This week, the Silicon Valley heavyweights mixed with top Trump administration officials at a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Miami.
The event was hosted by The Rockbridge Network, a secret yet increasingly powerful organization located in the business, technology and Republican political centers. Participants 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 Special Envoy Middle East Steve Witkoff, a special state in the state who has turned real estate developer.
Rockbridge Network was founded in 2019 by current Vies presidents JD Vance and Finnicier Chris Buskirk.
According to Rockbridge documents, the goal was to create a dynamic, technologically oriented central alliance that could drive the party’s future and “replace the current Republican ecosystem of think tanks, media organisations and activist groups that contributed to the party’s decline.”
And the rise of Vance and the new rights – the young, tech-savvy, practical wing of GOP, Rockbridge and its conference reached a whole new level of influence.
“The whole purpose is to bring donors, venture capitalists, private equity people and CEOs to the country with high-level officials,” a Rockbridge insider told me.
Rockbridge has a selective group of less than 200 members. Membership is only an invitation, at $100,000 a year, and that money is primarily a political cause. The two annual meetings were an opportunity to meet friends and raise funds, invest and political contributions for high-tech companies.
Like any meeting, there is a panel called Speakers. The Bitcoin billionaire, famous about Winklevoss Twins, Mark Zuckerberg and actually starting Facebook with the bitcoin billionaire, spoke about cryptocurrency. Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar gave a presentation on defense technology.
However, unlike other meetings, the Rockbridge gathering is a matter of intimate and invitation only, similar to the exclusive Sun Valley conference, but with a clear political advantage. The deal is fired and members invest in new businesses and political causes.
“It’s just a really gathering of friends,” one source explained about his ability to bring some of Trump’s top officials to their events.
And the results of the lockbridge are already important.
The organization’s impact was in full display at a November 2024 meeting in Las Vegas, held shortly after his victory in the Trump election. Donald Trump Jr. announced his new role at 1789 Capital, an investment company co-founded by Buskirk and Omeed Malik.
The company actually came out of the Rockbridge gathering, securing the relationship and investment that Malik and Baskirk secured in them. This is one of the first and most notable voices to criticize the value of ESG and DEI, highlighting investing in so-called parallel economies or unstoppable companies
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At this week’s meeting, Malik revealed his appointment to Fannie May on the board. The head of William Prute, a businessman at the federal housing finance agency, was also present.
“That outcome is the overall purpose of creating new technology-oriented centre group rights for people,” the source told me. “I support our ideological views for our generation.”
The group’s impact is growing. Speaking at the event Sunday, Treasury Secretary Bescent said Rockbridge’s work will expand to Donald Trump’s third term in 2028.
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