Larsen, who’s backed candidates across the aisle for the last few years, told CNBC in an interview on Monday that his comfort level with Harris comes from conversations he’s had with people inside the campaign and what he’s seen from the vice president since she replacedPresident Biden at the top of the ticket in July.
It helps that Harris is from the Bay Area.
“She knows people who have grown up in the innovation economy her whole life,” Larsen said. “So I think she gets it at a fundamental level, in a way that I think the Biden folks were just not paying attention to, or maybe just didn’t make the connection between empowering workers and making sure you have American champions dominating their industries.”
Larsen’s affection for the Democratic nominee isn’t brand new. In February, he gave the maximum personal contribution of $6,600 to Harris (which would cover the primary and general election), about five months before she became the Democratic presidential nominee, FEC filings show. At the same time, he contributed $100,000 to the Harris Action Fund PAC.
In total, Larsen has given around $1.9 million to support Harris’ campaign directly and through PACs, according to FEC data compiled by crypto market and blockchain analyst James Delmore and independently verified by CNBC.
Larsen, 64, has a net worth of $3.1 billion, according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership of XRP and involvement in Ripple, which provides blockchain technology for financial services companies.
He’s part of an industry that’s become suddenly prominent in political fundraising, though more heavily in support of Republicans. Nearly half of all the corporate money flowing into the election has come from the crypto industry, according to a recent report from the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen.
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she arrives at Erie International Airport ahead of a campaign rally, in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 14, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
The sum was raised from a mix of contributors, with Coinbase, Ripple, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz accounting for most of those business donations. The industry has raised roughly 13 times the amount it brought in during the last presidential election year.
Close to two-thirds of crypto contributions have gone either to supporting Republicans or opposing Democrats, according to Delmore’s compilation of FEC data. Trump has received more than $4 million in virtual tokens, an FEC filing shows, and in July, the ex-president keynoted a major bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
‘More pragmatic approach’
Larsen’s recent contributions include $1 million to Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in December, and almost $7,000 in February to John Deaton, the Massachusetts Republican who’s taking on Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a vocal crypto critic. He also donated $250,000 in 2022 to the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund and contributed to a pro-Biden PAC in 2020.
Larsen told CNBC that he’s “really confident” that Harris will bring a “more pragmatic approach and clear rules” to the crypto industry, in contrast to the current situation with Gary Gensler running the SEC. Gensler’s open hostility towards much of the crypto industry and his aggressive crackdowns on companies, including Ripple, is a big reason why many in the space say they’re supporting Trump.
In January, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who has also donated to members of both parties, called Gensler a “political liability.”
“What we’ve had to date has been almost like purposeful chaos by Gensler to kind of crush the domestic industry,” Larsen said. That “has only empowered sketchier foreign operations. It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said, adding that “Gensler must be the most unpopular person in Washington, D.C.”
CNBC reached out to Gensler’s office for comment and didn’t hear back.
Ripple’s legal chief said in June that the company has spent over $100 million on litigation to defend itself against civil charges brought by the SEC. In 2020, before Biden took office, the SEC accused Ripple, Garlinghouse and Larsen of violating securities laws by acting as unregistered brokers of digital currency tokens, which the SEC regulates as securities. The SEC later dismissed the charges against the two Ripple executives, and the company has denied it broke securities laws.They remain in active litigation.
Earlier this month, the agency filed a notice of appeal in its multi-year case with the Ripple.
Ripple has given about $50 million to the pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake, which has been contributing to candidates up and down the ballot, and on both sides of the aisle.
Harris has been gaining momentum within the crypto community.
Skybridge Capital’s Anthony Scaramucci, who spent 11 days as White House communications director under Trump, has given more than $36,000 to two PACs supporting the Democratic nominee. Scaramucci says he’s among a group of crypto advocates working with Harris to develop her campaign’s policies on digital assets and to help the vice president distance the Democrats from Sen. Warren.
And then there’s venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, who maintains a sizable portfolio of crypto companies. The Andreessen Horowitz co-founder and his partner Marc Andreessen said in July they were planning to make significant donations to PACs supporting Trump’s run for president due to what they characterized as his friendliness to the “little tech agenda.”
