U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at a marketing campaign occasion on the Throwback Brewery, in North Hampton, New Hampshire, on September 4, 2024.
Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Photographs
WASHINGTON — Eighty-eight present and former high executives from throughout company America have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in a brand new letter shared solely with CNBC.
Among the many signers are a number of high-profile CEOs of public corporations, together with Aaron Levie of Field, Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp and Michael Lynton, chairman of Snap, Inc.
Different signers look like issuing their first public endorsements of Harris since she turned the de facto Democratic nominee in July.
They embrace James Murdoch, the previous CEO of twenty first Century Fox and an inheritor to the Murdoch household media empire, and crypto govt Chris Larsen, co-founder of the Ripple blockchain platform.
Different notable signers are philanthropist Lynn Forrester de Rothschild, non-public fairness billionaire José Feliciano, Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, and D.C. sports activities magnate Ted Leonsis, proprietor of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, WNBA’s Mystics and the NHL’s Washington Capitals.
The three-page record additionally features a slate of longtime Democratic political donors, like Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr, Perception companions Deven Parekh and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the previous chairman of Walt Disney Studios.
One other subset of names are individuals who have supported Harris specifically since her political campaigns in California, just like the philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, Fb co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and NBA Corridor-of-Famer and billionaire businessman Magic Johnson.
Greater than a dozen of the signers made their fortunes on Wall Road: Tony James, the previous president and COO of Blackstone and founding father of Jefferson River Capital; Bruce Heyman, former managing director of personal wealth at Goldman Sachs; Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard and Steve Westly managing director of the Westly Group and a former Tesla board member.
Nonetheless extra are outstanding in Silicon Valley, together with the enterprise capitalist Ron Conway, entrepreneur Mark Cuban, and former LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman.
In spite of everything these, nevertheless, the lion’s share of the 88 signers who endorsed Harris are former CEOs of main public corporations.
They embrace former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Barry Diller of Paramount, Ken Frazier of Merck, Logan Inexperienced of Lyft, Blake Irving of GoDaddy, Alan Mulally of Ford, Laxman Narasimhan of Starbucks, and Dan Schulman of PayPal.
A strategic goal
Contemplating how lengthy the record of names runs, the endorsement letter itself is comparatively brief.
“The best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy” is by electing Harris president, the writers say.
In addition they argue that Harris would “continue to advance fair and predictable policies that support the rule of law, stability, and a sound business environment” if she have been president.
The explanation for the lengthy record and the brief letter is as a result of the letter itself was not written to persuade most people to vote for Harris.
As a substitute, it is goal is to function a well-timed political present of pressure for Harris, who’s locked in a really tight race, with the primary presidential debate simply 4 days away.
Each Harris and Trump have spent the previous week rolling out their dueling financial visions, forward of the Sept. 10 debate, hosted by ABC.
Harris outlined proposals to help small companies that characteristic a plan to extend a tax deduction for start-up bills by ten occasions, as much as $50,000.
She additionally proposed lifting the highest capital positive factors tax price to twenty-eight% for folks making greater than $1 million a yr—up from the present 20% price, however far decrease than the 39.6% stage that President Joe Biden has proposed.
Harris mentioned she dialed again Biden’s high price, partially, as a result of her aim is to encourage extra private-sector funding.
Trump laid out his personal competing financial agenda on Thursday in New York, the place he known as for the creation of a authorities effectivity fee designed to root out fraud.
He additionally pledged to chop the company tax price from 21% to fifteen% for corporations that make their merchandise in america.
Trump has additionally earned help from plenty of outstanding Wall Road and private-sector backers, together with Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
The letter’s preliminary group might be traced again to 4 high Harris supporters: Roger Altman, senior chairman of Evercore, Blair Effron, co-founder of Centerview Companions, the previous American Specific CEO Ken Chenault and Ursula Burns, the previous CEO of Xerox.
The genesis of the undertaking was described to CNBC by an individual accustomed to the method, who was granted anonymity to explain the way it took place.
Altman, Effron, Chenault and Burns organized the hassle, after which introduced the letter to the Harris presidential marketing campaign as a strategy to showcase the vice chairman’s help throughout the enterprise group.
The total textual content of the letter and record of signatures is beneath.
We promote Kamala Harris’s election as President of america.
Her election is the easiest way to help the continued energy, safety, and reliability of our democracy and financial system. With Kamala Harris within the White Home, the enterprise group might be assured that it’s going to have a President who desires American industries to thrive. As a companion to President Biden, Vice President Harris has a robust document of advancing actions to spur enterprise funding in america and guarantee American companies can compete and win within the international market. She’s going to proceed to advance honest and predictable insurance policies that help the rule of legislation, stability, and a sound enterprise surroundings, and she’s going to try to offer each American the chance to pursue the American dream.
- Roger Altman, Founder & Senior Chairman of Evercore
- Shellye Archambeau, former CEO of MetricStream
- Carl Bass, former CEO of Autodesk
- Tom Bernstein, President and Co-Founding father of Chelsea Piers
- Afasaneh Beschloss, Founder & CEO of Rock Creek
- Jeff Bewkes, former CEO of Time Warner
- W. Michael Blumenthal, sixty fourth U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and former CEO of each Bendix and Unisys
- Rosalind “Roz” Brewer, former CEO of Sam’s Membership; former CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance; former COO of Starbucks
- Ursula Burns, former CEO of Xerox; Chairwoman of Teneo; Founding Associate of Integrum Holdings
- Maverick Carter, CEO of The SpringHill Firm
- Ken Chenault, Chairman & Managing Director of Common Catalyst; former Chairman & CEO of American Specific
- Peter Chernin, Co-Founder & Associate of TCG
- Tony Coles, Chairperson & former CEO of Cerevel
- Tim Collins, Founder, CEO, and Senior Managing Director of Ripplewood
- Ron Conway, Founder & Managing Associate of SV Angel
- Robert Crandall, former President and Chairman of American Airways
- Mark Cuban, Numerous entrepreneurial endeavors and a “shark” on Shark Tank
- Richelieu Dennis, Founder and Govt Chair of Sundial Group of Firms
- Barry Diller, Chairman & Senior Govt of IAC and Senior Govt of Expedia; Former Chairman and CEO of Paramount Photos and Fox, Inc.
