Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, who recently pledged $10 million to elect Kamala Harris, insisted in an awkward interview Tuesday that he is not buying influence with the vice president after he urged her to fire a top federal official investigating some of his business ventures.
Hoffman, a former associate of child molester Jeffrey Epstein, last week called on Harris to fire Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Lina Khan, whom the billionaire accused of "waging war on American business" through aggressive anti-merger actions. "And so I would hope that Vice President Harris would replace her," said Hoffman.
Hoffman serves on the board of Microsoft and is founder of the artificial intelligence firm Inflection AI. Khan is investigating whether the firms structured a recent licensing deal in a way that avoids a government antitrust review, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Hoffman's remarks stoked outcry that one of the Democratic Party's largest donors could be using the power of the purse to influence Harris. CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday asked Hoffman whether his comments are an example of "rich people getting to buy levels of influence."
But Hoffman insisted that isn't the case and claimed he is able to "separate my role as a donor and expert."
"I totally agree with not buying levels of influence," said Hoffman, who organized a call for Harris with a group of major donors days before she launched her presidential campaign. "I've never had a conversation with Kamala Harris about this."
Tapper appeared unconvinced by Hoffman's argument.
"I mean, politicians are, are human," Tapper said. "If they know that you … and other big donors are giving a lot of cash and want to get rid of Lina Khan from the FTC, they might listen to that more than they would listen to it from somebody in a restaurant."
"This is one of the things where I don't ever show up at the White House saying, 'I think you should do this,'" Hoffman said. "I mean, one of the things that President Biden has said to me every time he's met me is I never asked for anything, because all I'm trying to do is help our leaders be the best governors."
Hoffman has met several times with Biden, including a private discussion about artificial intelligence in October 2023. Days after the meeting, Hoffman solicited political donations for Biden and, in a fundraising email to "friends and allies," downplayed concerns about the president's age.
It's the latest controversy surrounding Hoffman. Last month, he said he wished he had made former president Donald Trump "an actual martyr." Days later, a would-be assassin shot Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Hoffman, who serves on the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board, has apologized for helping Epstein rehabilitate his public image in the wake of child molestation allegations. Hoffman hosted Epstein at a fundraising event at his California home.
In 2017, Hoffman funded a tech company that created fake social media accounts aimed at deterring conservatives from voting in that year's Alabama Senate special election. He also funded journalist E. Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit against Trump, which ended in an $84 million judgment against the former president.
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