That was when Biden was the nominee. By early October, Horowitz appeared to have had a change of heart. He told employees at his firm that he would be making a “significant” personal contribution to Harris’ election bid. Horowitz said that he and his wife, Felicia, “have known Vice President Harris for over 10 years and she has been a great friend to both of us during that time.”
A couple weeks earlier, in late September, Harris finally gave a nod to cryptocurrency in a public address.
“We will encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors,” she said at a $27 million fundraiser in New York.
On Monday, the Harris campaign unveiled its “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” in a report. The plan explicitly mentions creating a framework for cryptocurrency in the U.S. designed to safeguard those assets. The campaign said more than 20% of Black Americans own or have owned digital currencies.
Despite Larsen’s track record of donating to Democrats, he took heat on social media after his latest contribution was reported on CNBC on Friday.
“The Ripple community and even the crypto community in general has a lot of skepticism toward Kamala’s candidacy and what policies she would put into place,” Delmore said, reflecting much of the online sentiment
Larsen blew off the criticism, and said he doesn’t pay attention to social media.
ABILENE, Texas — OpenAI and Oracle are betting big on America’s AI future, bringing online the flagship site of the $500 billion Stargate program, a sweeping infrastructure push to secure the compute needed to power the future of artificial intelligence.
The debut site in Abilene, Texas, about 180 miles west of Dallas, is up and running, filled with Oracle Cloud infrastructure and racks of Nvidia chips.
The data center, which is being leased by Oracle, is one of the most notable physical landmarks to emerge from an unprecedented boom in demand for infrastructure to power AI. Over $2 trillion in AI infrastructure has been planned around the world, according to an HSBC estimate this week.
OpenAI is leading the way.
In addition to the $500 billion Stargate project, the startup on Monday announced an equity investment deal with Nvidia that will add an estimated $500 billion worth of data centers in the coming years. Since 2019, Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, providing loads of access to Azure credits. Additionally, OpenAI contracts with smaller cloud companies for additional compute capacity and help operating its infrastructure.
One building on the Abilene site is operational while another is nearly complete. The campus has the potential to ultimately scale past a gigawatt of capacity, OpenAI finance chief Sarah Friar told CNBC. That would be enough electricity to power about 750,000 U.S. homes.
The data center construction plans are important enough that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang personally engaged in last-minute negotiations with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the weekend to get in on the action, CNBC reported earlier on Tuesday.
“People are starting to recognize just the sheer scale that will be required,” Friar said. “We’re just getting going here in Abilene, Texas, but you’ll see this all around the United States and beyond.”
The scale of the project’s construction was necessary to supply the amount of compute required to operate OpenAI’s models, Friar said.
“What we see today is a massive compute crunch,” she said. “There’s not enough compute to do all the things that AI can do.”
A bold bet on AI infrastructure
OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, which is helping fund the project, announced on Tuesday five additional Stargate sites across Texas, New Mexico, Ohio and an additional unnamed site in the Midwest. That brings the size of the initiative to nearly 7 gigawatts and more than $400 billion of investment over the next three years, which includes an existing $300 billion agreement between OpenAI and Oracle.
While companies like Oracle are helping fund the data center construction, OpenAI will ultimately be the one to pay for the computing capacity as an operating expense, Friar said. Although Nvidia is putting in equity to jumpstart the project, Friar said the chipmaker will get paid for all graphics processing units (GPUs) that it provides as those chips get deployed.
Friar said OpenAI will generate $13 billion in revenue this year, and that the company plans to help pay for the construction using its own cash flow and debt financing.
The Stargate name will refer to all OpenAI infrastructure projects going forward, CNBC reported this week. Together with CoreWeave and other partners, the companies say they are ahead of schedule to meet their full 10-gigawatt commitment by the end of 2025.
Friar told CNBC the shovels going into the ground today are laying foundations for compute that won’t come online until 2026, starting with Nvidia next-generation Vera Rubin chips.
Data center buildings are under construction during a tour of the OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas, U.S., Sept. 23, 2025.
Shelby Tauber | Reuters
“No one in the history of man built data centers this fast,” Friar said, adding that the entire ecosystem has to work together to meet demand.
Critics have questioned the circular funding behind Stargate — OpenAI committing hundreds of billions of dollars to projects while suppliers like Nvidia are also investing directly into those same buildouts.
