FAANG employees give most often to Sanders and Warren, snub Biden

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Employees of Silicon Valley tech companies are reaching into their pockets and donating to presidential candidates Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — despite both senators pushing to regulate the tech industry and repeatedly criticizing individual tech giants.

According to Yahoo Finance analysis of donations made in 2019, Sanders is the most popular candidate among employees of the FAANG companies – Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google – and Microsoft. Not far behind him is Sen. Warren, who, based on the number of donations made, is the second favorite.

Yahoo Finance analyzed Federal Election Commission data, specifically donations of employees from the FAANG companies and Microsoft, noting how many donations employees made to Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker, as well as Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Yahoo Finance also examined donations to the presumptive Republican nominee, President Donald Trump.

Out of 4,418 donations made to all 8 candidates, just under a third went to Sanders, while just over 20% went to Warren.

Sen. Cory Booker fared the worst among the candidates, only netting 1.4% of all the donations made by FAANG and Microsoft employees. Biden didn’t fare much better, pulling in only 1.72% of all donations made this year from those employees.

Who the employees of the FAANG companies and Microsoft are donating to the most often.
Who the employees of the FAANG companies and Microsoft are donating to the most often.

Of the six companies surveyed, Google employees made the most donations, with over 1,500 contributions given to the 8 candidates analyzed. (It's worth noting that Google, with around 100,000 employees, is only larger in size than Facebook and Netflix; Amazon has more than 600,000 employees.) Sanders scored roughly a third of all donations from Google employees with Warren pulling in more than a quarter. Biden did the worst, pulling in less than 1% of total donations from Google workers. Only 12 contributions were given to the Biden camp.

Warren is well-known for proposing to break up big technology companies – including Facebook, Google and Amazon – and has said the tech behemoths have hampered innovation and competition. Other Democratic candidates have expressed support for reining in corporate consolidation, but haven’t come out as hard against what Warren deems to be monopolies.

Running low on cash

Both Biden and Booker have been struggling with their fundraising totals of late, with Booker’s camp pleading for donations or face ending his race. Booker ended up posting his best quarter in Q3, raking in $6 million. Biden fared much better than Booker in Q3, pulling in over $15 million. But concerns abound for the former VP. He only has $9 million cash on hand, far lower than his Democratic rivals Sanders and Warren.