Big money donors rally behind Biden as he launches his reelection bid

After President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that he will run for re-election in 2016, the business community began rallying behind him.

Tech, media and finance executives have made it known publicly and behind-the-scenes that they are ready to assist Biden in his efforts to overcome the low approval ratings he has received and to fend off any heated Republican challenge. This could be a rematch against former president Donald Trump.

Some of the biggest Republican donors have scrambled to find a viable alternative to Trump. Others placed their hopes in Florida Governor Rick Scott. Ron DeSantis has not yet announced whether he will run. DeSantis' battle with Disney has led some of the same donors to quietly start looking at other options. Former Vice President Mike Pence may also enter the GOP primaries.

Biden, regardless of who the Republican nominee is in 2024, will have a large war chest.

According to one of Hoffman's closest advisors, Reid Hoffman, co-founder and billionaire LinkedIn, offered to host fundraisers for Biden once the former announced that he would be running for reelection.

Hoffman and Biden have been friends for many years. He hosted a virtual fundraising event in 2021 featuring the president for the Democratic National Committee. Hoffman has been invited to attend the Biden donor event in Washington, but he is unable to go for personal reasons. This person said that Hoffman visited the White House just a few short weeks ago.

This advisor stated, "They know that they can depend on us."

In order to remain anonymous and speak freely of private discussions, some people quoted in this article declined to provide their names. Before publication, a Biden campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comments.

Haim Saban is the media mogul who owns properties such as the Power Rangers. He told CNBC via email that he would "do all I can" to get President Biden elected for a second term. Saban raised millions of dollars for Biden's 2020 campaign and plans to "improve" on this in 2024.

Jeffrey Katzenberg is a veteran Democratic fundraiser and co-founder at DreamWorks. He also serves as one of Biden’s co-chairs for his presidential campaign. Katzenberg attended the White House state dinner last year with Biden's 2020 fundraising team.

Katzenberg said in an exclusive CNBC interview on Tuesday that he thinks the Biden campaign is going to raise more money this time than it did in 2020. According to Federal Election Commission reports, Biden brought in a little more than $1 billion while Trump raised over $740 millions.

Katzenberg has been in contact with Biden's team of longtime advisers about Biden's run for president in 2024 over the last year.

Katzenberg stated, "I have emphasized his accomplishments and leadership and how important it is at this time for him, once more, to saddle up and do this." "I've been as ambitious and active as I can to encourage and support Biden in running again. "I've been doing it fairly consistently for the past year."

He said that he expects to see his role as cochair of the campaign develop. He also stressed that small dollar donors will play a crucial role in Biden's reelection bid for 2024, just as they did in the 2020 campaign.

OpenSecrets reports that Biden's last presidential campaign raised more than $400 million dollars from donors who gave less than $200, according to OpenSecrets. Katzenberg stated that donors of all sizes have already contacted him to ask how they can contribute.

Katzenberg stated that he received "inundated messages" of support for Biden after Biden announced his candidacy.

He said, "It will be days before I can get out of the outpouring support that occurred 12 hours after launch."

Charles Myers, former vice chairman of Evercore and founder of Signum Global Advisors told CNBC he planned to raise and donate millions of dollars for Biden's candidacy in 2024.

"The stakes are higher than they have ever been." Trump 2.0 would be devastating to the country, and perhaps the world as well," he said. He also noted that he planned to raise and donate more money than ever before.

Donald Sussman, a veteran hedge fund executive, told CNBC that after the publication of this article, he is also preparing to support Biden. No one has done as much for Americans since FDR. Sussman said in a CNBC statement that he was "thrilled" his leadership would continue.

Sussman reduced his campaign funding during the 2020 election cycle. Sussman didn't make it into OpenSecrets top 100 donors list for his donations during that election cycle. According to OpenSecrets, Sussman donated over $20 million in 2020. All of that money went towards Democrats. He was the 12th most generous donor in that cycle.

Two New York City fundraising events are in the works, according to a different Biden fundraiser. According to this source, the events are organized at least partially by Dennis Mehiel who supported Biden for 2020. This person stated that Chicago businessman John Atkinson also plans fundraising events to support the president.

Trump is the clear favorite for the GOP primary. A poll conducted by NBC News shows that 46% of Republican primary voters who took part in the study support Trump above other candidates and potential candidates including DeSantis. Majority of respondents said that they prefer neither Biden or Trump to run for president.

54 percent of those polled disapproved of Biden's job. Biden is favored to beat Trump in other public polls, but it's a close race.

Trump's dominance of the GOP has led other major Democratic donors to begin lining up to support Biden. According to a source close to Ron Conway, the venture capitalist has told his friends that he'll help with the campaign of President Trump.

Conway has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Alexander Soros is the son of George Soros. He tweeted that he was "ridin' with Biden." However, his spokesman had no further information on how the billionaire or his son would help Biden.

According to the New York Post, the younger Soros has visited the White House 14 times in the last two years since Biden was elected president. According to OpenSecrets, George Soros gave over $178m during the midterm elections of 2022 towards Democrats running on all the ballots.

Tom Steyer, the billionaire who ran for president in 2020 and has been a vocal critic of Trump, tweeted that he supports his stance on climate.

Steyer stated: "We need to find a leader that understands the urgency and who will work with allies in order to strengthen our global response. That's URL."

Steyer's Team did not respond when asked for comment.