Former president — and presidential hopeful — Donald Trump is scheduled to return to the Bay Area for a fundraiser on Friday, Sept. 13.
The San Francisco Republican Party promoted the event on its website but provided few details, noting only that it will take place beginning at 11:30 a.m. in Woodside, a bucolic wealthy town on the Peninsula.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the fundraiser will be hosted by tech billionaire Tom Siebel, a relative of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Tickets are reportedly going for around $500,000.
Trump and his GOP running mate, JD Vance, have held several fundraisers with Bay Area billionaires in the past.
Trump raised $12 million at the home of San Francisco billionaire David Sacks in June. At the end of July, Vance appeared at a fundraiser hosted by crypto billionaire Mike Belshe at the Four Seasons in East Palo Alto.
The wealthy Bay Area is a popular fundraising spot for both parties. Democratic presidential hopeful Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in deep blue San Francisco in August.
While Harris, who spent part of her childhood in the East Bay, has far outpaced Trump in fundraising in her home state, raising $136 million compared to Trump’s $41 million, California remains the fourth-largest contributor to the GOP war chest, according to Open Secrets.
While the Bay Area isn’t among the top metropolitan contributors to the Republican presidential campaign, exclusive Los Altos has emerged as a leading ZIP code, contributing $3 million to the Trump campaign so far.
While there’s no word if vice presidential contender Vance will also be in Woodside, the Republican campaign has been leaning on his Silicon Valley links. Before he became well known for his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, he was a junior venture capitalist who worked closely with PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Vance counts billionaire investor Marc Andreessen and Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk as tech-industry connections.
“He is a bit of an unusual Republican national candidate,” said Hoover Institution policy fellow Bill Whalen, “in that he could come out here and talk the language and walk the walk of Silicon Valley.”
Harriet Blair Rowan contributed reporting.
Originally Published:
