Tech founders call on Sequoia Capital to denounce VC Shaun Maguire's Mamdani comments

Almost 600 radical person signed an open letter to leaders astatine task steadfast Sequoia Capital aft 1 of its partners, Shaun Maguire, posted what the radical described arsenic a "deliberate, inflammatory attack" against the Muslim Democratic mayoral campaigner successful New York City.

Maguire, a vocal protagonist of President Donald Trump, posted connected X implicit the play that Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic superior past month, "comes from a civilization that lies astir everything" and is retired to beforehand "his Islamist agenda."

The station had 5.3 cardinal views arsenic of Monday afternoon. Maguire, whose investments see Elon Musk's SpaceX and X arsenic good arsenic artificial quality startup Safe Superintelligence, besides published a video connected X explaining the remark.

Those signing the missive are asking Sequoia to condemn Maguire's comments and apologize to Mamdani and Muslim founders. They besides privation the steadfast to authorize an autarkic probe of Maguire's behaviour successful the past 2 years and station "a zero-tolerance argumentation connected hatred code and spiritual bigotry."

They are asking the steadfast for a nationalist effect by July 14, oregon "we volition proceed with broader nationalist disclosure, media outreach and mobilizing our networks to guarantee accountability," the missive says.

Sequoia declined to comment. Maguire didn't respond to a petition for comment, but wrote successful a station astir the missive connected Wednesday that, "You tin effort everything you privation to soundlessness me, but it volition conscionable embolden me."

Among the signees are Mudassir Sheikha, CEO of ride-hailing work Careem, and Amr Awadallah, CEO of AI startup Vectara. Also connected the database is Abubakar Abid, who works successful instrumentality learning Hugging Face, which is backed by Sequoia, and Ahmed Sabbah, CEO of Telda, a fiscal exertion startup that Sequoia archetypal invested successful 4 years ago.

At slightest 3 founders of startups that person gone done startup accelerator programme Y Combinator added their names to the letter.

Sequoia arsenic a steadfast is nary alien to politics. Doug Leone, who led the steadfast until 2022 and remains a partner, is simply a longtime Republican donor, who supported Trump successful the 2024 election. Following Trump's triumph successful November, Leone posted connected X, "To each Trump voters:  you nary longer person to fell successful the shadows…..you're the majority!!"

By contrast, Leone's predecessor, Mike Moritz, is simply a Democratic megadonor, who criticized Trump and, successful August, slammed his colleagues successful the tech manufacture for lining up down the Republican nominee. In a Financial Times sentiment piece, Moritz wrote Trump's tech supporters were "making a large mistake."

"I uncertainty whether immoderate of them would privation him arsenic portion of an concern syndicate that they organised," wrote Moritz, who stepped down from Sequoia successful 2023, implicit a decennary aft giving up a absorption relation astatine the firm. "Why past bash they disregard his caller transgression condemnation arsenic thing much than a politically inspired witch-hunt implicit a elemental book-keeping error?"

Neither Leone nor Moritz returned messages seeking comment.

Roelof Botha, Sequoia's existent pb partner, has taken a much neutral stance. Botha said astatine an event past July that Sequoia arsenic a concern doesn't "take a governmental constituent of view," adding that he's "not a registered subordinate of either party." Boelof said he's "proud of the information that we've enabled galore of our partners to explicit their respected idiosyncratic views on the way, and fixed them that freedom."

Maguire has agelong been unfastened with his governmental views. He said connected X past twelvemonth that helium had "just donated $300k to President Trump."

Mamdani, a self-described antiauthoritarian socialist, has gained the ire of galore radical successful tech and successful the concern assemblage much broadly since defeating erstwhile New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo successful the June primary.

— CNBC's Ari Levy contributed to this report.

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