Billionaire Reid Hoffman: Odds of Trump retaliation 'greater than 50 percent'

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman said he believes President-elect Trump will likely come after him for supporting Vice President Harris's presidential campaign.

“I think that there's a greater than 50 percent chance that there will be repercussions from a misdirection and corruption of the institutions of state to respond to my having tried to help Harris get elected," Hoffman said on Monday’s episode of British entrepreneur Steven Bartlett’s podcast "The Diary of a CEO.”

Hoffman was an outspoken supporter of Harris during her campaign, joining other entrepreneurs and billionaires in the “Business Leaders for Harris” group to encourage backing of Harris’s White House bid. Hoffman was also one of President Biden’s biggest donors during his campaign.

Now, Hoffman said retaliations from the president-elect are more than likely, naming possibilities like IRS audits or phone calls trying to hurt his business prospects. He added these actions would be "undemocratic and un-American."

"It could get much worse, but I don't really want to speculate on it because I don't want to give anybody any ideas," he said on the podcast.

Hoffman also said that other business leaders praised his outspokenness and actions to support Harris but didn’t follow suit out of fear of retaliation from the incoming president.

"Part of the reason why I think less people were public about it this cycle was because President Trump was threatening personal and political retaliation, and so you had to have a certain degree of courage to stand up — and courage in the public area," he said.

"President Trump will serve ALL Americans, even those who did not vote for him in the election. He will unify the country through success," Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told The Hill in response to the comments.

Updated at 3:55 pm ET.

Topics

Trump's administration set to have unprecedented number of billionaires

Once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, an unprecedented number of billionaires will make up his incoming administration. Axios national politics reporter Sophia Cai joins "The ...
CBS News - Dec. 10
Republicans who oppose Trump face risk of retaliation from Musk

Billionaire has hinted he will back challenges to lawmakers who vote against the Maga agenda
Financial Times - Dec. 7
Trump's billionaire Cabinet

Welcome to The Hill's Business & Economy newsletter {beacon} Business & Economy Business & Economy The Big Story The billionaires stocking Trump’s next administration President-elect Trump made ...
The Hill - Dec. 6
Here are the billionaires stocking Trump’s next administration

President-elect Trump has named several billionaires to top roles in his next administration — a combination worth over $360 billion and that includes the world’s richest person. Elon Musk, the ...
The Hill - Dec. 6
Billionaire who performed the first private spacewalk is Trump's pick to lead NASA

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped a tech billionaire who performed the first private spacewalk to lead NASA
ABC News - Dec. 4
Trump picks billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead NASA

Donald Trump has picked billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. Isaacman has flown to space twice on commercial SpaceX missions but has not worked in government.
NBC News - Dec. 4
Eli Lilly's Zepbound causes greater weight loss than Novo Nordisk's Wegovy in head-to-head trial

Zepbound's greater weight loss is a huge advantage for Eli Lilly, which is competing with Novo Nordisk for a larger share of the weight loss drug market.
CNBC - Dec. 4
Trump picks billionaire investor as Pentagon deputy

Politico - Dec. 3
Trump Picks Warren Stephens, Billionaire Investment Banker, for U.K. Ambassador

Warren Stephens, an investment banker, gave $2 million in 2016 to a group aiming to block Donald J. Trump’s political rise. More recently, he backed Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, Mike Pence and ...
The New York Times - Dec. 3