Airbnb co-founder and Trump administration official Joe Gebbia gave a total of $2 million to super PACs in support of independent candidate Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday.
Gebbia, who listed his residence as in Texas, currently serves as the Trump administration’s chief design officer and serves on Airbnb’s board of directors, though he no longer works in an executive role for the company. He also serves on the board of Tesla and worked at the Department of Government Efficiency.
He threw $1 million each to PACs Fix the City and Defend NYC. The filings were made publicly available on Thursday.
Pro-Trump billionaire Bill Ackman also pitched Cuomo PACs more money in recent days, sending $1 million to Defend NYC and another $250,000 to Fix the City.
The donations come right as the mayoral race enters the home stretch.
Gebbia, reportedly a longtime friend of Elon Musk’s, couldn’t be immediately reached for comment, but on Wednesday — when he made the donations — he wrote on social media that Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani’s anti-Israel stance was “spooky.”
“Just remember, Silver Spoon Socialist Mamdani said he doesn’t believe billionaires should exist, but his own super pac accepts money from billionaires — add it to the list of hypocrisies,” Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo said in a statement.
Azzopardi added that since the donations were to a PAC, the campaign has no knowledge of them.
“I think it’s emblematic of what Andrew Cuomo’s campaign represents,” Mamdani said of the donation on his way to Thursday evening’s mayoral debate. “Which is a vehicle through which to take over the power of working people.”
Mamdani has hit on the ex-governor for his billionaire backers, many of whom also support President Trump.
Gebbia’s move to DOGE earlier this year prompted backlash within the Airbnb community, with the company’s “community center” bombarded with negative comments including from users writing they would look for travel options elsewhere. After that, the company sought to distance itself publicly from Gebbia, though he still remained on the board.
Gebbia’s donations also come as a fight around short-term rentals has intensified in New York City.
The battle around Airbnb centers on a law adopted by the City Council that restricts the $77 billion company by mainly reserving the city’s housing stock for long-term residents instead of tourists. Recently, Airbnb has launched an aggressive campaign to get the Council to pass a bill that would lessen those restrictions on some landlords.
With Chris Sommerfeldt
