WASHINGTON — Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and prominent billionaire venture capitalist, last month donated $10 million to the main super PAC supporting Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico, according to newly filed Federal Election Committee records.
While other donors chipped in five‑ and six‑figure sums, Hoffman’s contribution alone was nearly 80% of the second‑quarter haul reported by Lone Star Rising, which took in almost $13 million between April and June. That’s on top of Hoffman’s previous donations of $1 million in February and $500,000 in January.
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Lone Star Liberty PAC, the super PAC supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talarico’s Republican opponent, raised a fraction of that amount. FEC filings show the committee cobbling together just under $4.3 million from a patchwork of trial lawyers, oil‑and‑gas executives, construction firms and allied PACs, among other donors.
Since launching his Senate bid in September, Talarico has far outpaced Paxton in fundraising, raising over $70 million — more than four times Paxton’s roughly $17 million over the same period. On top of that, Lone Star Rising — which, like all super PACs, cannot legally coordinate with Talarico or any other candidate — has hauled in nearly $22 million, playing a key supporting role in the Austin Democrat’s primary win over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, earlier this year.
A prolific Democratic donor, Hoffman had given roughly $77 million to various candidates and committees since 2016, before his spending spree last quarter. Hoffman’s latest check is only slightly smaller than what he gave a leading pro-Kamala Harris super PAC during the 2024 presidential campaign, etching his role as one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful megadonors.
Hoffman’s ties to power recently traced back to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and financier who died in 2019. The release of the “Epstein files” showed Hoffman maintained contact with Epstein after the financier pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor in 2008. The documents showed Hoffman visited Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean in 2014, which Hoffman said was to raise money for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An FBI review found no indication of wrongdoing, but the circumstance has stirred interparty tensions, with Crockett attacking Talarico for embracing dark money and billionaires despite his anti-corruption message. Talarico, for his part, has advocated for the full release of the Epstein files.
In a statement, Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said the campaign “has no control over contributions to any super PAC,” noting that federal law bars political campaigns from coordinating with outside entities.
“The only way to get Big Money out of our politics is to reject politicians like Ken Paxton who want corporations and billionaires to decide our elections, not Texans,” Ennis said. “While Ken Paxton works to enrich himself and his donors, James will remain the only candidate in this race fighting to ban super PACs, ban corporate PACs, ban congressional stock trading, and tax billionaires so we can fix this broken, corrupt political system.”
Meanwhile, Talarico has attacked Paxton over a recent case involving Adam Hoffman, who is unrelated to Reid Hoffman. In June, Talarico condemned a plea deal Paxton’s office negotiated in its prosecution of Adam Hoffman, a Waco attorney accused of sexually assaulting a young boy. Talarico has called for the release of the “Hoffman files,” though The Texas Tribune found, in reviewing the trial transcript and other court records, that the case ended in a mistrial and the victim refused to testify a second time — leaving Paxton’s office to offer a deal or force the boy to return to court against his will using a subpoena.
Talarico pointed to the case as an example of what he calls Paxton’s pattern of “powerful, well-connected people covering up for other powerful, well-connected people.”
Hoffman’s $10 million contribution is sure to provide additional fodder for Talarico’s critics who have accused him of running afoul of his own core campaign crusade, which casts him as a populist determined to drive big money out of politics. His platform includes curbing billionaire donors’ influence, banning super PACs and corporate PACs, and overturning Citizens United. Last month, the Supreme Court struck down longstanding limits on how much national party committees can spend in coordination with candidates, further loosening campaign-finance rules and giving Paxton’s allies another way to help him close the financial gap with Talarico.
When previously asked about the support he receives from billionaire donors and super PACs, Talarico has said he will not “unilaterally disarm while Republicans play by their own rules,” and that he welcomes billionaire supporters who believe they should be taxed more and see their political influence limited.
Garry Jones, the director of Lone Star Rising, previously echoed a similar argument to the Tribune, saying, “Unfortunately we live in a political system in which, if you don’t use all the rules to your advantage, you’re left behind, and by being left behind, your ideas and principles and policy goals are left behind.”
With money flowing into one of the country’s marquee races this November, recent polling stacks Talarico neck‑and‑neck with Paxton, with the Democrat holding an edge among Latino voters but trailing among white voters, especially in rural areas.
Both campaigns have converged on South Texas this week. Paxton is headlining a “Rally in the Valley” and other events in McAllen with border‑security allies. Talarico is crisscrossing the border on a 750‑mile “Frontera Tour,” hosting town halls from El Paso to the Rio Grande Valley — a region that has shifted Republican in recent cycles — as he tries to flip a Senate seat his party hasn’t held in more than three decades.