Andrew Yang's big donors swamp of racist Trump supporters and corrupt financiers

Now that presidential candidate Andrew Yang has openly welcomed Super PAC money to help his campaign, he will be susceptible to influence from ultra-rich donors who will now have the power to give Yang unlimited bribes through the newly formed Math PAC dedicated to supporting his campaign. Undoubtedly, much of these oligarch donors will be sourced from Yang’s supporters who backed his previous career in venture capital and technology startups. Some of these backers of Yang’s company, Venture For America, include unsavory characters ranging from staunch racist Trump supporters to highly abusive employers to corrupt financiers.

Dan Gilbert: Racist billionaire Trump supporter who loves his tax cuts

One of these unsavory Yang backers is Dan Gilbert, Chairman and Founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. Gilbert provided $1.5 million of funding to Yang’s firm in 2013. He once found himself in the midst of controversy after his slave owner-like mentality was on full display in his remarks regarding Lebron James in 2010.

Gilbert also has a close relationship with President Donald Trump and his family, donating $750,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund. President Trump personally considers Gilbert to be “a great friend.” For sure Gilbert understands the power and influence he has as a political donor and has used this power for material gain. Following his donation to the Trump inaugural fund the areas of downtown Detroit in which Gilbert has heavily invested in was chosen as opportunity zones under Trump’s tax law, giving Gilbert massive tax breaks, despite the fact that these particular areas of Detroit did not meet the poverty requirements. This is problematic because these tax breaks were meant to go to impoverished communities, but instead were gifted to a right-wing Trumpist oligarch.

After secretly donating who knows how many millions of dollars to Math PAC, one might be a bit worried about what type of tax policies Gilbert may be suggesting to Yang in their private phone calls between one another.

Tony Hsieh: Corrupt venture capitalist, abusive employer

Another problematic character within Yang’s group of corporatist tech oligarchs is Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos and former head of Las Vegas-based incubator The Downtown Project. Hsieh was a corrupt and abusive employer and as head of his entrepreneurial incubator he pressured employees to lie to city officials regarding the nature of the incubator, skirt city permitting processes and bypass city zoning laws. The pressure on employees to operate in this corrupt and dishonest fashion proved to be too much for many. One employee, 24-year-old Ovik Banerjee, eventually committed suicide in January 2014 by jumping from his apartment in downtown Las Vegas due to the psychological pressure of having to act against his principles of honesty in order to appease the power lust of an immoral and corrupt supporter of Yang.

This was, in fact, the second suicide within the tight-knit entrepreneurial community which operated almost like a college dormitory with venture founders living together in what was essentially a village of gentrifiers. The first suicide, before Banerjee, was Jody Sherman, 48, an entrepreneur who worked from The Downtown Project. He shot himself in his car in January 2013. Following Banerjee’s suicide, another entrepreneur working from The Downtown Project, 50-year-old Matt Berman hung himself in his home in May 2014. The first suicide sent psychological and emotional shockwaves throughout the tight-knit, almost village-like, community of around 300 entrepreneurs at The Downtown Project. However, Hsieh mostly went out of his way to keep the suicide as secretive as possible and completely neglected to offer any type of grief counseling to the venture founders at The Downtown Project. There were not even any type of large scale gatherings for community grieving organized at The Downtown Project. Hsieh was more interested in maintaining an image of success and supposed happiness, than taking care of his employees and fellow entrepreneurs.

It would be easy to imagine Hsieh donating to Yang’s campaign the amount of, let us say, $1 million, the exact amount Hsieh was able to easily afford to pledge to Yang’s Venture for America. One may wonder how much influence over Yang’s policy choices that amount would buy for Hsieh. Perhaps Hsieh may not be the best advocate for the need for mental health in Yang’s vague healthcare plan which currently has plenty of room for details to be filled in. Hsieh certainly would not be the best advocate for employee rights as he uses his tech-hipster money to shape Yang’s labor policies. Undoubtedly, Hsieh would favor loose regulations for real estate developers to make it easy to streamline the gentrification process like he did in the Las Vegas incubator project.

Sam Altman: Pathetic tech bro with fragile Twitter ego, similar to Trump

Another Yang big donor whose behavior many may find undesirable is Sam Altman, chairman of Y-Combinator and co-chairman of OpenAI, who is now actively raising funds for Yang’s campaign through big dollar elitist fundraisers. Altman is hosting a fundraiser for Yang in San Francisco in November 2019 with tickets going for a minimum of $2,000 and a maximum amount of $5,700. With seat prices like those, this is obviously not a grassroots campaign powered by everyday people. This is a campaign for and by the elite corporatist oligarchs which have supported Yang throughout his entire venture capital career.

Not only is Altman helping turn Yang’s campaign into less of a people-powered movement than it already was, Altman is also a thin-skinned bully who cannot handle criticism and believes in attacking the press, just like Trump. In 2017, Altman had banned journalist Sarah Lacy from a Y-Combinator event due to a single critical piece written for Pando. He even went on to libel Lacy’s and Pando’s reputation after Lacy posted a series of Tweets detailing misogyny she witnessed in the tech world. Altman claimed Pando was bias due to his competitor supposedly being the publisher’s only advertiser, which was proven patently false.

There can be little doubt that the conversation between Altman and Yang at the upcoming elitist fundraiser dinner will not be helpful in pushing Yang towards protecting press freedom.

Robert McCann: Chairman of corrupt bank and Wall Street insider

Speaking of elitist, there are not too many things more elitist than Wall Street and its culture of corruption. Robert McCann, chairman of one of the more corrupt banking firms on Wall Street, UBS, arranged for his bank to invest $1.2 million into Venture for America in 2013. This is a serious issue now that McCann and UBS will be able to donate unlimited amounts of money to help Yang’s campaign through Math PAC. UBS was fined $1.5 billion for rigging Libor as well as other benchmarket interest rates.

Yang benefiting from money donated by UBS will certainly have an influence on Yang’s willingness to implement any type of banking reform to protect the American people.

Corporations and oligarchs have wreaked havoc on American democracy. Candidates, like Yang, who happily accept the help of big dollar donors from corporate elites are furthering the corrupting influence money has in politics and should be shunned by all who believe in a free and fair democracy in America.