Airbnb co-founder opens-up about what persuaded him to leave the Democrat party for Trump

Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia revealed this week that he left the Democratic Party last year to support current President Donald Trump.

Speaking with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, on her podcast, Gebbia opened up about how he was persuaded to come over to the right by both MAHA and the border crisis.

MAHA is short for “Make America Healthy Again,” which is the slogan of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

From Airbnb to the Trump Administration’s DOGE initiative—my conversation with Airbnb co-founder @jgebbia covers his remarkable journey and what’s next.

0:00 – Introduction
1:14 – Joe’s background
3:13 – First website
4:57 – Airbnb foudning
11:07 – First guests
15:04 – South by… pic.twitter.com/936wGkzJMr

— The Katie Miller Podcast (@katiemillerpod) September 1, 2025

“At what point did you know in the last election that you were like, ‘I wanna help President Trump?’” Miller at one point asked Gebbia. “Was it Bobby Kennedy and your love for MAHA? Like, what was it?”

“I’ve been on my journey,” Gebbia began replying. “Everyone’s been on a journey, and I think through, you know, certainly Bobby Kennedy and supporting him, and I’ve been so grateful for the work that he’s doing, to be somebody who just cares so much about the health of our nation, and you know, has no ties to industry and is really just able to bust through walls and sort of, like, right size the ship.”

He added that the fact that he “grew up in an alternative medicine, health, food household” led him toward MAHA, though he stressed that the bigger factor driving him to the right was the border crisis.

“I think it was early 2021, mid-2021, the activity at the border caught my attention, and I just remember thinking, ‘What’s going on with this topic? It seems as if there’s no border,’” he said.

“And as it got worse that year, I felt like I needed to understand this problem more, so I reached out to my friends, largely on the Democratic side of the house, at all levels, from the highest level all the way down,” he continued.

He said that while he got “some answers” from his Democrat colleagues, he ultimately “felt unfilled,” so he decided to speak with somebody from the right next, mainly former Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner.

“I get on the phone with Jared and say, ‘Hey, can you help me? Fill in the gaps for me. Like, what am I missing here? Is this normal? Like, seems there’s no enforcement of our own border. Like, don’t nations need borders to be a nation?’” Gebbia recalled.

“And so he put me on this curriculum of just talking to experts in the field, and I remember just being like, holy cow, this is crazy. Like, this is not right. This is a real problem, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be enforcing the laws of our country and our border,” he continued.

‘Open the f—ing border, I don’t give a s— who comes in here’ – Dem staffer says in leaked video https://t.co/rLzqDPez1N via @BIZPACReview

— Stan Lipowski (@stalip77) October 29, 2024

This was the turning point that led him to fully embrace the right.

“And so I think, as I started to pull on that thread, I sort of, you know, begin to look at other topics and eventually came to the point where I don’t think I can support a political party that wants to have an open border, that lets in criminals and dangerous people into our country,” he explained. “That’s just not something I can get behind.”

Gebbia famously worked with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) starting in February. He was later appointed Chief Design Officer of the National Design Studio last month.

During his interview with Miller, he also revealed that he experienced “pretty unpleasant” backlash for working with DOGE.

“If you go back to February, when I got involved, there were a lot of people who were neutral, a lot of people who were positive, and then an equal amount of people who were just hateful,” he said.

“I remember thinking, if it’s a stranger on the internet calling you something, it’s not a big deal. But if it’s somebody that you worked with for a long time, it hits different. The hate mail text messages that I got were disheartening to say the least,” he added.