Venture Capitalist Podcast Host Brutally Roasted For Complaining He Couldn’t Buy Access to Democrats Like He Can With Trump Admin

Canadian-American venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya sparked a wave of condemnation this week after he said that he became disillusioned by the Democrats over Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama not taking his calls after being a “mega-donor” to the party. Palihapitiya, who co-hosts the popular All-In podcast, went on to say the opposite dynamic exists with the Trump administration.

“This is one thing I’ll tell you about the Trump administration, which is totally different. I was a lifelong Democrat. Okay. I was a mega donor to the Democrats, um, you know, like dinner with Obama level donor. Okay. I couldn’t get a fucking phone call returned from the White House to save my life,” Palihapitiya said on the Flagrant podcast with Andrew Schultz and co-hosts.

“The only thing that happened to me was I made an off-color comment about like something in China, and I had the Biden administration like basically say something, like essentially put out a press release basically saying I was like, you know, mean. That’s all I got for millions of dollars that you know what I mean?” he continued, adding:

Like, you know, talk to me about the fentanyl crisis before we talk about everything else. Anyways, the Trump administration is totally different. There’s not a single person there you can’t get on the phone and talk to. I’ll give you an example of this. A friend of mine’s company was really impacted with these tariffs in a bad way.

Okay, this is like a really amazing, legitimate American business 150 year old business family owned all this stuff. And I was able to call the deputy chief of staff, and I said, ‘Hey, can you talk to the CEO and just say hear on the ground?’ He’s like instantly put me on the phone. You know, my wife runs a pharmaceutical business. And you know, we wanted to make sure that the administration understood all the implications for rare diseases in orphan drugs. What happens if these tariffs cripple the R&D budgets?

Because there’s 30 million Americans with rare diseases. Rare diseases means it’s not like diabetes or cancer. It’s like 200,000 people or less. But there’s thirty million of these Americans. Two-thirds are kids. And the only companies that work on such small markets are these small biotech companies. And the tariffs create a lot of uncertainty. We were able to talk to all of them. They were like, explain the issue, I wanna understand it.

So this is what’s also totally different, which I really give them a lot of respect. They are willing to debate it with you. You can pick up the phone and talk to these people. I’ve never had that experience, guys. I mean, look, I was like a senior person at Facebook, could never get a meeting.

I only met Obama once when he came to the thing. Then when I was running an investment fund successfully, I had dinner with Obama, but it was under the purpose of should I donate to the foundation? I’ve donated millions of dollars to Democrats, I’ve never been to the Oval. Okay? But the minute it’s like here, it’s, like, hey, come to the White House, explain these issues now. You get on a plane, you get over there and they’re like, explain it and then they’ll debate it.

“I’m sorry, devil’s advocate, should being a mega donor, I mean, I guess I get your point of view, but couldn’t it also just be like, no, we’re not going to be biased just because a person donated money. We’re not gonna just answer the phone whenever he calls,” pushed back co-host Akaash Singh.

“You think I was stupid five years ago and all of a sudden tried to start to build national champions like now? Dude, man, I’ve been in the grind for fucking 25 years here, paying my taxes. I fucking paid more than most people. Yeah, so irrespective of the donation. I’ve tried to do the right thing. I wasn’t trying to favor myself. It’s like even just to explain, here’s what’s happening on the ground,” Palihapitiya replied.

Reactions to Palihapitiya’s screed on his money not buying him access to Democratic presidents was not well received by many online. Below are some of those reactions:

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