A Republican billionaire megadonor who was considered one of Ron DeSantis’s largest monetary backers has but to say whether or not he’ll donate to the Florida governor throughout the presidential main.
Hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin instructed CNBC, in an interview that can air Monday night time, that he’s disillusioned with the entire Republican candidates and has not determined which one he’ll again. Griffin highlighted DeSantis particularly.
“I don’t know his technique,” Griffin mentioned. “It’s not clear to me what voter base he’s desiring to attraction to.”
Griffin was DeSantis’s largest donor throughout the 2022 election, giving $5 million to his gubernatorial reelection marketing campaign. Griffin additionally repeatedly mentioned he would “love” to see DeSantis run for president in 2024.
However now he’s abruptly modified his thoughts.
One among Griffin’s largest points is DeSantis’s battle with Disney. “The continued battle with Disney, I believe, is pointless,” Griffin mentioned. “It doesn’t replicate properly on the ethos of Florida.”
DeSantis has been locked in a weird and more and more ridiculous battle with Disney for greater than a 12 months. When the corporate’s then chairman condemned DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Homosexual” regulation final 12 months, DeSantis retaliated by stripping the park of its autonomous governing powers and putting in a management board of his personal allies.
Disney sued DeSantis in April, alleging that he weaponized the federal government towards the corporate’s free speech rights—and the lawsuit cites extensively from DeSantis’s personal memoir. The 2 events proceed to interact in bizarre authorized tit for tats.
Griffin additionally instructed CNBC that he would somewhat each Republicans and Democrats have youthful candidates to place ahead. If that have been the case, “we’d have a debate round concepts and ideas and insurance policies to make this an incredible nation,” he mentioned. “We’re not having that dialogue proper now.”
Griffin was the third-biggest particular person political donor within the nation in 2022, having given a complete of $71,050,000 to solely conservative causes, based on OpenSecrets. The 2022 elections have been the costliest midterms ever, as billionaires akin to Griffin rushed to exert affect over the outcomes.
Griffin really was considered one of Barack Obama’s largest fundraisers when he first ran for election in 2008. However by 2012, Griffin had flipped, transferring his vote and his cash to then–Republican nominee Mitt Romney. He alleged the Obama administration had “embraced class warfare as being politically expedient” and argued that rich individuals had “inadequate affect” in politics.
“Those that have loved the advantages of our system greater than ever now owe an obligation to guard the system that has created the best nation on this planet,” Griffin instructed the Chicago Tribune in 2012.
This text has been up to date.