- John Doerr, Chairman of Kleiner Perkins
- Arnold Donald, former CEO of Carnival Company
- Blair Effron, Associate & Co-Founding father of Centerview Companions
- José E. Feliciano, Co-Founder and Managing Associate of Clearlake Capital Group
- David P. Fialkow, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Common Catalyst
- Anne Finucane, former Vice Chair of Financial institution of America
- Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Chief Govt of E.L. Rothschild
- Ken Frazier, former Govt Chairman, President & CEO of Merck
- Mark Gallogly, Co-Founder and Managing Principal of Three Cairns Group; Co-Founding father of Centerbridge Companions
- Chad Gifford, Former Chairman of Financial institution of America
- David Grain, Founder and CEO of Grain Administration
- Logan Inexperienced, Chairman and former CEO of Lyft
- Daniel J. Halpern, Co-founder and CEO of Jackmont Hospitality
- Bruce Heyman, Former U.S. Ambassador to Canada and former Managing Director of Non-public Wealth at Goldman Sachs
- Mellody Hobson, Co-CEO and President of Ariel Investments; Chairman of Starbucks
- Roger Hochschild, former CEO and President of Uncover Monetary Providers
- Reid Hoffman, Associate at Greylock Companions and Co-Founder and Govt Chairman of LinkedIn
- Glenn Hutchins, Chairman of North Island or Co-Founding father of Silver Lake
- Blake Irving, former CEO of GoDaddy
- Tony James, former President, CEO & Govt Vice Chairman of Blackstone; Founding father of Jefferson River Capital
- David Jacobson, Senior Advisor and former Vice Chair of BMO Monetary Group; Former U.S. Ambassador to Canada
- Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Chairman and CEO, Magic Johnson Enterprises
- Brad Karp, Chairman of Paul, Weiss
- Jeffrey Katzenberg, Founder & Managing Associate of WndrCo
- Ellen Kullman, President and CEO of Carbon3; former Chair and CEO of DuPont
- Todd Lachman, Founding father of Sovos Manufacturers
- Chris Larsen, Co-Founder and Govt Chairman of Ripple
- Jeff Lawson, former CEO of Twilio
- Ted Leonsis, CEO of Monumental Sports activities & Leisure
- Aaron Levie, Co-Founder & CEO of Field
- Ed Lewis, former Chairman and CEO of Essence Communications, co-founder Essence Journal
- William M. Lewis, Jr.
- Michael Lynton, Chairman of Snap, Inc., former CEO of Sony Leisure
- Tracy V. Maitland, President and Chief Funding Officer of Introduction Capital Administration
- Helena Maus, CEO of Archetype and Marker Collective
- Marissa Mayer, co-founder and CEO of Sunshine Merchandise, former CEO of Yahoo!
- T.J. McGill, Co-Founding father of Evergreen Pacific Companions and Suzanne Sinegal McGill, Co-Founding father of Rwanda Ladies Initiative
- Danny Meyer, Founder & Govt Chairman of Union Sq. Hospitality Group
- Dustin Moskovitz, Co-founder and CEO of Asana
- Alan Mulally, former CEO of Ford
- Anne Mulcahy, former Chairman and CEO of Xerox
- James Murdoch, Founder & CEO of Lupa Methods; former CEO of twenty first Century Fox
- Laxman Narasimhan, former CEO of Starbucks
- Indra Nooyi, former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo
- Peter Orszag, former Director of america Workplace of Administration and Finances and CEO of Lazard
- Deven J. Parekh, Managing Director of Perception Companions
- Sean Parker, Founding father of Napster; Founder and Chairman of Parker Institute for Most cancers Immunotherapy
- Charles Phillips, Co-founder and Managing Associate of Acknowledge; former President of Oracle and former CEO of Infor;
- Laurene Powell Jobs, Founder and President of Emerson Collective
- Penny Pritzker, thirty eighth U.S. Secretary of Commerce; founder and Chairman of PSP Companions
- Vasant Prabhu, former CFO and Vice-Chair of Visa
- Spencer Rascoff, Founder and CEO of 75 & Sunny Ventures; Co-Founder and former CEO of Zillow
- Punit Renjen
- Rachel Romer, Founding father of Guild Training
- Robert Rubin, former U.S. Treasury Secretary; Senior Counselor at Centerview Companions
- Kevin P. Ryan, Co-founder, MongoDB, Enterprise Insider, GILT Groupe, Zola, Pearl Well being, Have an effect on Therapeutics, and Transcend Therapeutics
- Faiza J. Saeed
- Dan Schulman, former President & CEO of PayPal
- Jim Sinegal, Co-Founder and Former CEO of Costco
- Dan Springer, former CEO of Docusign
- Tom Steyer, Founder and former Co-Senior-Managing-Associate of Farallon Capital
- Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp
- Scott Stuart, Founding & Managing Associate of Sageview Capital
- Larry Summers, 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury and President Emeritus of Harvard College
- Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder & CEO of Chobani
- Daniel Weiss, Co-Founder and Managing Associate of Angeleno Group
- Steve Westly, Founder and Managing Associate of The Westly Group
- Ron Williams, former CEO of Aetna
- Robert Wolf, former CEO of UBS Americas