Friar said history shows that technology booms require bold infrastructure bets.
“When the internet was getting started, people kept feeling like, ‘Oh, we’re over-building, there’s too much,'” Friar said. “Look where we are today, right?”
The project also carries political weight. OpenAI and Oracle first unveiled Stargate alongside President Donald Trump at the White House in January. Friar called Trump “the president of this AI era,” pointing to Washington’s role in framing the technology as both an economic engine and a national security priority. Trump was briefed on the Nvidia investment into OpenAI during a state visit to the U.K. earlier this month.
Oracle says the project will employ more than 6,000 construction workers daily and deliver nearly 1,700 long-term jobs.
In a paper published Tuesday about OpenAI’s infrastructure plans, the company wrote that its data center buildout could help reshape the American power grid with new technologies and help the U.S. exert global influence.
How about over $20,000 in savings on a new SUV? For the next week, Honda is currently offering over $20,000 off 2025 Prologue models with stackable savings.
Honda Prologue buyers can snag more than $20,000 off
Honda has made its electric SUV even more tempting for the last week of September. Until September 30, when the $7,500 federal EV tax credit is set to expire, Honda is offering generous discounts of more than $20,000 in some states.
The 2025 Prologue is $17,000 off nationwide, plus Honda is offering 0% interest for six years. That’s hard to find for any vehicle, whether it’s electric or gas-powered.
The deal includes $9,500 in financing bonuses and the potential $7,500 EV tax credit. On a six-year loan for a $50,000 Prologue, online car research firm CarsDirect estimates the financing deal would cost about $33,000, before taxes and fees.
Advertisement – scroll for more content
With trade-in offers in California and other ZEV states, you can score up to $20,300 off the 2025 Honda Prologue.
2025 Honda Prologue at a Tesla Supercharger (Source: Honda)
But, there’s gotta be a catch, right? Well, for one, the offer ends in a week on September 30, the same day the federal $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles expires.
While the deals on the 2025 model year are expiring, the 2026 Honda Prologue is already set to arrive with discounts of up to $9,000.
The interior of the 2025 Honda Prologue Elite (Source: Honda)
A notice sent to dealers (via CarsDirect) said that the 2026 model year will debut with a $6,000 lease or finance offer through Honda Financial Services (HFS). The incentive bulletin said an additional $3,000 conquest bonus will be offered, bringing the total savings to $9,000 on 2026 models.
2025 Honda Prologue trim
Starting Price*
Starting Price After Tax Credit*
EPA Range (miles)
EX (FWD)
$47,400
$39,900
308
EX (AWD)
$50,400
$42,900
294
Touring (FWD)
$51.700
$44,200
308
Touring (AWD)
$54,700
$47,200
294
Elite (AWD)
$57,900
$50,400
283
2025 Honda Prologue prices and range by trim (*Does not include $1,450 D&H fee)
Interestingly, the offer for the 2026 Prologue is available until November 3, suggesting Honda may continue offering discounts even after the $7,500 tax credit ends.
Honda has yet to announce 2026 Prologue prices publicly, but it’s expected to start at approximately the same $47,400 MSRP as the 2025 model year. With the government incentives set to expire, it could be even less.
Those of you looking for other deals ahead of the tax credit expiration might want to check out the 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 with leases starting from $149 per month. The Chevy Equinox EV, or “America’s most affordable 315+ mile range EV,” is available with leases starting at $249 per month. Volkswagen is offering some of the lowest EV lease prices, with the ID.4 available starting at just $129 per month.
Jackery’s Early Prime Day sale drops Explorer 1000 v2 with 200W panel to $649 (50% off) + free bundle offer, more
Jackery has launched its Early Prime Big Deal Days sale running through October 6, with up to 65% discounts on its power stations alongside bonus savings, free gifts, and more. If you’re gearing up for fall adventures outdoors and off-grid, one of the best budget-friendly bundles to score right now is Jackery’s Explorer 1000 v2 Portable Power Station with a 200W solar panel at $649 shipped, which is also matching over at Amazon and is eligible for a FREE refurbished Explorer 290. This combination of station and add-on equipment would normally cost you $1,299 in full, though over 2025, you’ve had the chance to score it between $749 and $699 with regular discounts. If you’ve waited until now to pick it up, you’ll get it at the best price we have tracked this year, behind the $599 low that appeared last year for only a few hours. Head below for more on this bundle, the sale’s promotions, and the full lineup of deals.
