- As the Capital came under siege on Wednesday, many VCs took to Twitter to express their outrage.
- Some went even further and demanded that their fellow investors stop doing business deals with Trump’s son-in-law, and White House senior advisor, Jared Kushner.
- “Why would you put Jared Kushner on your cap table given the terror that this administration has brought to America over the last four years, resulting in today’s chaos,” said one investor.
- Kushner, who is better known for his real estate investments, has been walking a delicate line between D.C. and Silicon Valley. He is co-founder of the real estate tech startup Cadre and still has some ties to Oscar Health.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Horrified by pro-Trump rioters who stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday in an effort to stop Congress from ratifying the election results, VCs are calling on other investors to stop doing business deals with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Homebrew’s Hunter Walk wrote on Twitter “don’t be putting Jared Kushner on cap tables when this is all said and done,” a post that was retweeted over 100 times by the tech community.
“Jared Kushner has helped promote his father-in-law for continued service in office despite knowing that he is attempting to undermine democracy and has done nothing to speak publicly against his actions,” UpFront Ventures General Partner Mark Suster told Business Insider. Suster also responded to Walk’s tweet. “If you normalize his behavior of past four years it’s on you. I for one will not do business with anything he’s involved with,” he wrote.
“Why would you put Jared Kushner on your cap table? What added value can he possibly bring given the terror that this administration has brought to America over the last four years, resulting in today’s chaos,” Katie Stanton General Partner of Moxxie Ventures, told Insider.
Stanton said her advice to founders is to always be thoughtful about who you take money from. “You want to make sure you partner with investors you are aligned with and in my opinion, who add value and are decent,” she said.
Stanton added that it’s a trickier situation with the younger brother, Josh Kushner, a managing partner at Thrive Capital, a VC firm that has backed Glossier, Slack, Robinhood and Stripe.
The younger Kushner’s differences with his family over politics was hinted at a year ago by his wife, the supermodel and Project Runway host, Karlie Kloss. On an episode of “Watch What Happens Live,” last January, Kloss revealed she was not voting for Trump in 2020.
“I’m not sure it’s fair to hold Josh accountable for what his brother does. He’s a very decent person and it’s unfortunately he’s affiliated,” Station said. “It’s tricky to throw the entire family in there, but I think it’s completely fair to say don’t do business with Jared and Ivanka going forward.”
But Jared Kushner is not only Trump’s son-in-law, he’s a senior advisor the President, a member of the administration.
He’s been walking a delicate line between D.C. and Silicon Valley. In February, sources told Bloomberg he was planning to divest from Cadre, the real estate technology startup he co-founded. Five months later, Kushner put the divestiture on hold with the understanding that while he remains an investor, Cadre would refrain from seeking foreign investors, according to CNBC.
Founded in 2014, Cadre has raised $158.4 million from investors including Kushner’s brother’s VC firm Thrive Capital, along with Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, DST Global, Breyer Capital, Lumia Capital, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, Sound Ventures, Mark Cuban, Peter Thiel, Ford Foundation and SL Green Realty. Cadre has an estimated valuation of $800 million, according to PitchBook.
The Kushners are also involved in a health-insurance tech company. Josh is a co-founder and major investor and Jared partially owned or controlled Oscar Health before he joined the White House, according to a report in the Atlantic. In December, Oscar filed confidentially for an IPO. The company was last valued at $3.2 billion, and counts Tiger Global, Dragoneer, Baillie Gifford, Coatue, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and General Catalyst as investors.
Neither Cadre nor Oscar immediately responded to a request for comment.
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