On Monday, former President and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump officially named Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his vice presidential pick and running mate.
“After much deliberation and reflection, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the most suitable person to assume the office of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance from the great state of Ohio,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social announcing his choice.
Vance has Appeared in the election campaign in support of Trump. In the hours after the shooting at Trump’s rally, Vance published in X “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to the attempted assassination of President Trump.”
Vance was not always a Trump supporter, but he has long had ties to Silicon Valley through his former life as a venture capitalist, including with Peter Thiel, a longtime Trump supporter and investor. Since winning his 2022 Senate race, Vance has emerged as an ardent Trump supporter and critic of Big Tech, and could play a key role in shaping how a Trump administration would approach the industry.
Vance’s 2016 memoir Peasant Elegy It’s about growing up poor in the Rust Belt, and he He marked himself as someone who understood – and could explain – the forces of discontent that led to Trump’s victory. At the time, Vance referred to himself as a “guy who would never support Trump,” even going so far as to speculate that Trump might be “The Hitler of the United States” in a 2016 text message. The text was made public by a former classmate of Vance at Yale Law School. in 2022.
But since Trump’s victory in 2016, Vance has aligned himself more with the former president. In an interview for 2021 Interview with Time, Vance explained his change of heart by saying, “I understood Trump’s problems from the beginning. I thought this guy was not serious and he was not going to be able to make progress on the issues that I cared about.”
During his 2022 Senate campaign, Vance met with Trump, who later supported him. “Like some others, JD Vance may have said some not-so-nice things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I’ve seen it in spades,” he said. The former president said in a statement at the time. Vance has since said that would not have voted to certify the results of the 2020 electionallowing states to send multiple electors, something former Vice President Mike Pence refused to do.
Vance is no stranger to the world of tech and venture capital, and has long-standing connections in Silicon Valley. In 2020, he created an Ohio-based venture capital fund, Capital of NaryaBillionaire and right-wing supporter Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Eric Schmidt, and Scott Dorsey were all investors. He also worked for Thiel’s own fund, Mithril Capital, and Thiel also Supported Vance’s successful campaign for Senate in 2022. In June, Vance attended a fundraising dinner for Trump, organized by tech investor David Sacks.