Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures attends Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013 at the San Francisco Design Center on September 11, 2013 in San Francisco, California.
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A Republican megadonor threatened on Tuesday to cut off campaign contributions to members of Congress unless they vote for a bill that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States.
“Never fund any Republican candidates or Republican-run leadership PACs (or NRSC) who vote against TikTok legislation,” venture capitalist Keith Rabois wrote on X.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives is expected to pass a bill that would force TikTok’s parent company, China’s ByteDance, to sell the social media platform. Supporters of the bill say ByteDance’s continued possession of TikTok and its massive user data poses a threat to U.S. national security.
“Support for the TikTok bill is an IQ test for members of Congress,” Labois wrote in an email to CNBC.
In February, Rabois reportedly donated $500,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee that supports House Republican candidates. Federal Election Commission Archive.
Labouise’s threat could have a significant impact on Republican lawmakers who are still on the fence about supporting the bill.
For some supporters of the bill, the political calculus became more complicated last week when former President Donald Trump announced his opposition to the bill. The Republican presidential candidate was joined by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who also criticized the legislation.
The bill’s prospects in the Senate remained uncertain Tuesday.
“In the Senate, it will be up to the Democratic leader (Chuck Schumer) to bring it to the floor. If he does that, we will have a clear record of the vote” indicating each senator’s vote, Labois told CNBC. position on this issue.
If the bill passes the Senate and is signed into law, ByteDance would have just six months to sell TikTok before the app would be banned from U.S. app stores and web hosting sites.
Rabois, managing director of Khosla Ventures, donated more than $41,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee last year. He also donated more than $120,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the NRSC’s House counterpart.
Rabois said whether he continues to support the NRCC will depend in part on how Republican leadership handles the upcoming vote.
Louisiana House Speaker Mike Johnson said he planned to vote for the measure, which Majority Leader Steve Scalise called a “critical national security bill.”
Republican Whip Tom Emmer also supports the legislation, and allegedly In March 2023, TikTok “is nothing more than a Chinese spy app that collects sensitive information from 150 million American users that can then be exploited by the Chinese government.”
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