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3 months ago
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WASHINGTON — Eighty-eight current and former top executives from across corporate America have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in a new letter shared exclusively with CNBC.
Among the signers are several high-profile CEOs of public companies, including Aaron Levie of Box, Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp and Michael Lynton, chairman of Snap.
Other signers appear to be issuing their first public endorsements of Harris since she became the de facto Democratic nominee in July.
They include James Murdoch, former CEO of 21st Century Fox and an heir to the Murdoch family media empire, and crypto executive Chris Larsen, co-founder of the Ripple blockchain platform.
Other notable signers are philanthropist Lynn Forester de Rothschild, private equity billionaire José Feliciano, Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, and D.C. sports magnate Ted Leonsis, owner of the NBA's Washington Wizards, WNBA's Mystics and the NHL's Washington Capitals.
The three-page list also includes a slate of longtime Democratic political donors, like Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr, Insight partners Deven Parekh, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder and managing partner of Wndr and former chairman of Walt Disney Studios.
Another subset of names are people who have supported Harris in particular since her political campaigns in California, like the philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, and NBA Hall of Famer and billionaire businessman Magic Johnson.
More than a dozen of the signers made their fortunes on Wall Street: Tony James, former president and COO of Blackstone and founder of Jefferson River Capital; Bruce Heyman, former managing director of private wealth at Goldman Sachs; Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard; and Steve Westly managing director of the Westly Group and a former Tesla board member.
Still more are prominent in Silicon Valley, including the venture capitalist Ron Conway, entrepreneur Mark Cuban and former LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman.
The lion's share of the 88 signers who endorsed Harris are former CEOs of major public companies.
They include former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Barry Diller, chairman of IAC and former Paramount and Fox Inc. CEO, former Merck CEO Ken Frazier, Logan Green former CEO of Lyft, former GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving, former Ford CEO Alan Mulally, former Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan and Dan Schulman, former CEO of PayPal.
A strategic purpose
Considering how long the list of names runs, the endorsement letter itself is relatively short.
"The best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy" is by electing Harris president, the writers say.
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks at a campaign rally in Savannah, Georgia, U.S., August 29, 2024.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
They also argue that Harris would "continue to advance fair and predictable policies that support the rule of law, stability, and a sound business environment" if she were president.
The reason for the long list and the short letter is because the letter itself was not written to convince the general public to vote for Harris.
Instead, its purpose is to serve as a well-timed political show of force for Harris, who is locked in a very tight race, with the first presidential debate just four days away.
Both Harris and Trump have spent the past week rolling out their dueling economic visions, ahead of the Sept. 10 debate, hosted by ABC.
Harris outlined proposals to support small businesses that feature a plan to increase a tax deduction for startup expenses by 10 times, up to $50,000.
She also proposed lifting the top capital gains tax rate to 28% for people making more than $1 million a year — up from the current 20% rate, but far lower than the 39.6% level that President Joe Biden has proposed.
Harris said she dialed back Biden's top rate, in part, because her goal is to encourage more private sector investment.
Trump laid out his own competing economic agenda on Thursday in New York, where he called for the creation of a government efficiency commission designed to root out fraud.
He also pledged to cut the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% for companies that make their products in the United States.
Trump has also earned support from a number of prominent Wall Street and private sector backers, including Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
The letter's initial organization can be traced back to four top Harris supporters: Roger Altman, senior chairman of Evercore, Blair Effron, co-founder of Centerview Partners, the former American Express CEO Ken Chenault and Ursula Burns, the former CEO of Xerox.
The genesis of the project was described to CNBC by a person familiar with the process, who was granted anonymity to describe how it came about.
Altman, Effron, Chenault and Burns organized the effort, and then brought the letter to the Harris presidential campaign as a way to showcase the vice president's support within the business community.
The full text of the letter and list of signatures is below.
We endorse Kamala Harris's election as President of the United States.
Her election is the best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy. With Kamala Harris in the White House, the business community can be confident that it will have a President who wants American industries to thrive. As a partner to President Biden, Vice President Harris has a strong record of advancing actions to spur business investment in the United States and ensure American businesses can compete and win in the global market. She will continue to advance fair and predictable policies that support the rule of law, stability, and a sound business environment, and she will strive to give every American the opportunity to pursue the American dream.
- Roger Altman, Founder & Senior Chairman of Evercore
- Shellye Archambeau, former CEO of MetricStream
- Carl Bass, former CEO of Autodesk
- Tom Bernstein, President and Co-Founder of Chelsea Piers
- Afasaneh Beschloss, Founder & CEO of Rock Creek
- Jeff Bewkes, former CEO of Time Warner
- W. Michael Blumenthal, 64th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and former CEO of both Bendix and Unisys
- Rosalind "Roz" Brewer, former CEO of Sam's Club; former CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance; former COO of Starbucks
- Ursula Burns, former CEO of Xerox; Chairwoman of Teneo; Founding Partner of Integrum Holdings
- Maverick Carter, CEO of The SpringHill Company
- Ken Chenault, Chairman & Managing Director of General Catalyst; former Chairman & CEO of American Express
- Peter Chernin, Co-Founder & Partner of TCG
- Tony Coles, Chairperson & former CEO of Cerevel
- Tim Collins, Founder, CEO, and Senior Managing Director of Ripplewood
- Ron Conway, Founder & Managing Partner of SV Angel
- Robert Crandall, former President and Chairman of American Airlines
- Mark Cuban, Various entrepreneurial endeavors and a "shark" on Shark Tank
- Richelieu Dennis, Founder and Executive Chair of Sundial Group of Companies
- Barry Diller, Chairman & Senior Executive of IAC and Senior Executive of Expedia; Former Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Fox, Inc.
