‘Great President!’ Venture Capitalist Podcaster Flip-Flops On Trump in Utterly Fawning CNBC Interview

Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya admitted on CNBC on Tuesday he has done a complete 180 on President Donald Trump. Palihapitiya said the media “lied” about the president and that he bought it all, only to realize it was all bogus and Trump is a “fantastic” guy.

Palihapitiya made the big pivot during an appearance on Squawk Box, where he gave CNBC veteran Joe Kernen credit for being pro-Trump.

“You’re 100% right on Trump. He’s fantastic,” Palihapitiya said. “Unbelievable person, very smart on top of it, open-minded… great president, so far.”

He explained that he was anti-MAGA for a while, but that he changed his mind after seeing the mainstream press coverage of Trump was warped.

“The reality is that most of us were lied to by the media about President Trump,” Palihapitiya said. “And if you just go back to the source material, you should take away two things — one, he didn’t say half the things he said, and two, why did these other people just fabricate what they wanted to say so that they could essentially assassinate his character?”

He continued, “I think that that second thing is completely unacceptable in America and there’s still been no repercussions, really.”

Palihapitiya said he first copped to being “totally wrong” about Trump on the All-In podcast, which he co-hosts with Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg; Sacks served as the White House AI & Crypto Czar from January 2025 until March 2026.

After admitting he’d flipped on Trump, Palihapitiya said Trump called him. The two quickly struck up a chummy relationship, he said.

“I got to know him and he is fantastic,” he said.

His come-to-Trump moment follows Palihapitiya saying in 2020 he donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates to spite the president.

“Earlier this year, I decided to donate to the Democrats whenever Trump did something cruel, reckless or strategically incomprehensible,” Palihapitiya posted in June 2020. “He has exceeded all my expectations. He’s responsible for $750,000 to the Dems and counting.”

Watch above via CNBC.

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