Robert F. Kennedy Jr. picks tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his vice president

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chose tech attorney and entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan to be his running mate.

Shanahan, who has never run for office before, donated the maximum amount to Kennedy’s campaign and $4 million to the chief super PAC backing his bid to air a retro-themed Super Bowl commercial. In addition to backing American Values 2024, she also gave $500,000 to another super PAC backing Kennedy, Common Sense PAC. Both donations were made through an LLC, Planeta Management.

Kennedy said he was searching for a running mate who understood technology, government agencies’ vulnerability to corruption, the need for secure borders and an athlete.

“So that is why I’m so proud to introduce to you the next vice president of the United States, my fellow lawyer, a brilliant scientist, technologist, a fierce warrior mom, Nicole Shanahan,” Kennedy said in Oakland, California.

Shanahan was raised in Oakland by a mother who was a Chinese immigrant and a white American father who suffered from mental illness. Tickets for the announcement event were sold for $2, $24 or $500.

Kennedy has been searching for a vice presidential candidate to join his independent bid since quitting the Democratic Party primary last October. The short list was wide-ranging, including NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and ex-Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

Now that he’s named the 38-year-old Shanahan as his running mate, the campaign can begin collecting ballot access signatures in about 20 more states.

Shanahan said she’s passionate about fighting chronic disease in the U.S. by eliminating toxins in food and water and electromagnetic pollution as well as doing different studies on pharmaceuticals and vaccines.

“There is only one candidate who takes the chronic disease epidemic seriously, and it is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and I will be his ally,” Shanahan said.

Shanahan said Kennedy will be focused on corruption in government agencies while she applies her skills as a technologist to the issue.

Shanahan, who is also a fellow at the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, has a long history of political giving, backing progressive California Rep. Ro Khanna’s campaigns as well as making a contribution to President Joe Biden and a five-figure donation to the Democratic National Committee in 2020 after supporting Marianne Williamson’s long-shot bid during the primary. The tech entrepreneur also donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.

Kennedy said Shanahan has also now left the Democratic Party. As independents, they will face Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive major party nominees, in the November general election.

But since Kennedy and Shanahan are both California residents, they will now be unable to accept California’s 54 electoral college votes should they win the state in November unless one of them moves his or her residency to another state, according to the Constitution’s 12th Amendment.

As Kennedy’s team was announcing his running mate, Democrats and allied groups also seized on Kennedy’s big day.

The DNC paid for a mobile billboard highlighting a mega donor, Tim Mellon, who has donated to both the super PACs supporting Kennedy and Trump. Protesters handed out fliers across the street featuring a QR code that went to a website that read, “Kennedy for Measles,” pointing out the dangers of his anti-vaccine positions. And Clear Cho ice PAC, a newly formed group to oppose third party candidates, launched a negative website that calls Kennedy’s candidacy “dangerous” and asks voters to “Reject RFK. Stop Donald Trump.”

“RFK Jr. has no path to victory, and his vice presidential selection does nothing to change that," Pete Kavanaugh, co-founder of Clear Choice PAC, said in a statement.

Shanahan’s wealth and ability to financially support the campaign’s operations — including gathering petition signatures to get on the ballot and potential litigation — are advantageous to the Kennedy ticket. Kennedy denied in a News Nation interview that Shanahan’s wealth was a factor in his decision making.

Shanahan was last in national headlines when The Wall Street Journal reported that she had an affair with Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla who was also being courted for a donation by American Values. Both she and Musk denied the affair, which allegedly took place in 2021. She and her then-husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, divorced. The Journal reported that Brin also asked his advisers to sell his personal investments in Musk’s companies.

In 2019, Shanahan founded Bia-Echo, a nonprofit foundation. Its mission includes “reproductive longevity & equality, criminal justice reform and a healthy & livable planet,” according to its website.

Bia-Echo Foundation has only ever had one donor, according to three years of financial disclosure forms: Brin. The forms disclosed that Brin made his eight-figure donation through shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, in 2020. The following year, his contribution came as Tesla shares valued at about $25 million. Brin did not make a donation in 2022.

In a lengthy profile with People Magazine, Shanahan again denied the affair with Musk and said the two instead talked about autism treatments for Shanahan and Brin’s young daughter, Echo. Shanahan said she frequently has conversations like this in the tech world. “Elon was another person in this group of people. There’s almost this generational ecosystem and it’s a community. You run ideas past each other and you ask questions,” she told the magazine.

Shanahan added finding a cure to autism to Bia-Echo’s work, in the People interview. She said she spends 60 percent of her time researching autism.

“I am hopeful of helping my daughter overcome her autism, whatever that might look like, whether it be in five years not having a diagnosis anymore, or having all of the tools to navigate the challenges that her diagnosis has produced in her life,” Shanahan said.

In addition to scientists and doctors, Shanahan said she learns about autism interventions “with greater accuracy than any published medical paper” from mothers raising autistic children. Kennedy has shared a similar sentiment about mothers when describing how he became skeptical of vaccine safety.

Kennedy has falsely claimed that there is a link between mercury content in vaccines and disease, including autism, publishing a book on the subject and starting a nonprofit that engages in litigation on behalf of people who believe they’ve been injured by a vaccine.

Advocacy against vaccines and vaccine mandates following the Covid-19 pandemic have bolstered Kennedy’s public profile in recent years and given a boost to his grassroots campaign strategy.

“I want her to represent the mothers who struggle to protect their children from the bad chemicals, the pharmaceuticals and bad food,” Kennedy said of Shanahan to great applause from the crowd. “As vice president, she will stand between them and Big Ag, Big Pharma, the chemical industry, the processed food industry, and the government regulators who are colluding to poison our kids for profit.”

Despite Bia-Echo’s mission statement, its financial disclosures show the foundation has invested more in financial assets than in grant giving.

In 2022, the latest available year in online records, Bia-Echo reported owning $13.7 million in U.S. and state government securities and $12.2 million in corporate stocks and bonds. It reported $0 in grants, gifts or contributions to other organizations.