This week, Silicon Valley heavyweights mingled with high Trump administration officers at a convention on the Ritz-Carlton in Miami.
The occasion was hosted by the Rockbridge Community, a secretive but more and more highly effective group on the middle of enterprise, know-how, and Republican politics. These in attendance included enterprise capitalists Chamath Palihapitiya and Keith Rabois, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and actual property developer-turned-United States Particular Envoy to the Center East Steve Witkoff.
The Rockbridge Community was based in 2019 by now-Vice President J.D. Vance and financier Chris Buskirk, with the purpose of constructing a brand new “political infrastructure” to interchange what its founders noticed as a failed system.
In line with Rockbridge supplies, the aim was to create a dynamic, tech-oriented, right-of-center alliance that would drive the get together’s future and “replace the current Republican ecosystem of think tanks, media organizations and activist groups that have contributed to the party’s decline.”
And with the rise of Vance and the brand new proper — a youthful, tech-savvy, and pragmatic wing of the GOP — Rockbridge and its conferences have reached a complete new stage of affect.
“The whole purpose is to bring donors, venture capitalists, private equity folks, and CEOs together with high-level officials making the big decisions for the country,” a Rockbridge insider informed me,
Rockbridge has a selective group of effectively beneath 200 members. Membership is invite-only and prices $100,000 per 12 months, with the cash primarily going to political causes. The twice a 12 months conferences have change into a chance to see buddies, fundraise for tech corporations and make investments and political donations — multi function cease
Like every convention, there are panels with named audio system. The Winklevoss twins, the Bitcoin billionaires who famously had a spat with Mark Zuckerberg about who actually began Fb, spoke about cryptocurrency. Palantir chief know-how officer Shyam Sankar gave a presentation on protection tech.
However, not like different conferences, Rockbridge gatherings are intimate, invite-only affairs, akin to the unique Solar Valley convention however with a definite political edge. Offers are struck and members spend money on new corporations and political causes.
“It’s really just friends getting together,” one supply defined of the group’s capacity to get among the high Trump officers to their occasions.
And the outcomes of Rockbridge are already important.
The group’s affect was on full show at its November 2024 convention in Las Vegas, held shortly after Trump’s election win. Donald Trump Jr. attended, saying his new function at 1789 Capital, the funding agency co-founded by Buskirk and Omeed Malik.
The agency truly got here out of the Rockbridge gatherings and the relationships and investments Malik and Buskirk secured at them. It has been one of many first and most notable voices criticizing ESG and DEI values, and has made some extent of investing within the so-called parallel economic system or non-woke corporations
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At this week’s convention, Malik revealed his appointment to the board of Fannie Mae. Head of the Federal Housing Finance Company businessman William Pulte was additionally in attendance.
“Outcomes like that are the whole purpose — to create the new tech-oriented right of center group for people,” a supply informed me. “Its supporting our ideological views for our generation.”
The group’s affect is just rising. Talking on the occasion on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Bessent quipped that Rockbridge’s work would prolong effectively into Donald Trump’s third time period in 2028.
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