Billionaire Airbnb Co-Founder Reveals Why He Abandoned Democrat Party For Trump

Billionaire Airbnb Joe Gebbia has opened up about his decision to abandon the Democrat Party and join with the Trump administration, pointing to the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border under then-President Joe Biden as the primary reason.

In an interview on “The Katie Miller Podcast,” Gebbia recounted how his concerns about border security in 2021 led him to seek answers on the issue from figures from the first Trump White House.

Airbnb co-founder @jgebbia reveals he left the Democrat Party over Biden’s border crisis, says he couldn’t support those letting in “criminals and dangerous people.” pic.twitter.com/cb6j6knheS

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) September 2, 2025

Dissatisfied with responses from Democrat contacts, he reached out to Jared Kushner, former senior adviser and son-in-law to President Donald Trump, for more answers. “I remember just being like, ‘Holy cow, this is crazy,’” Gebbia told Miller, wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. “Like, ‘This is not right, this is a real problem and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be enforcing the laws of our country and our border.’”

The answers that Gebbia got ultimately led him to reassess his entire political outlook.

“I sort of begin to look at other topics and eventually came to the point where I don’t think I can support a political party that wants to have an open border, that lets in criminals and dangerous people into our country,” the tech billionaire said. “That’s just not something I can get behind.”

Gebbia also explained how his relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Secretary of Health and Human Services, played a significant role in his decision to support Trump. “I’ve been on my journey. Everyone’s been on a journey,” Gebbia said.. “I think through, certainly Bobby Kennedy and supporting him, and I’ve been so grateful for the work that he’s doing, to be somebody who just cares so much about the health of our nation, and you know, has no ties to industry and is really just able to bust through walls and right-size the ship.”

Gebbia’s embrace of Trump led to a role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), previously led by Elon Musk, and has since been appointed as the first Chief Design Officer for the U.S. government, tasked with overhauling federal digital services to enhance usability and efficiency.

Reflecting on his time at DOGE, Gebbia acknowledged the polarized public response, admitting that “It was just depressing for some period of time.”

“If you go back to February, when I got involved, there were a lot of people who were neutral, a lot of people who were positive, and then an equal amount of people who were just hateful,” he said. “The hate mail text messages that I got were disheartening to say the least.”