Nearly 600 people signed Open letter Following Shaun Maguire, one of its partners, to the leader of venture capital firm Sequoia Capital Posted The group described it as a “intentional, inciting attack” on New York City’s Muslim democratic mayoral candidate.
Maguire, a supporter of vocal music President Donald TrumpZohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary last month, posted on the weekend, “from a culture about everything” and pushed it forward “his Islamic agenda.”
The position had 5.3 million views as of Monday afternoon. Maguire, whose investments include Elon Musk’s SpaceX and X and AI Entrepreneurship Security Super Intelligence are also published Videos on X Explain this sentence.
Those who signed the letter asked Sequoia to denounce Maguire’s comments and apologize to Mamdani and the Muslim founders. They also hope the company authorizes an independent investigation into Maguire’s behavior over the past two years and issue a “zero tolerance policy on hate speech and religious paranoia.”
The letter said they are asking the company to make a public response by July 14, or “we will continue to conduct wider public disclosures, media publicity and mobilize our network to ensure accountability.”
Sequoia declined to comment. Maguire did not respond to a request for comment, but Write In a letter Wednesday, “You can try everything you want to silence me, but it will only incite me.”
Signators include Mudassir Sheikha, CEO of cycling service Careem, and Amr Awadallah, CEO of AI startup Vectara. Also on the list is Abubakar Abid, who works in the face of machine learning embrace, backed by Sequoia, CEO of Telda, Ahmed Sabbah, a financial technology startup from Sequoia, which invested for the first time four years ago.
The founders of at least three startups who started the accelerator program Y Combinator add their names to the letters.
As a company, Sequoia is no stranger to politics. Doug Leone, who led the company until 2022 and has been a partner, is a longtime Republican donor who supported Trump in the 2024 election. Leon after Trump won in November Posted on X“To all Trump voters: You no longer need to hide in the shadows…..you are the majority!”
By contrast, Leon’s ex Mike Moritz Slam His colleagues in the tech industry line up behind Republican candidates. exist Financial Times OpinionsMoritz wrote that Trump’s tech supporters “made a big mistake.”
“I doubt any of them would want him to be part of the investment group of their organization,” Moritz wrote. He quit his management position at the company for a decade after resigning from Sequoia in 2023. “So why do they view the recent criminal conviction as a politics-inspired witch for a simple bookkeeping mistake?”
Neither Leone nor Moritz wrote back to seek comment.
Sequoia’s current main partner, Roelof Botha, took a more neutral stance. Bota Say in the event Last July, Sequoia did not “take a political view” as a partnership, adding that he was “not a registered member of either party.” Boelof said he “prides itself on the fact that we have enabled many of our partners to express their respected personal views in the process and give them freedom.”
Maguire has long been open to his political views. he Say on X Last year, he “just donated $300,000 to President Trump.”
Mamdani is a self-proclaimed democratic socialist who has obtained Pray Since defeating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the June early election, many of them have been in many technicians and many in the business community.
– CNBC’s ARI levy contributes to this report.
watch: Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire says SpaceX’s valuation is even conservative
