By Alexandra Ulmer and Aram Roston
Before JD Vance began his rapid rise to vice presidential nomination, he co-founded a Silicon Valley-backed donor organization to finance right-wing news stories, campaigns and polls aimed at spreading the nationalism of U.S. President Donald Trump, according to previously unpublished documents about the group.
Founded in 2019, the Rockbridge Network seeks to influence U.S. politics through a centrally controlled network of right-wing political groups backed by some of the same deep-pocketed tech investors who funded Vance’s political rise.
The existence of Rockbridge and Vance’s connection to the organization have been reported before, but three internal Rockbridge documents seen by Reuters and a half-dozen sources familiar with the group reveal the extent of its ambitions, its roughly $75 million budget for 2024 and its role in trying to influence the presidential election in November.
Rockbridge shows how Trump’s choice of Vance as his running mate could give power to a new group of Republican businesspeople: influential tech investors who favor sweeping deregulation. Many want to weaken the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates Wall Street, and reduce oversight of cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence.
Their financial support of Rockridge illustrates the growing influence of Silicon Valley in conservative politics and marks a shift away from more traditional, well-funded Republican activists whose political networks have lost influence since Trump took over the party.
Rockbridge oversees five political groups and a super PAC that focus on funding right-leaning investigative reporting, conducting polls, mobilizing voters in swing states and encouraging churchgoers to engage in political activism, according to a seven-page Rockbridge prospectus distributed to donors ahead of an April retreat in Palm Beach, Fla. Super PACs — short for political action committees — can spend unlimited amounts to independently campaign for candidates.
Vance, who is listed in the prospectus as a co-founder of Rockbridge, does not appear to have a formal relationship with the group. But he maintains informal contacts and spoke in April with more than 100 members and donors gathered at the semiannual retreat, according to an attendee and a memo with the event’s agenda.
A longtime Vance associate, Republican businessman Chris Buskirk, is Rockbridge’s other founder. Rockbridge Network’s fundraising effort is run by Rockbridge Network LLC, a for-profit Delaware corporation that helps manage donations for the network’s political groups. The owners are not identified in corporate filings.
Two Rockbridge employees who handle donor outreach and donations are also members of Vance’s current fundraising team, according to two internal documents and a campaign official. Many of the Rockbridge donors support Vance politically.
A spokesman for Vance declined to comment on Rockbridge. The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about the network’s role and its ties to at least two of its employees.
Vance’s poor, unstable Ohio childhood inspired his best-selling 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” and the Trump campaign hopes his story will resonate with working-class voters. “We need a leader who is not in the pocket of big business but is accountable to the worker, whether unionized or not,” Vance said in his acceptance speech on July 17 at the Republican National Convention. His resume also includes a degree from Yale Law School and a lucrative career as a venture capitalist in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Rockbridge network, which he co-founded, draws heavily from the elite world of technology and investing. A number of high-profile venture capitalists and crypto investors from Silicon Valley have pledged their support for Trump. Conservatives in the technology industry have expressed concern about the Biden administration’s crackdown on crypto and cautious approach to artificial intelligence.
Rockbridge has not disclosed its donors and is not required to do so under campaign finance laws.
But according to two sources with knowledge of Rockbridge, they include Peter Thiel, a German-born libertarian billionaire who has pumped millions into Vance’s 2022 Senate campaign. Other members include venture capitalist Blake Masters, a Thiel protégé and former U.S. congressional candidate from Arizona, and investor Omeed Malik, a former Democrat who now backs conservative businesses, the sources said. Right-wing activist and heiress Rebekah Mercer, a major Trump donor, is also among the backers.
Spokespeople for Thiel and Mercer did not respond to requests for comment. Masters also did not respond to requests for comment.
Since being picked by Trump as his running mate last month, Vance has held rallies in swing states and headlined fundraisers, including one in Silicon Valley. His debut has been shaky at times, largely because of his 2021 comments about “childless cat ladies,” a dig seen as misogynistic and discriminatory toward people without children.