Before we jump into the details of pricing, let’s go over the many special promotions being offered during Jackery’s Early Prime Big Deal Days sale. First, orders that reach a $1,500 threshold can use the code OFFER5 for an additional 5% savings, though this does not include the HomePower 3000 series of deals. Next, you can score up to $830 in trade-in bonuses, with reminders that the 30% federal tax credits may be ending with the year, so don’t miss the opportunity to jump on that while equipping yourself with reliable backup power support. Lastly, there are some free gift promotions on the larger units in the sale, with the Explorer 5000 Plus series purchases getting a free refurbished Explorer 300 Plus, while the HomePower 3600 Plus models get a free refurbished Explorer 300, and the Explorer 2000 v2 gets a free refurbished 100W solar panel.
Advertisement – scroll for more content
Ever since its late 2024 release, Jackery’s Explorer 1000 v2 power station has become one of the brand’s best camping-focused backup power companions for folks not wanting to shell out too much money on larger units/combos. It brings a 1,070Wh LiFePO4 capacity to your trips and boasts 62 forms of charging protections from its ChargeShield 2.0 tech. Your devices and appliances are covered with up to 1,500W of steady power, which can surge up to 3,000W and offers seven ports for connection options.
When plans are known in advanced, all you’ll need is 1.6 hours charging from a standard AC outlet to get it back to full battery, and for more last-minute plans, you can activate the emergency charging feature with the in-app controls to cut that time down to just one hour. You can also charge as you drive through your car’s auxiliary/cigarette lighter port, and the 200W panel coming with the bundle puts you a third of the way towards its max 600W solar input, which can get the station back to full in three hours with proper sunlight.
***Note: The following prices have not had the extra savings taken into account, so be sure to use the code OFFER5 once your cart totals $1,500 or more to score the absolute best prices.
Jackery’s Early Prime Day deals for off-grid support:
Jackery’s Early Prime Day deals for appliance backup:
Install Anker’s solar-powered eufy SoloCam S220 for year-round security while at $65
Over at Best Buy we spotted the older Anker eufy SoloCam S40 included as part of the Deals of the Day, which is getting beaten out in price by the newer SoloCam S220 Solar Security Camera at Amazon that is down at $64.99 shipped, with it also beating the individual costs from the multi-cam bundles while matching the price direct from the brand’s website. This model usually goes for $100 in full, which we’ve regularly seen brought down to $70 with discounts, and more recently to $65, only beaten out by the one-time $62 low that popped up during July’s Prime Day event. You’re looking at the next-best price while the rates hold strong, as they’ve been since last week, saving you $35 off the going rate and upgrading your home security with 24/7 solar charging.
Prep for snow with Greenworks’ 80V 12-inch cordless shovel kit at the best price in six months for $233
Amazon is offering the Greenworks 80V 12-inch Cordless Snow Shovel with 2.0Ah battery at $232.74 shipped, which beats out the brand’s direct website pricing, where it is sitting at its full $350 MSRP. At Amazon, though, we’ve been seeing it hold out at $308 since March, and falling to $280 since late July, with the total 33% markdown off the MSRP that’s being offered here giving us the best pricing of the last 6 1/2 months, saving you $117 over buying it directly from Greenworks, and landing $33 above the annual low we last saw in January.
Get up to 750 CFM clearing power with this 80V Greenworks handheld blower kit at $175 (Today only)
As part of its Deals of the Day, Best Buy is offering the Greenworks 80V 750CFM Cordless Handheld Blower with a 2.5Ah battery at $174.99 shipped, with it even beating out the renewed offer direct from the brand’s website by $25. This model with this particular battery usually goes for $250 at full price, but you’re getting a $75 markdown through the rest of the day that lands it $5 under the usual $180 rate we’ve seen pop up over 2025 in these one-day sales. This is the best price we’ve spotted in 2025, with it only beaten out by the $170 low we last saw during Black Friday last year. What’s more, you won’t find this package at Amazon right now, with the closest models being either the 80V 500 CFM model with a 2.0Ah battery or the 80V 750 CFM backpack blower with a 4.0Ah battery.
The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.More.