DeSantis' refusal to 'act normal' cost him a key billionaire donor: insider

In a deep dive into a growing rift between conservative tech billionaires and the Republican party's 2024 presidential nomination aspirants, the Washington Post is reporting that top candidates Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) have alienated the wealthy donors due to their extremist antics.

According to the report, key Silicon Valley tech executives don't care about social issues and are desperately looking for someone who will do their bidding when it comes to deregulation.

However, when it comes to Trump and DeSantis, their obsession with red meat cultural issues favored by their fans has alienated key donors.

The Post is reporting, "Although the tech elite often have criticized the left and 'wokeness,' some now say the GOP has overemphasized divisive social issues such as transgender rights and abortion at the expense of the tech titans’ primary political goal: radical deregulation."

Case in point, the report notes, is billionaire David Sacks who moderated the DeSantis campaign launch along with Elon Musk back when "X" was still called Twitter.

Since that time, along with X's fortunes, that relationship has gone downhill.

"The right-wing venture capitalist David Sacks was a major DeSantis backer, hosting the launch of DeSantis’s presidential campaign on X, formerly Twitter, in the spring," the Post is reporting. "But in recent months, Sacks has soured on DeSantis, according to two people familiar with his thinking, and has thrown fundraisers for rivals Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr, then running as a Democrat."

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According to one insider, Sacks has parted ways with DeSantis because of the direction his struggling campaign has taken.

“Most Silicon Valley people are politically but not socially conservative,” asserted a Sacks associate. “All DeSantis needed to be was normal. Now he’s gone nuts on this woke thing.”

As for Trump, an associate of billionaire Peter Thiel explained his departure from the former president's camp, "The problem was Trump was very undisciplined, and his own character traits sabotaged the policy changes. Instead of just executing relentlessly, he would cause turmoil and chaos, and that would interfere with his agenda.”

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