Excessive-profile friendships are at all times considerably of a novelty—particularly after they intersect enterprise and politics. Take the comfortable relationship between Laurene Powell Jobs and Vice President Kamala Harris, for instance.
Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, has been buddies with the Democratic presidential nominee for years. In truth, these two highly effective ladies are so shut Harris has referred to Powell Jobs as a part of her household.
In 2017, then-vice president Joe Biden swore in Harris as a U.S. senator, and proper after the ceremony they posed for a photograph within the Capitol along with her household. Then she requested Biden to take an image along with her “prolonged household,” in keeping with a report from The New York Occasions. Powell Jobs—one of many richest ladies on the earth—was fast to leap in.
She inherited Jobs’ stakes in Disney and Apple upon his dying, along with her internet value amounting to $11.5 billion in the present day, in keeping with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
However Powell Jobs’ declare to fame isn’t simply being the spouse of the late and nice Steve Jobs. She based the Emerson Collective, a philanthropy and funding agency closely targeted on training, immigration reform, environmental points, well being, in addition to media and journalism (the collective is a majority proprietor of The Atlantic and funded Axios).
Laurene Powell Jobs’ connection to Democratic politics
Past enterprise investments, although, Powell Jobs and the Emerson Collective have additionally been closely funding democratic politics for the previous a number of years. Since 2020, Powell Jobs and the Emerson Collective have donated greater than $3.4 million to democratic nominees and different funds, in keeping with Federal Election Fee filings collected by Fortune.
Powell Jobs is amongst a number of rich ladies with connections to Silicon Valley making main donations to democratic candidates. Since 2020, philanthropist Melinda French Gates has made $2.09 million in donations, 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki has donated $1.84 million, and former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg has donated $1.53 million.
Not solely has Powell Jobs persistently donated to democrats, however she’s additionally taken a particular curiosity in her pal Harris. In 2023, Powell Jobs made three donations to Harris’ marketing campaign amounting to almost $1 million.
“Laurene has a present for friendship, particularly outdated buddies—she is tribally loyal,” David Bradley, who bought The Atlantic journal to the Emerson Collective, instructed The New York Occasions. “Kamala Harris falls inside that ring of buddies.” Different Wall Avenue billionaires and large enterprise leaders have additionally backed Harris and offered piles of funding.
Powell Jobs and Harris have been buddies for twenty years, and she or he’s additionally made different “quiet” donations amounting to tens of millions of {dollars} to a corporation backing Harris, three individuals briefed on the presents instructed The New York Occasions. Powell Jobs additionally allegedly performed a “key position” in serving to usher Biden out of the race, making room for Harris to step up.
However their friendship goes again additional than that. Powell Jobs, who’s one yr Harris’ senior, donated $500 to Harris’ first run for district legal professional of San Francisco in 2003, and the 2 of them attended the March for Ladies’s Lives in Washington, D.C. with different feminine Bay Space leaders.
Whereas Powell Jobs dodged NYT opinion author Kara Swisher’s query in 2017 about operating for the presidency herself in 2020, she confidently pointed to Harris, who was sitting within the crowd at a tech convention.
“I vote for her,” Powell Jobs mentioned.
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