Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is considering rejecting donations from major tech companies ahead of his second inauguration next month, according to two Republican strategists involved in the discussions, in a bid to boost conservative activists eager to take on Silicon Valley.
DeSantis, who is considering a possible challenge to Donald J. Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has often accused companies like Apple and Google of overreaching and limiting free speech in their efforts to curb the spread of misinformation. and conspiracy theories.
While refusing tech donations would be welcomed on the right, it’s unclear how much money Mr. DeSantis would leave on the table. According to campaign finance reports, Silicon Valley has not made a major contribution to its two gubernatorial campaigns or its previous three campaigns for the House.
Donations raised by Mr. DeSantis’ inaugural team will be transferred to the Florida Republican Party. For his first inauguration, Mr. DeSantis released a partial list of donors — including Disney, private prison company GEO Group and the Police Benevolent Association — but did not specify how many had been given. That’s in contrast to his predecessor, Senator Rick Scott, who raised about $6.4 million for his 2011 inauguration as governor, according to The Tampa Bay Times, and listed those donations on his website.
A spokesperson for Mr. DeSantis declined to comment. The two strategists familiar with the proposed move, who insisted on anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said Mr. DeSantis had not yet made a final decision on the donations.
Florida’s governor has long vowed to crack down on Silicon Valley, including after the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, when many major platforms banned accounts, including Mr. Trump’s, that perpetuated misinformation and conspiracy theories . A month after the riot, Mr. DeSantis said he would seek a new law aimed at restricting social media companies from censoring political candidates, and he and Republicans have passed such legislation.
But a panel of a federal appeals court unanimously rejected the law. Judge Kevin C. Newsom, appointed by Trump to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, wrote that Florida law would effectively limit First Amendment protections.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration
“With few exceptions, the government cannot tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it,” Judge Newsom wrote.
Refusing donations from tech companies to the inauguration would help polish the governor’s anti-elite bona fides while providing a contrast to Mr Trump, who announced his presidential campaign last month.
While Mr. Trump has openly criticized companies including General Motors and Amazon, he has welcomed financial support from all. His campaign is planning next month the first round of major fundraisers, a series of private, high-priced events designed to offset a slump in online giving during the final months of this year.
Mr. Trump has been largely immunized against criticism about taking money from special interests in recent years, in part because of the personal fortune he had built before running for office. But while the former president has consistently said he can afford to pay for his own campaigns, he relies primarily on fundraising.
For his part, DeSantis has forged close ties with Republican donors since he first ran for Congress in 2012. In 2016, after new congressional maps cut his home from the House district he represented, Mr. DeSantis rented an apartment in the district of campaign donors who were executives for a defense contractor.
For his re-election campaign this year, Mr. DeSantis built up a massive $200 million war chest, largely from six- and seven-figure donations from special interests. Robert Bigelow, a real estate and aerospace entrepreneur, and Kenneth Griffin, the founder of the Citadel hedge fund, both gave $10 million to Mr. DeSantis.
Unlike federal campaign finance laws, Florida law does not limit individual or corporate donations to state political parties or committees. That means if Mr. DeSantis becomes a federal candidate, next month’s inaugural events could be his last chance to hold a major fundraiser for Florida’s Republican Party, which effectively operates as a political body for a sitting governor.
On Sunday, Mr. DeSantis fundraisers at an event in Miami intended as a thank-you for major donors, but he left some unsatisfied. The event was billed as an “intimate dinner and conversation” with Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey DeSantis, but instead turned into a reception that the governor attended for about 20 minutes, according to two attendees.
DeSantis has spent much of the past year signaling his national ambitions, including this week when he said he would ask the Florida Supreme Court to convene a grand jury to examine Covid-19 vaccines and criticize federal law to protect same-sex marriage.
“They’re using the power, I think, of the federal government in a way that will absolutely get into trouble for religious institutions,” Mr. DeSantis said. said during an interview on Fox News about the same-sex marriage bill, which President Biden signed into law on Tuesday. “It certainly wasn’t necessary to do this.”
Mr. DeSantis led Mr. Trump this week in two public polls of a hypothetical 2024 Republican primary. Among Republicans and those inclined to vote Republican, 56 percent said they supported Mr. DeSantis, while 33 percent supported Mr. Trump supported, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll. A Wall Street Journal poll showed Florida’s governor leading the race, 52 percent to 38 percent.
DeSantis plans to grant exclusive access to his largest donors during his inaugural events on Jan. 2 and after his swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 3, according to a copy of an event schedule reviewed by The New York Times.
For donors who give $1 million, Mr. DeSantis will each provide 10 tickets for a candlelight dinner on the eve of the inauguration, for VIP seating at the inauguration ceremony, and for an inauguration ball that evening.
These donors also receive a photo with the governor, are referred to as “inaugural chairs” on the inaugural ball program, and receive two tickets to “A Toast to One Million Mamas,” an event held in honor of a campaign group curated by Mrs. DeSantis.
Patricia Mazzie and Maggie Haberman reporting contributed.
