Sri Lankan venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya blamed being "red-pilled" by major US newsrooms as the cause for his former anti-Trump stance. He shared the details on his great drift from being a Democrat donor to MAGA supporting-podcaster in a recent appearance on Katie Miller's 'The Katie Miller Podcast' alongside his Italian wife Nathalie Dompé.
He revealed that his turnover began after the "fine people hoax" where mainstream media cast President Trump's response to the 2017 Charlottesville riot as support for Nazi murderers.
The Canadian-American billionaire said that he had been "brainwashed" by his media diet like others who held a perception of Donald Trump ever since he became the President. It was over the course of 6-7 years that he realised that the things he knew about him were false. He then went down a rabbit hole of analysing said media houses to find that they were not holding up their responsibility of holding truth to power. And thus, the Social Capital founder turned co-host of the 'All-In podcast' discussing and promoting economics and public policy.
Watch the conversation
In the interview, Miller asked Palihapitiya about how he went from being a large Democratic donor to a very outspoken Republican proponent. "When you are so influential to other VCs and other people with high net worth here in California—and you really shape their public opinion and perception—how did you get there yourself? Was there a moment you woke up and you were like, “Okay, it’s all different”?
"There was a moment where I was basically like everybody else and pretty brainwashed. My media diet was very much the same as everybody else’s. I read The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. I watched a little CNN, a little CNBC, a little MSNBC, a little CBS, The Economist every now and then—you encounter it on a plane, and you think you know what’s going on," said the 49-year-old entrepreneur in a shocking statement.
"I had a perception of Donald Trump initially from the moment he walked down the staircase in Trump Tower to announce. And then over the course of six or seven years, I realised that some of those fundamental things I was told about him were totally false."
He revealed the time he began searching for the truth, "Then I saw it. I saw what he said, and then I saw the portrayal. I had originally believed that portrayal until I saw the truth. Then I started to go down that rabbit hole."
"For me, it was an evolution where I was like, I can’t believe I’m being lied to by this group of people whose sole responsibility is to hold truth to power. The keyword there is truth—not your perception or your desires," said Palihapitiya who has been married to Dompé farmaceutici CEO since 2023.
"That red-pilled me, I guess, in a way," he claimed.
From Democrat to Republican
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Palihapitiya donated over $1.3 million to Democratic candidates over the last decade. However, ever since his defection to MAGA, he has come to be dubbed as 'Trump megadonor'. In June 2024, during the now-President's campaign, the former Facebook executive co-led a San Francisco fundraiser that generated a whopping $12 million. He also gave $300,000 directly to get Trump elected in 2024, as per FEC records.
In an April 2025 appearance on the Flagrant podcast, he shared that his donations to the Democrats had not provided him with direct access to the White House, but that was not the case now that he was a Republican.
“I was a lifelong Democrat,” Palihapitiya recalled. “I was a megadonor to the Democrats — you know, like, dinner-with-Obama level donor. OK? I couldn’t get a phone call returned from the White House to save my life.”
“The Trump administration is totally different,” he insisted. “There’s not a single person there you can’t get on the phone and talk to.”
