‘Silicon valley princess’: inside the life of Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr.’s running mate
OAKLAND, Calif. — When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was considering potential running mates for his presidential run, his shortlist was initially topped by two well-known men with unusual resumes: Aaron Rodgers, the NFL quarterback and frequent purveyor of conspiracy theories, and Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota and professional wrestler known as “The Body.”
Instead, Kennedy made a surprise pick — a woman and a little-known figure with an unusual background: Nicole Shanahan.
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Shanahan, 38, a onetime Silicon Valley lawyer, has never held public office and has scant name recognition. But she was selected after Rodgers and Ventura fell through as vice-presidential candidates and Kennedy’s campaign needed money to fund its efforts to get onto state ballots, three people familiar with the events said. And money was something that Shanahan could provide in abundance.
Shanahan has a fortune of more than $1 billion that stems largely from her divorce settlement last year with Sergey Brin, a founder of Google, whose net worth exceeds $145 billion, three people with knowledge of her finances said. During their five-year marriage, Shanahan partied with Silicon Valley’s elite and used recreational drugs including cocaine, ketamine and psychedelic mushrooms, according to eight people and documents reviewed by The New York Times. Shanahan and Brin separated after she had a sexual encounter with Elon Musk in 2021, three of the people said.
Kennedy, who is running as an independent, picked Shanahan without his advisers having looked fully into her history or where her money was coming from, two people familiar with the campaign said. By then, she had already become a crucial financier of his run.
Shanahan, who has said she is a vaccine skeptic like Kennedy, funded a Super Bowl ad for Kennedy this year through a $4 million donation to a super political action committee, American Values 2024. In March, she infused Kennedy’s campaign with an additional $2 million. Last week, she said she had given an additional $8 million.
Their ticket has secured a place on the presidential ballot in Michigan, a swing state, as well as in five other states. Kennedy has enough signatures to reach the ballot in seven additional states, his campaign has said, potentially putting him and Shanahan in a position to tip the November election.
Shanahan is “exactly the right person,” Kennedy said when he announced her as his running mate in March. He called her a “fierce warrior mom” who “overcame every daunting obstacle and went on to achieve the highest levels of the American dream.”
