Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay and a backer of progressive groups spearheading anti-Elon Musk campaigns, is behind a new initiative led by Democrats aiming to champion the second Trump resistance, records reveal.
The initiative, called Governors Safeguarding Democracy, was profiled in the New York Times last week as a newly-formed vehicle for Govs. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL), Jared Polis (D-CO), and other governors to “protect the rule of law” in states and push back on the policies of President-elect Donald Trump. On its website, GSD calls itself a “nonpartisan alliance” of leaders, though it is unclear what Republican officials, if any, are involved with the group. But, according to nonprofit donation software records, GSD is not technically a stand-alone organization.
Rather, the Trump resistance operation is under the umbrella of a Governors Action Alliance project sponsored by Global Impact, a Virginia-based charity. In September, Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, a private foundation steering the left-wing billionaire’s fortune, routed $500,000 to the Governors Action Alliance to support “coordinating and strengthening the work of governors to address specific threats to American democracy,” Democracy Fund’s grants database shows.
Omidyar’s ties to the Trump resistance group, which operates under its parent umbrella alongside an effort called the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, is a window into how billionaire progressives are ramping up campaigns to combat speculated GOP plans on abortion, immigration, and other issue areas. Democrats are enlisting high-powered lawyers, while opposition researchers at the Democratic National Committee are compiling dossiers of incoming federal officials, the New York Times also reported.
“Even though Trump won the popular vote, Omidyar and company think they are ‘saving democracy’ by resisting the incoming administration,” said researcher Parker Thayer at the Capital Research Center, a think tank investigating progressive philanthropy. “They clearly think that democracy is just when Democrats win.”
Omidyar, 57, founded eBay in 1995 and stepped down from the e-commerce giant’s board in 2020. The entrepreneur has a net worth of over $10 billion and funds various progressive groups, including several entities behind corporate boycott campaigns against Musk, the owner of X, and a close Trump ally, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
In 2002, eBay notably bought PayPal, which Musk helped launch.
The $500,000 Democracy Fund grant to Governors Action Alliance is being disbursed until August 2025 for “state and local accountability,” according to funding records.
“Governors Safeguarding Democracy is proud to have the support of a diverse group of donors that share our mission and values,” a spokesperson for GSD told the Washington Examiner. “However, as a matter of policy, we do not comment on individual donors or contributions.”
GSD declined to say what, if any, GOP governors are involved with the effort. The group said Governors Action Alliance has a bipartisan advisory board.
Democracy Fund, meanwhile, is also helping to support other groups behind the new Trump resistance following his victory in the 2024 election against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Omidyar’s group routed $750,000 in April to a project called Free Election Fund, which is associated with Marc Elias, the Democratic superlawyer who pushed the discredited Steele Dossier aiming to link Trump to Russia falsely in 2016.
Over the last few weeks, Elias has been involved with Democratic recount efforts in the Pennsylvania Senate race in a last-ditch effort to thwart Republican Dave McCormick from ousting Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA).
The Free Election Fund used to be called the Democracy Docket Legal Fund. It is housed under the Hopewell Fund, a group managed by an influential Democratic-aligned consulting firm called Arabella Advisors. In 2020, Omidyar’s Democracy Fund also granted $1.5 million to the Elias-linked legal group “to detect and combat suppressive voting laws and practices through litigation,” records show.
GSD, the group co-chaired by Pritzker and Polis, says on its website that it will “develop playbooks to enable governors and their teams to anticipate and swiftly respond to emerging threats.” The group will also aim “to protect executive agencies, elections, state courts, and other core democratic bodies,” GSD adds on its website.
Spokespeople for Pritzker and Polis did not respond to requests for comment. Governors Action Alliance, the supporter of GSD, counts its founder and CEO as Julia Spiegel, a former senior legal adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA).
“There’s not an overnight erosion that occurs on Jan. 20,” Polis told the New York Times. “There’s a threat of an ongoing erosion over the future administration, and we want to prevent that from occurring.”
Global Impact did not respond to a request for comment.
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