- John Doerr, Chairman of Kleiner Perkins
- Arnold Donald, former CEO of Carnival Corporation
- Blair Effron, Partner & Co-Founder of Centerview Partners
- José E. Feliciano, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Clearlake Capital Group
- David P. Fialkow, Co-Founder & Managing Director of General Catalyst
- Anne Finucane, former Vice Chair of Bank of America
- Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Chief Executive of E.L. Rothschild
- Ken Frazier, former Executive Chairman, President & CEO of Merck
- Mark Gallogly, Co-Founder and Managing Principal of Three Cairns Group; Co-Founder of Centerbridge Partners
- Chad Gifford, Former Chairman of Bank of America
- David Grain, Founder and CEO of Grain Management
- Logan Green, Chairman and former CEO of Lyft
- Daniel J. Halpern, Co-founder and CEO of Jackmont Hospitality
- Bruce Heyman, Former U.S. Ambassador to Canada and former Managing Director of Private Wealth at Goldman Sachs
- Mellody Hobson, Co-CEO and President of Ariel Investments; Chairman of Starbucks
- Roger Hochschild, former CEO and President of Discover Financial Services
- Reid Hoffman, Partner at Greylock Partners and Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn
- Glenn Hutchins, Chairman of North Island or Co-Founder of Silver Lake
- Blake Irving, former CEO of GoDaddy
- Tony James, former President, CEO & Executive Vice Chairman of Blackstone; Founder of Jefferson River Capital
- David Jacobson, Senior Advisor and former Vice Chair of BMO Financial Group; Former U.S. Ambassador to Canada
- Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Chairman and CEO, Magic Johnson Enterprises
- Brad Karp, Chairman of Paul, Weiss
- Jeffrey Katzenberg, Founder & Managing Partner of WndrCo
- Ellen Kullman, President and CEO of Carbon3; former Chair and CEO of DuPont
- Todd Lachman, Founder of Sovos Brands
- Chris Larsen, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Ripple
- Jeff Lawson, former CEO of Twilio
- Ted Leonsis, CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment
- Aaron Levie, Co-Founder & CEO of Box
- Ed Lewis, former Chairman and CEO of Essence Communications, co-founder Essence Magazine
- William M. Lewis, Jr.
- Michael Lynton, Chairman of Snap, Inc., former CEO of Sony Entertainment
- Tracy V. Maitland, President and Chief Investment Officer of Advent Capital Management
- Helena Maus, CEO of Archetype and Marker Collective
- Marissa Mayer, co-founder and CEO of Sunshine Products, former CEO of Yahoo!
- T.J. McGill, Co-Founder of Evergreen Pacific Partners and Suzanne Sinegal McGill, Co-Founder of Rwanda Girls Initiative
- Danny Meyer, Founder & Executive Chairman of Union Square Hospitality Group
- Dustin Moskovitz, Co-founder and CEO of Asana
- Alan Mulally, former CEO of Ford
- Anne Mulcahy, former Chairman and CEO of Xerox
- James Murdoch, Founder & CEO of Lupa Systems; former CEO of 21st Century Fox
- Laxman Narasimhan, former CEO of Starbucks
- Indra Nooyi, former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo
- Peter Orszag, former Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget and CEO of Lazard
- Deven J. Parekh, Managing Director of Insight Partners
- Sean Parker, Founder of Napster; Founder and Chairman of Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
- Charles Phillips, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Recognize; former President of Oracle and former CEO of Infor;
- Laurene Powell Jobs, Founder and President of Emerson Collective
- Penny Pritzker, 38th U.S. Secretary of Commerce; founder and Chairman of PSP Partners
- Vasant Prabhu, former CFO and Vice-Chair of Visa
- Spencer Rascoff, Founder and CEO of 75 & Sunny Ventures; Co-Founder and former CEO of Zillow
- Punit Renjen
- Rachel Romer, Founder of Guild Education
- Robert Rubin, former U.S. Treasury Secretary; Senior Counselor at Centerview Partners
- Kevin P. Ryan, Co-founder, MongoDB, Business Insider, GILT Groupe, Zola, Pearl Health, Affect Therapeutics, and Transcend Therapeutics
- Faiza J. Saeed
- Dan Schulman, former President & CEO of PayPal
- Jim Sinegal, Co-Founder and Former CEO of Costco
- Dan Springer, former CEO of Docusign
- Tom Steyer, Founder and former Co-Senior-Managing-Partner of Farallon Capital
- Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp
- Scott Stuart, Founding & Managing Partner of Sageview Capital
- Larry Summers, 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury and President Emeritus of Harvard University
- Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder & CEO of Chobani
- Daniel Weiss, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Angeleno Group
- Steve Westly, Founder and Managing Partner of The Westly Group
- Ron Williams, former CEO of Aetna
- Robert Wolf, former CEO of UBS Americas
