Jeff Giesea

Jeff Giesea is an organizer of alt-right and Donald Trump-affiliated causes, as well as a business affiliate of several of Peter Thiel's companies and venture capital groups.

Education and business

Giesea attended Stanford, where he edited Thiel's libertarian student paper The Stanford Review. Giesea worked for Thiel's first hedge fund, Thiel Capital Management, and Thiel later provided the seed money for Giesea's startup.[1][2] Between Thiel Capital management and his startup, Giesea worked for Koch Industries' public affairs office.[3] He co-founded BestVendor, a free recommendation site for business apps, in January 2011. It entered open beta in November 2011, and by December had over 4800 users. The business received $600,000 in seed money from Peter Thiel, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures, and Softbank Capital. By December 2011, it had received $3.6 million from seed rounds and Series A funding.[4][5] In 2013, BestVendor was acquired by Docstoc.[6]

Alt-right and Trump affiliations

Giesea has collaborated on a number of projects alongside Trump-affiliated propagandist Mike Cernovich, self-described neo-Nazi[7] hacker Andrew "weev" Auernheimer, Pax Dickinson, and fellow Thiel associate and former Breitbart writer Charles Johnson.[2]

Gisea organized a dinner prior to the 2016 RNC. Attendees reportedly included Clearview AI's founder, Hoan Ton-That, white supremacist Richard Spencer, Cernovich, Johnson, and VDARE founder Peter Brimelow.[2][8]

Giesea is a major quiet funder of alt-right causes. Giesea funded the "Gays for Trump" party at the 2016 RNC, which was hosted by Milo Yiannopoulos and attended by anti-Islamic commentator Pamela Geller and far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders. In October 2016, Giesea again funded an event hosted by Milo, this time one in which the provocateur bathed himself in pig's blood as a pro-Trump performance art piece commemorating victims of undocumented immigrants and Islamic terrorists. Martin Shkreli also presented an art piece at the event, a framed red-and-blue pill. Gavin McInnes presented an image of himself as an antebellum slave.[3]

#Rev18

Giesea formed a Super PAC called #Rev18 alongside Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec in October 2017 to support Josh Mandel as Ohio Treasurer in the 2018 midterm elections, opposing incumbent senator Sherrod Brown. Giesea described the PAC's goal as to promote antiestablishment candidates "who support American sovereignty and prosperity and who put the American citizen first".[9] All three were on the board, while Giesea handled filing with the Federal Election Commission. Giesea said he was the first donor to the PAC, pledging $50,000. Giesea expressed hope that Peter Theil and the Mercers would pitch in, among others.[1] Mandel expressed appreciation for members of the Super PAC.[9][10] The three announced the closing of #Rev18 in late November, explaining that they did not have enough time to devote to it.[11] The Atlantic noted that this Super PAC was among the first examples of Trump supporters—a mostly online, Trump-centric group—venturing into electoral politics outside of support for Trump himself.[1] Right Wing Watch described the effort as among the first to institutionalize Trump's movement.[12]

Personal life

Family

Giesea's mother is Mexican-American. He was having a child by surrogate as of January 2017.[13]

Views

Giesea says that he used to be libertarian-leaning, but that he has shifted to other concerns. In particular, he notes that his experience as a homosexual travelling in Europe led him to concern regarding what he sees as Islamic incursions in the west. As of 2017, he saw himself as a mentor and moderator within the Trumpist movement.[3]

References
  1. Gray, Rosie (2 October 2017). "A New Pro-Trump Super PAC Takes Aim at the Republican Establishment". The Atlantic.
  2. O'Brien, Luke (7 April 2020). "Far-Right Extremists Helped Create The World's Most Powerful Facial Recognition Technology". HuffPost.
  3. Schreckinger, Ben (January–February 2017). "The Alt-Right Comes to Washington". Politico Magazine.
  4. Van Grove, Jennifer (20 December 2011). "BestVendor grabs $3M to help professionals find great apps". Reuters.
  5. Chikodi (8 December 2011). "BestVendor is the utility belt for small business apps". VentureBeat.
  6. Pozin, Ilya (26 April 2013). "Docstoc Acquires BestVendor: A Yelp For Business Tools And Vendors". Forbes.
  7. Wall, Jacob T. (2018–2019). "Where to Prosecute Cybercrimes". Duke Law & Technology Review. 17: 146–161. Following his release from prison, Auernheimer publicly declared himself a neo-Nazi...
  8. McKay, Tom (4 August 2020). "Creepy Face Recognition Firm Clearview AI Sure Has a Lot of Ties to the Far Right". Gizmodo.
  9. Carroll, Ed (5 October 2017). "Super PAC formed by 'Alt Lite'-labeled bloggers backs Mandel". Cleveland Jewish News.
  10. Montage, Forward (15 October 2017). "Why Is This Jewish Politician First In Line For Money From 'Alt-Right' Conspiracy Theorists?". The Forward.
  11. CARROLL, ED (14 November 2017). "Mandel-supporting Super PAC formed by 'alt lite' bloggers shuts down". Cleveland Jewish News.
  12. Holt, Jared (16 October 2017). "'New Right' Activists Are Seeking To Institutionalize Their Digital Movement". Right Wing Watch.
  13. O'Connor, Maureen (20 January 2017). "'Smells Like Boys': A Night at the DeploraBall". The Cut.
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