Chamath Palihapitiya

Chamath Palihapitiya donated $300,000 directly to elect Trump in 2024 and co-hosted with David Sacks a $12 million fundraiser at Sacks's Pacific Heights home. Tickets ranged from $50K-$500K. Previously donated $1.3M to Democrats over prior decade before shifting Republican around 2020-2021. Now has direct White House access.

In March 2024, Palihapitiya fired Social Capital partners Jay Zaveri and Ravi Tanuku in a dispute over a Groq AI investment SPV. The firings appeared to center on whether Zaveri had properly sought approval to raise outside capital for a follow-on investment. Former employees alleged the dispute was a pretext to deny carried interest. Subsequently, the firm's CFO and general counsel resigned, and almost all staff departed. Reporting by Newcomer revealed Palihapitiya boasted about having no HR department at companies where he has majority control, instead directing employees to third-party law firms.

Social Capital Hedosophia-backed SPACs (Virgin Galactic, Clover Health, Opendoor, SoFi) experienced severe stock declines: Virgin Galactic fell from $46 to $5, Clover Health from $28 to $4, Opendoor from $30 to $5, and SoFi from $25 to $3. The average return for Palihapitiya-led SPACs was -26.24%. Despite these losses for retail investors, Palihapitiya personally profited approximately $750 million through founders shares and stock sales, including an alleged $315M from Virgin Galactic stock sales. This led to investor lawsuits and congressional scrutiny over SPAC sponsor misaligned incentives.

On the All-In podcast in January 2022, Chamath Palihapitiya stated 'nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs' and said he would be lying if he said he cared. He listed supply chain issues, climate change, and healthcare as his actual priorities. After widespread backlash, the Golden State Warriors distanced themselves from him, calling him a 'limited investor.' He issued a statement acknowledging he came across as 'lacking in empathy' but did not specifically address the Uyghurs. He later divested from the Warriors in June 2023.

Clover Health, which went public through Palihapitiya's SPAC (Social Capital Hedosophia III) in January 2021 at a $3.7B valuation, received an SEC investigation notice in February 2021 after Hindenburg Research revealed an active, undisclosed DOJ investigation into kickbacks, upcoding, and marketing practices. Palihapitiya had stated on CNBC in October 2020 that Clover 'doesn't play games' and doesn't 'motivate doctors to upcode' - the very practice DOJ was investigating. Palihapitiya received over 20 million founders shares for $25,000. Clover later settled a securities class action for $22 million.

In January 2021, Palihapitiya bought $125,000 in GameStop call options after polling his Twitter followers, then publicly defended retail investors on CNBC, saying the GameStop phenomenon was individual investors 'pushing back against the Wall Street establishment.' He compared transparent Reddit forums favorably to hedge fund 'idea dinners' in the Hamptons. He closed his position the next day and donated the $500,000 in proceeds to the Barstool Sports small business fund. Critics noted the brief holding and self-promotional nature of the trade.

In 2018, Social Capital restructured to a family office deploying Palihapitiya's personal wealth, with climate solutions as a core focus area. In January 2021, Palihapitiya announced private funding for climate investments spanning seven areas: recycling, electrification, grid-level storage, batteries, materials and mining, resiliency, and project finance lending. He described climate change as 'the simplest way to fix problems' globally and consistently listed it as one of his top two priorities alongside inequality.

In an April 2020 CNBC interview that went viral, Palihapitiya argued that the U.S. should not bail out billionaires and hedge funds during the coronavirus pandemic, instead advocating for direct support to consumers and workers. He also called for universal basic income as a pandemic response, saying the U.S. had 'ripped the philosophical band-aid off' on direct payments. The interview was widely praised for challenging conventional Wall Street bailout narratives during a crisis.

In a November 2017 talk at Stanford and subsequent media appearances, former Facebook VP of user growth Chamath Palihapitiya warned that social media is 'eroding the core foundations of how people behave' and expressed 'tremendous guilt' about the tools he helped build. He stated that 'short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we've created are destroying how society works' and that Facebook 'optimized for short-term profitability at the sake of our democracy.' He also revealed he keeps his own children away from social media with 'no screen time whatsoever.' Facebook disputed the comments, noting he hadn't worked there in six years.