Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has picked Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio to be his running mate. Vance is a rising star in the GOP and is best known for his 2018 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” Trump is running against Vice President Joe Biden for the White House.
Trump’s campaign for president has the help of Vance, who has worked in venture capital with Peter Thiel, an important tech entrepreneur.
Trump announced his choice on social media on Monday. “J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond,” he wrote.
Before he became president, Vance was praised for his time in the Marines, his education at Ohio State University and Yale Law School, and his work on “Hillbilly Elegy,” which Netflix NFLX, +1.37% turned into a movie.
Tesla Inc. TSLA, +1.78% founder and billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk wrote on social media on Monday that Trump had made a “great choice.” After the former president was hurt in an attempted assassination at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Musk backed Trump. He also said that a Trump-Vance ticket “resounds with victory.”
After the announcement, Biden’s campaign to keep his job attacked both Trump and Vance.
“Billionaires and corporations are literally rooting for J.D. Vance because they know that he and Trump will cut their taxes and make prices go through the roof for everyone else,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of the Biden campaign. The Trump-Vance plan, she said, “will take away Americans’ rights, hurt the middle class, and make life more expensive—all while helping the very rich and greedy corporations.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said on a Biden campaign press call, “Trump’s choice for vice president is good news for the richest Americans and bad news for everyone else.” “Vance believes that everyone should have less money besides the rich.”
The campaign also brought up Vance’s strong record against abortion.
MarketWatch spoke to Jeff Hauser, executive director of the watchdog group Revolving Door Project, earlier this month about how Trump’s choice of Vance could make Thiel give money to Republican candidates again. In the 2024 elections, Thiel promised not to give any money to GOP candidates. In 2022, he gave money to Vance, and in 2016, he gave money to Trump.
Hauser, whose group keeps an eye on corporate influence on the executive branch, said that Vance sees “political opportunities in being sceptical of at least segments of big business.” This means that those segments might be worried.
