Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia slammed Democrats as he said he was driven from the party over the crisis at the Southern border and criticisms of RFK Jr.
The billionaire opened up on his decision to support Donald Trump in a podcast appearance opposite former White House official Katie Miller – the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Gebbia was previously a top donor for Kamala Harris – but ultimately flipped his vote in the 2024 election after a phone call with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
He also cited HHS Secretary Kennedy as a main reason why he was attracted to Trump, saying: ‘I’ve been on my journey.’
Gebbia said: ‘Everyone’s been on a journey, and I think through, you know, certainly Bobby Kennedy and supporting him, and I’ve been so grateful for the work that he’s doing, to be somebody who just cares so much about the health of our nation.
‘And you know, (Kennedy) has no ties to industry and is really just able to bust through walls and sort of, like, right size the ship.’
Gebbia added that seeing immigration fall out of control under former President Joe Biden was a wake-up call for him to leave the Democrats around mid-2021, when border encounters soared to over 200,000-per-month.
‘The activity at the border caught my attention, and I just remember thinking, ‘What’s going on with this topic? It seems as if there’s no border,” he said.
Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia opened up on his decision to support Donald Trump in a podcast appearance opposite former White House official Katie Miller – the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller – this week
Gabbia cited HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (pictured together) as a main reason why he was attracted to Trump, alongside the crisis at the Southern border
‘And as it got worse that year, I felt like I needed to understand this problem more, so I reached out to my friends, largely on the Democratic side of the house, at all levels, from the highest level all the way down.’
Gebbia made headlines earlier this year after joining forces with Elon Musk to work on his DOGE initiative, an experience that he described as ‘pretty unpleasant’ due to the backlash he received from the left.
Last week, Gabbia was also named by the White House as the nation’s first ever ‘chief design officer’, part of a push to modernize the federal government’s platforms.
He said at his announcement in the new role that his aim is to make government platforms as ‘satisfying to use as the Apple Store: beautifully designed, great user experience, run on modern software.’
Gebbia was a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party and even donated to the Kamala Harris – Tim Walz ticket, but ultimately said he voted for Trump.
He explained his decision in an X post in November, saying: ‘We were told by the media that loving this country meant hating Trump, and for many years I believed that.
‘Until I committed the second greatest sin that I’d like to confess today: I did my own research. And I found something that shocked me. He is not a fascist determined to destroy democracy. He deeply cares about our nation.’
Gebbia made headlines earlier this year after joining forces with Elon Musk to work on his DOGE initiative, an experience that he described as ‘pretty unpleasant’ due to the backlash he received from the left
Gabbia said that after he was left feeling ‘unfulfilled’ by the answers he got from Democrats, he turned to President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner for more information
Gebbia said that seeing immigration fall out of control under former President Joe Biden was a wake-up call for him to leave the Democrats around mid-2021, when border encounters soared to over 200,000-per-month
In his recent podcast appearance opposite Katie Miller, Gabbia said this ‘journey’ started when he began questioning top Democrats over illegal border crossings during the Biden administration.
He said he received ‘some answers’ but still felt ‘unfulfilled’ by what he heard, so he turned to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
‘I get on the phone with Jared and say, ‘Hey, can you help me? Fill in the gaps for me. Like, what am I missing here? Is this normal? Like, seems there’s no enforcement of our own border. Like, don’t nations need borders to be a nation?,” he recalled.
‘And so he put me on this curriculum of just talking to experts in the field, and I remember just being like holy cow, this is crazy. Like, this is not right.
‘This is a real problem and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be enforcing the laws of our country and our border.
‘And so I think, as I started to pull on that thread, I sort of, you know, begin to look at other topics and eventually came to the point where I don’t think I can support a political party that wants to have an open border, that lets in criminals and dangerous people into our country.
‘That’s just not something I can get behind.’
