| Cheney is vehemently opposed to another Trump presidency after his actions on January 6. But can she take him on? And if not, who can?
Moderate and conservative business leaders seem to increasingly be circling another option: Ron DeSantis.
Some have begun to throw their money and weight behind the controversial Florida governor, who has been dubbed “Trump with a brain,” by supporting his reelection campaign, and a potential 2024 run.
To find out why, my colleague Anne Sraders dove into the Miami business scene and interviewed Silicon Valley transplants like Founders Fund general partner Keith Rabois and NYC transplants like Bustle Digital Group’s Bryan Goldberg who have watched DeSantis up close.
Goldberg, who donated to DeSantis’ reelection campaign, feels the governor would give CEOs permission to focus on their bottom lines again.
“I think businesses need to stay out of politics. That’s the lesson from the Disney debacle: CEOs are not elected officials,” he told Fortune. “CEOs have one job, and that job is to run their company effectively.”
Rabois, who was an early PayPal executive and is now a venture capitalist, aligns with DeSantis on a number of policies.
“ESG investing is a fraud,” he told Fortune. “If politicians want to reflect our views, we’re certainly not going to be opposed to that.”
Perhaps most appealing to them both is that DeSantis is not Trump.
“I don’t think many business leaders I know are interested in supporting Trump,” Rabois said.
Whether or not DeSantis could beat Trump is another question. SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci thinks a race between the two would be a slaughtering:
“Trump is a jealous guy,” he told Fortune. “He’ll damage him politically, metaphorically.”
Scaramucci added that while Trump “may not actually become the Republican nominee…on the way to not becoming the Republican nominee, I think he’s gonna destroy DeSantis.”
To read more on how the business world is thinking about Ron DeSantis and the 2024 election, see Anne’s story, below. |
