How Reid Hoffman Weaponized an Election Technology Company Against Conservatives and Plans to Steal American Elections

THE PAYPAL MAFIA STRIKES AGAIN

Mar 24, 2026

In July 2024, LinkedIn co-founder, Democrat megadonor, Paypal Mafia member, and Jeffrey Epstein pal Reid Hoffman quietly invested $25 million into Smartmatic, the Venezuelan-founded election technology company currently suing Fox News for $2.7 billion and Newsmax for an undisclosed amount.

The investment was not subtle. It was strategic.

And the people closest to Hoffman said so out loud.

“The Battle to Steal America from Americans”

Hoffman’s longtime political adviser, Dmitri Mehlhorn, told The Washington Post that the court system was “an important part of the battle to protect America from MAGA.” He framed the investment as both ideological and financial, telling reporters that Smartmatic “could be a $400 million company right now if not for the slander and the smears.”

Hoffman himself issued a carefully worded statement claiming Smartmatic “built a global business by using technology to better engage citizens, regardless of party or ideology, by making voting simple and trustworthy.” He added: “After Donald Trump lost in 2020, however, Smartmatic became a target of the defamatory campaign to overturn his defeat.”

CNN reported that the investment surpassed $10 million, with a source telling the outlet, “This isn’t litigation financing.” Court filings later revealed the actual figure: $25 million.

Let that sit for a moment. A billionaire Democratic megadonor poured $25 million into a voting technology company, in part to help it sustain multi-billion-dollar lawsuits against conservative media outlets, and his adviser publicly described it as part of an ideological war against the MAGA movement.

This is lawfare with a return on investment.

The Playbook: Litigation as Political Warfare

This is not Hoffman’s first deployment of the courts as a political weapon. His track record includes:

E. Jean Carroll lawsuit. Hoffman helped fund Carroll’s sexual assault and defamation case against Donald Trump, another case where private wealth was deployed to sustain litigation against a political opponent.

Acronym and PACRONYM. Hoffman funded the Democratic operative-staffed organization that ran misleading ad campaigns designed to suppress Republican voter turnout by imitating disgruntled conservatives.

New Knowledge / Alabama Senate Race. Perhaps most revealing, Hoffman funded the tech firm New Knowledge, which created thousands of fake Twitter accounts designed to appear as Russian bots during the 2017 Alabama Senate race between Roy Moore and Doug Jones, manufacturing the appearance of Russian interference. Hoffman later apologized, but the damage was done and the playbook was established: deploy technology and capital to manipulate information environments around elections.

The pattern is unmistakable. Hoffman does not simply donate to candidates. He funds operations designed to shape political outcomes through deception, litigation, and the strategic deployment of capital into institutions that touch elections.

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The DOJ Problem Hoffman Doesn’t Talk About

Here is where the story gets uncomfortable for everyone involved.

At the same time Hoffman was investing tens of millions into Smartmatic, the Department of Justice had implicated Smartmatic executives in a bribery scheme involving a top Philippines election official. According to the DOJ, the scheme involved approximately $4 million in bribes for election contracts.

Smartmatic denies the allegations. But the timing raises a question that no journalist has adequately pressed: What due diligence did Hoffman conduct before pouring $25 million into a company under active federal criminal investigation for bribing foreign election officials?

If Hoffman’s stated concern is making voting “simple and trustworthy,” how does investing in a company accused of corrupting elections abroad advance that mission?

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Fox Fights Back, Judge Shields Hoffman

Fox News subpoenaed both Hoffman and Mehlhorn, arguing that Mehlhorn’s own public statements proved Hoffman believed Smartmatic’s pre-defamation value was far below the $2.7 billion in claimed damages. Fox’s legal team noted the gap between Mehlhorn’s “$400 million company” statement and Smartmatic’s $2.4 billion enterprise value loss claim.

The argument was straightforward: if the man funding the lawsuit believes the company is worth a fraction of what it claims in damages, that is directly relevant to the case.

A New York Supreme Court judge blocked Fox’s attempt to depose Hoffman in April 2025, while allowing a limited two-hour deposition of Mehlhorn restricted to pre-investment communications with Smartmatic’s CEO Antonio Mugica.

The ruling effectively shielded the funder from discovery while allowing the funded litigation to continue. Legal observers noted this creates a concerning precedent for the growing practice of ideologically motivated litigation financing.

The Bigger Picture: Who Controls Election Infrastructure?

Step back from the legal maneuvering and consider the structural reality.

Reid Hoffman is now a significant investor in one of the companies that builds and operates voting technology used in elections around the world. The same Reid Hoffman who funds operations designed to manipulate political information environments. The same Reid Hoffman whose adviser describes his financial deployments as part of an ideological “battle.”

The same Reid Hoffman, it should be noted, whose connections to Jeffrey Epstein have been documented by The Wall Street Journal (reporting he visited Epstein’s private island in 2014), and whose name was raised in a Senate hearing on Epstein in October 2025 while questioning Attorney General Pam Bondi.

None of these facts alone prove wrongdoing. But together they paint a picture of a billionaire who operates at the intersection of election technology, political litigation, information manipulation, and opaque financial relationships, all while publicly positioning himself as a defender of democracy.

Questions That Demand Answers

What are the specific terms of Hoffman’s investment in Smartmatic? Is it equity? Convertible debt? What governance rights, if any, did the investment convey?
Did Hoffman or his advisers have any contact with Smartmatic regarding its voting technology operations, as opposed to its litigation strategy?
What due diligence was conducted regarding the DOJ bribery investigation of Smartmatic executives before the investment was made?
Has any portion of Hoffman’s investment been used to fund Smartmatic’s voting technology operations in any jurisdiction, domestic or foreign?
Given Hoffman’s documented history of funding deceptive political operations (New Knowledge, Acronym), what safeguards exist to prevent his financial influence from affecting Smartmatic’s election technology operations?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are questions that Congress, the FEC, and the DOJ should be asking.

The Bottom Line

When a billionaire with a documented track record of funding deceptive political operations invests $25 million in an election technology company under federal criminal investigation for bribing foreign election officials, and his adviser describes it as part of an ideological war, the public has a right to scrutinize every dimension of that arrangement.

The defamation litigation is the headline. The real story is what a $25 million investment buys in influence over the infrastructure of democratic elections.

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