X

Zuckerberg to hold fund-raiser for New Jersey governor

Facebook's CEO opens up his Palo Alto, Calif., home to raise money for Gov. Chris Christie's reelection campaign. A maximum donation of $3,800 per person, please.

Donna Tam Staff Writer / News
Donna Tam covers Amazon and other fun stuff for CNET News. She is a San Francisco native who enjoys feasting, merrymaking, checking her Gmail and reading her Kindle.
Donna Tam
James Martin/CNET

Though Silicon Valley tends to support Democrats, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is throwing his might behind Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

Zuckerberg is holding a fundraiser at his house for Christie's reelection campaign. The February 13 event will be Christie's first out-of-state trip for this campaign and, reportedly, the first political fund-raiser Zuckerberg is holding at his home. Friends and colleagues of Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are attending the event, and they'll shell out no more than $3,800 -- New Jersey's limit on contributions.

Zuckerberg hasn't been very public about his political leanings, even as Facebook becomes more prominent in the democratic process, but he did attend a dinner with President Barack Obama and other tech leaders in 2011.

He met Christie in 2010, when hedonated$100 million in Facebook stock to public schools in Newark. The donation came from Zuckerberg and Chan's commitment to The Giving Pledge, a campaign led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett to get the richest people in the U.S. to donate most of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

Facebook spokeswoman Sarah Feinberg told the Journal that the couple "worked closely" with Christie and "admire his leadership on education reform and other issues and look forward to continuing their important work together on behalf of Newark's school children."