Virtually 600 individuals have signed an open letter to leaders at enterprise agency Sequoia Capital after certainly one of its companions, Shaun Maguire, posted what the group described as a “deliberate, inflammatory assault” in opposition to the Muslim Democratic mayoral candidate in New York Metropolis.
Maguire, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, posted on X over the weekend that Zohran Mamdani, who gained the Democratic major final month, “comes from a tradition that lies about every part” and is out to advance “his Islamist agenda.”
The publish had 5.3 million views as of Monday afternoon. Maguire, whose investments embrace Elon Musk’s SpaceX and X in addition to synthetic intelligence startup Secure Superintelligence, additionally revealed a video on X explaining the comment.
These signing the letter are asking Sequoia to sentence Maguire’s feedback and apologize to Mamdani and Muslim founders. In addition they need the agency to authorize an unbiased investigation of Maguire’s habits up to now two years and publish “a zero-tolerance coverage on hate speech and non secular bigotry.”
They’re asking the agency for a public response by July 14, or “we’ll proceed with broader public disclosure, media outreach and mobilizing our networks to make sure accountability,” the letter says.
Sequoia declined to remark. Maguire did not reply to a request for remark, however wrote in a publish in regards to the letter on Wednesday that, “You possibly can attempt every part you wish to silence me, however it should simply embolden me.”
Among the many signees are Mudassir Sheikha, CEO of ride-hailing service Careem, and Amr Awadallah, CEO of AI startup Vectara. Additionally on the checklist is Abubakar Abid, who works in machine studying Hugging Face, which is backed by Sequoia, and Ahmed Sabbah, CEO of Telda, a monetary know-how startup that Sequoia first invested in 4 years in the past.
At the least three founders of startups which have gone by means of startup accelerator program Y Combinator added their names to the letter.
Sequoia as a agency isn’t any stranger to politics. Doug Leone, who led the agency till 2022 and stays a associate, is a longtime Republican donor, who supported Trump within the 2024 election. Following Trump’s victory in November, Leone posted on X, “To all Trump voters: you now not have to cover within the shadows…..you are the bulk!!”
In contrast, Leone’s predecessor, Mike Moritz, is a Democratic megadonor, who criticized Trump and, in August, slammed his colleagues within the tech business for lining up behind the Republican nominee. In a Monetary Occasions opinion piece, Moritz wrote Trump’s tech supporters have been “making a giant mistake.”
“I doubt whether or not any of them would need him as a part of an funding syndicate that they organised,” wrote Moritz, who stepped down from Sequoia in 2023, over a decade after giving up a administration position on the agency. “Why then do they dismiss his current legal conviction as nothing greater than a politically impressed witch-hunt over a easy book-keeping error?”
Neither Leone nor Moritz returned messages searching for remark.
Roelof Botha, Sequoia’s present lead associate, has taken a extra impartial stance. Botha mentioned at an occasion final July that Sequoia as a partnership does not “take a political standpoint,” including that he is “not a registered member of both social gathering.” Boelof mentioned he is “pleased with the truth that we have enabled lots of our companions to precise their revered particular person views alongside the way in which, and given them that freedom.”
Maguire has lengthy been open along with his political opinions. He mentioned on X final yr that he had “simply donated $300k to President Trump.”
Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, has gained the ire of many individuals in tech and within the enterprise neighborhood extra broadly since defeating former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo within the June major.
— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.
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