Attract churchgoers, invest in media
Reuters has reviewed two documents distributed to donors who attended Rockbridge’s April meeting in Palm Beach. A five-page memo outlines the agenda for the three-day meeting. A separate seven-page prospectus explains Rockbridge’s policy vision and projects. Reuters also obtained an invitation to donors to a private dinner in Dallas last month where Rockbridge was discussed. All three documents are marked “confidential.”
The prominence of the guest speakers at the Palm Beach event underscored Rockbridge’s influence. Trump himself spoke by video from New York, where he was on trial for his hush money case at the time. Susie Wiles, co-chair of the Trump campaign, spoke during a segment titled “Winning the White House.” Influential conservative lawyer Leonard Leo and New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, a Trump donor, also spoke, according to the memo.
Leo did not respond to questions sent to the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group he leads. Johnson did not respond to questions sent to him about the New York Jets.
Rockbridge, according to the documents, is made up of a number of smaller groups, none of which appear to have their own website or public presence. The group has 150 to 200 members and a 2024 budget of $70 million to $80 million, the source familiar with the group said. Membership dues range from $100,000 to $1 million, according to Rockbridge’s prospectus.
According to the documents, two Rockbridge groups — Virginia-based Better Tomorrow and Washington-based Over the Horizon — are focused on voter mobilization campaigns, supporting Trump and Vance in seven swing states, the source familiar with the group said. The two groups, as well as a newly formed super PAC led by Buskirk first revealed by The New York Times, will have a total of about 5,000 people deployed to boost turnout, the source added.
Another Rockbridge group, Faithful in Action, has more than 160,000 members, according to the prospectus. Its mission is to recruit churchgoers for political engagement, the prospectus says. It was founded in Wyoming in 2023, and state records show Buskirk is its chairman. Reuters could not independently confirm its size or current activities.
Rockbridge’s efforts to influence journalism are led by Firebrand Action, founded in Virginia in 2022. State records list Buskirk as Firebrand’s president and James Blair, a member of Trump’s campaign team and former deputy chief of staff to Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, as secretary. Blair resigned from Firebrand in the spring before joining the Trump campaign, a source familiar with his role said.
Rockbridge funds reports “published by affiliated media outlets,” the prospectus says. Reuters could not identify any articles or media outlets supported by the group. Firebrand and Revitalization Partners, a nonprofit investment account, are both listed in the prospectus as supporters of “investigative journalism” and public opinion polls that have been included in the mainstream RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight polling averages for political races. The polls involved were not identified by name in the document.
RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight did not respond to requests for comment.
Rockbridge also served as an incubator for new companies. At a Rockbridge summit in 2022, Buskirk, investor Malik, hedge fund heiress Mercer and former Arizona congressional candidate Masters began discussing how to finance a “parallel economy” of conservative businesses, one attendee said. That would eventually become 1789 Capital, a $150 million venture capital firm based in Palm Beach owned by Buskirk, Malik and Mercer, the source added.
Last year, 1789 Capital announced its first investment: $15 million in conservative television star Tucker Carlson’s newly founded company Last Country Inc.
In April, Vance sat in a chair across from Buskirk at a “fireside chat” with more than 100 potential Rockbridge donors at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach, according to an attendee and the agenda memo. The source said Vance’s speech was hard on his key policy points: his reluctance to take on Russia in Ukraine; false claims that Trump won the 2020 election; and an emphasis on what Vance sees as family values, such as the importance of marriage and children.
Vance and Buskirk were introduced to each other by Thiel and first met in San Francisco after Trump’s 2016 election victory, according to the source familiar with Rockbridge. At the time, Vance was working for Thiel’s venture capital firm, Mithril Capital. Vance and Buskirk founded Rockbridge in 2019 as an informal network to “replace the current Republican ecosystem,” the prospectus said.
Vance’s rise to the presidential list has sparked interest in Rockbridge from other donors, two sources familiar with the group said.
On July 25, ten days after Vance’s appointment, several Republican donors attended a “private dinner and discussion about the Rockbridge Network” in Dallas, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
(Alexandra Ulmer reported from San Francisco. Aram Roston reported from Washington, DC. Editing by Jason Szep.)
