Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia said Monday that the southern border crisis and his admiration for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. led him to leave the Democratic Party and support President Donald Trump.
According to Mediaite, Gebbia appeared on The Katie Miller Podcast with host and former White House official Katie Miller, where he discussed how his political beliefs shifted over time.
“At what point did you know in the last election that you were like, ‘I wanna help President Trump’? Was it Bobby Kennedy and your love for MAHA? Like, what was it?” Miller asked.
Gebbia responded, “I’ve been on my journey. Everyone’s been on a journey, and I think through, you know, 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 sort of, like, right size the ship.”
He explained that his upbringing influenced his political leanings. “I grew up in an alternative medicine, health food household,” Gebbia said, adding that Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” platform resonated with him.
However, it was the situation at the U.S.–Mexico border that ultimately convinced him to walk away from the Democratic Party and shift right.
“I think it was early 2021, mid-2021, the activity at the border caught my attention, and I just remember thinking, ‘What’s going on with this topic? It seems as if there’s no border,’” Gebbia said. “And as it got worse that year, I felt like I needed to understand this problem more, so I reached out to my friends, largely on the Democratic side of the house, at all levels, from the highest level all the way down.”
Although some Democrats offered him answers, Gebbia said he still felt something was missing.
“I get on the phone with Jared and say, ‘Hey, can you help me? Fill in the gaps for me. Like, what am I missing here? Is this normal? Like, seems there’s no enforcement of our own border. Like, don’t nations need borders to be a nation?’ And so he put me on this curriculum of just talking to experts in the field, and I remember just being like holy cow, this is crazy. 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,” he said.
Gebbia continued, “And so I think, as I started to pull on that thread, I sort of, you know, 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. That’s just not something I can get behind.”
Gebbia’s growing involvement in Trump-aligned governance follows his political shift. In February, he joined Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and in July, Trump appointed him chief design officer of the National Design Studio, tasked with improving government websites.
