From Donald Trump to RFK Jr., this Puget Sound Alum is Spending Millions of Dollars on Election Politics
By: Albert Chang-Yoo
Silicon Valley entrepreneur and billionaire Nicole Shanahan (‘07) was a relatively unknown political figure before she became the vice-presidential pick for Robert F. Kennedy’s failed presidential campaign. Now she’s appearing on “The Tucker Carlson Show” and CNN campaigning for Donald Trump. Her X (formerly Twitter) account, @NicoleShanhan, has gained over 300,000 followers, featuring posts such as her taking a selfie wearing a MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) hat, routinely garnering hundreds of thousands of likes. Shanahan graduated from the University of Puget Sound in 2007 and is now the most visible alum in the country. The Trail reached out to Shanahan for comment, but received no reply.
Shanahan grew up in Oakland, California, and attended Saint Mary’s College High School before attending the University of Puget Sound. In Oct. 2021, Shanahan, who is half-Chinese, visited campus for the first time since her graduation to speak at the “Empowering Asian-Americans: Women in Leadership” symposium. She spoke about her upbringing in a single-parent, immigrant household: “We were very low income. We were on welfare.” She pointed to her time at the University as a turning point in her life. “When I was selecting colleges, I had no direction. I barely had access to dial-up internet,” Shanahan said during the event.
According to Veronica Craker, the University’s Director of Media Relations, Shanahan attended the University from 2003 to 2007 and graduated with a bachelor’s in Asian Studies and minors in Economics and Chinese Language and Culture. During the 2005-06 school year, she participated in the Pacific Rim Study Abroad program. She was the recipient of several aid awards including the E. Nelson James Junior Memorial Scholarship, the Charles Garnet Trimble Endowed Fund in Chinese Studies, the Pac-Rim Alumni Scholarship, and the Albertson-Johnson Scholarship. Shanahan also briefly ran cross-country in her freshman year.
During her visit in 2021, Shanahan praised the community at Puget Sound and expressed gratitude towards the University for offering her an “enormous merit scholarship,” which kick-started her career.
Shanahan was an outstanding, hardworking student who made clear her desire to be an attorney, according to Lotus Perry, Professor of Chinese Language and Culture. Most professors who would have taught Shanahan are retired, and Shanahan does not maintain close relations with the University. Looking back, Shanahan’s visit in 2021 appears to be the only time that she has engaged with her alma mater.
Today, she is perhaps the most notable University alumni in the nation. After graduating, Shanahan worked as a paralegal and developed a specialization in Patent law. She attended Santa Clara Law School from 2011 to 2014. Following law school, Shanahan started up her own legal tech firm, ClearAccessIP, and became a CodeX fellow at Stanford Law School. She also entered the philanthropy world, pouring millions into fertility longevity research. She married Google CEO Sergey Brin in 2018 and became a billionaire following their divorce in 2023.
On March 26, 2024, third-party candidate and then-presidential nominee Robert Kennedy Jr. announced Shanahan was his running mate at an Oakland campaign event. According to Business Insider, Shanahan spent approximately $19 million trying to finance the faltering campaign. While she was on the campaign trail for RFK Jr., presidential candidate Donald Trump attacked her, accusing her of using her marriage for financial gain: “She did a hell of a big number on the husband.” Despite the attacks, Shanahan has teamed up with Trump’s campaign following the suspension of RFK’s independent bid for president.
Shanahan has previously supported numerous democratic causes. According to Forbes, during the 2020 election, Shanahan fundraised for Pete Buttigieg and donated $25,000 to the Biden campaign. However, since Shanahan’s foray into politics, she has taken a notable shift into right-wing talking points. In her introductory news conference in March, Shanahan falsely claimed that childhood vaccinations were linked to autism. In May, while speaking at the Libertarian National Conference, Shanahan remarked that “demonic forces” have “overtaken our agencies and our cultures”, a common far-right talking point. On X, Shanahan has regularly retweeted posts from accounts like “End Wokeness”, most recently railing against “cancel culture” and “woke bullshit” with Republican Harmeet Dhillon on her newly started podcast.
As the presidential election approaches, Shanahan continues tying her political goals to Trump’s campaign. Whether or not it works out will depend on the results of the election on November 5. Shanahan herself will likely be fine. Since graduating from Puget Sound, she has accumulated a net worth of an estimated $1 billion. During her 2021 visit to the University, Shanahan reflected on her leap from humble origins into national prominence: “When I think about this story and I think about where I am now – it’s almost unbelievable.”