comment about Rockbridge. The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about the network’s role and its links to at least two of the campaign’s staffers.

Vance’s poor, unstable upbringing in Ohio led to his best-selling 2016 memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy,” and the Trump campaign is hopeful his story will resonate with working-class voters. “We need a leader who is not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man, union and nonunion alike,” Vance said in his July 17 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. His resume also includes a degree from Yale Law School and a lucrative career as a San Francisco Bay Area-based venture capitalist.

The Rockbridge network he co-founded draws heavily from the elite worlds of tech and investing. A number of high-profile Silicon Valley venture capitalists and crypto investors have thrown their support behind Trump. Conservatives in the tech industry have said they are concerned about the Biden administration's crackdown on crypto and cautious approach to artificial intelligence.

Rockbridge hasn’t disclosed its financial backers and isn’t required to reveal them under campaign-finance laws.

But according to two sources with knowledge of Rockbridge, they include Peter Thiel, a German-born libertarian billionaire who poured millions into Vance’s 2022 U.S. Senate race. Its members also include venture capitalist Blake Masters, a Thiel protégé and former candidate for U.S. Congress in Arizona, and investor Omeed Malik, a former Democrat who now backs conservative-friendly companies, the sources said. Right-wing activist and heiress Rebekah Mercer, a major donor to Trump, is also a backer.

Spokespeople for Thiel and Mercer did not respond to requests for comment. Masters did not respond to requests for comment.

Since being selected by Trump as his running mate last month, Vance has held rallies in battleground states and headlined fundraisers, including one in Silicon Valley. His debut has sometimes been shaky, notably due to his unearthed 2021 comments about "childless cat ladies," a jab seen as misogynistic and discriminatory to people without children.

RECRUITING CHURCHGOERS, INVESTING IN MEDIA

Reuters reviewed two documents distributed to donors who attended Rockbridge’s April retreat in Palm Beach. A five-page memo details the three-day meeting’s agenda. A separate seven-page prospectus explains Rockbridge’s political vision and projects. Reuters also obtained an invitation sent to donors for a private dinner in Dallas last month to discuss Rockbridge. All three documents are labeled "confidential."

The prominence of the guest speakers at the Palm Beach gathering underlined Rockbridge’s influence. Trump himself spoke by video from New York, where he was on trial in his hush-money case at the time. Trump campaign co-chair Susie Wiles gave a presentation during a section titled “Winning the White House.” Influential conservative legal figure Leonard Leo and New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, a Trump donor, also spoke, according to the memo.

Leo did not respond to questions sent to him at the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group he heads. Johnson didn't reply to questions sent to him via the New York Jets.

Rockbridge, according to the documents, consists of a cluster of smaller groups, none of which appear to have their own websites or much of a public footprint. It has 150 to 200 members and has a 2024 budget of between $70 million and $80 million, the source familiar with the group said. The cost of membership ranges from $100,000 to $1 million, according to the Rockbridge prospectus.

Two Rockbridge groups – Virginia-based Better Tomorrow and Washington-based Over the Horizon – focus on get-out-the vote operations, according to the documents. They are helping Trump and Vance in seven swing states, the source familiar with the group said. The two groups, plus a newly created, Buskirk-led super PAC first revealed by The New York Times, will have a total of around 5,000 people in the field seeking to drive turnout, the source added.

Another Rockbridge group, Faithful in Action, has more than 160,000 members, according to the prospectus. Its mission is to recruit churchgoers into political activism, the prospectus said. It was incorporated in 2023 in Wyoming, and state records show its president is Buskirk. Reuters was unable to independently confirm its size or current activities.

Rockbridge’s efforts to influence journalism are led by Firebrand Action, incorporated in Virginia in 2022. State records list Firebrand’s president as Buskirk and its secretary as James Blair, a member of Trump’s campaign staff and a former deputy chief of staff for Florida Governor Ron Desantis. Blair resigned from Firebrand in the spring before joining the Trump campaign, said a source familiar with his role.

Rockbridge funds reporting “published by aligned media outlets,” the prospectus said. Reuters was unable to identify any articles or media outlets backed by the group. Firebrand and Revitalization Partners, a charitable investment account, are both listed in the prospectus as supporting “investigative journalism” and public polling that has been included in the go-to RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight polling averages for political races. The document didn’t name the polls involved.

RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight did not respond to requests for comment.

Rockbridge has also served as an incubator for new ventures. At a 2022 Rockbridge summit, Buskirk, investor Malik, hedge fund heiress Mercer and former Arizona congressional candidate Masters started discussing how to finance a “parallel economy” of conservative businesses, one attendee said. That would eventually become 1789 Capital, a $150 million Palm Beach-based venture capital firm owned by Buskirk, Malik and Mercer, the source added.

Last year, 1789 Capital announced its first investment: $15 million into conservative TV personality Tucker Carlson’s newly formed company “Last Country Inc.”

In April, at a “fireside chat” with more than 100 prospective Rockbridge donors at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach, Vance sat across from Buskirk in an armchair, according to an attendee and the memo outlining the agenda. The source said Vance’s speech went hard on his key policy planks: reluctance to take on Russia in Ukraine; false claims that Trump won the 2020 election; and an emphasis on what Vance deems family values such as the importance of marriage and children.

Vance and Buskirk were introduced to each other by Thiel and first met in San Francisco following Trump’s 2016 election victory, according to the source familiar with Rockbridge. At the time, Vance was working for Thiel’s venture capital firm, Mithril Capital. Vance and Buskirk launched Rockbridge in 2019 as an informal network to “replace the current Republican ecosystem,” the prospectus said.

Vance’s ascension to the presidential ticket has attracted more donor interest in Rockbridge, said two sources familiar with the group.

On July 25, 10 days after Vance was picked, an invitation went out to several Republican donors for a “private dinner and discussion about Rockbridge Network” in Dallas, according to an invitation seen by Reuters. (This story has been refiled to fix the spelling of 'Rockbridge' in paragraph 5)