This week, Silicon Valley heavyweights mingled with top Trump administration officials at a conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Miami.
The event was hosted by the Rockbridge Network, a secretive yet increasingly powerful organization at the center of business, technology, and Republican politics. Those in attendance included venture capitalists Chamath Palihapitiya and Keith Rabois, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and real estate developer-turned-United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.
The Rockbridge Network was founded in 2019 by now-Vice President J.D. Vance and financier Chris Buskirk, with the aim of building a new “political infrastructure” to replace what its founders saw as a failed system.
According to Rockbridge materials, the goal was to create a dynamic, tech-oriented, right-of-center alliance that could drive the party’s future and “replace the current Republican ecosystem of think tanks, media organizations and activist groups that have contributed to the party’s decline.”
And with the rise of Vance and the new right — a younger, tech-savvy, and pragmatic wing of the GOP — Rockbridge and its conferences have reached a whole new level of influence.
“The whole purpose is to bring donors, venture capitalists, private equity folks, and CEOs together with high-level officials making the big decisions for the country,” a Rockbridge insider told me,
Rockbridge has a selective group of well under 200 members. Membership is invite-only and costs $100,000 per year, with the money primarily going to political causes. The twice a year conferences have become an opportunity to see friends, fundraise for tech companies and make investments and political donations — all in one stop
Like any conference, there are panels with named speakers. The Winklevoss twins, the Bitcoin billionaires who famously had a spat with Mark Zuckerberg about who really started Facebook, spoke about cryptocurrency. Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar gave a presentation on defense tech.
But, unlike other conferences, Rockbridge gatherings are intimate, invite-only affairs, akin to the exclusive Sun Valley conference but with a distinct political edge. Deals are struck and members invest in new companies and political causes.
“It’s really just friends getting together,” one source explained of the group’s ability to get some of the top Trump officials to their events.
And the results of Rockbridge are already significant.
The organization’s influence was on full display at its November 2024 conference in Las Vegas, held shortly after Trump’s election win. Donald Trump Jr. attended, announcing his new role at 1789 Capital, the investment firm co-founded by Buskirk and Omeed Malik.
The firm actually came out of the Rockbridge gatherings and the relationships and investments Malik and Buskirk secured at them. It has been one of the first and most notable voices criticizing ESG and DEI values, and has made a point of investing in the so-called parallel economy or non-woke companies
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At this week’s conference, Malik revealed his appointment to the board of Fannie Mae. Head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency businessman William Pulte was also in attendance.
“Outcomes like that are the whole purpose — to create the new tech-oriented right of center group for people,” a source told me. “Its supporting our ideological views for our generation.”
The group’s influence is only growing. Speaking at the event on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Bessent quipped that Rockbridge’s work would extend well into Donald Trump’s third term in 2028.
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