One of the Republican Party’s biggest financial backers on Friday reportedly suggested she may endorse Hillary Clinton for president instead of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman was among those attending a closed-door summit held in Park City, Utah, by former presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, and others at the event told reporters afterwards that the billionaire businesswoman expressed reservations with regards to supporting Mr. Trump’s White House bid.
“She posed the question, ’Is it not reasonable to support Hillary Clinton?’ given all the awful things Trump has said,” said John Chachas, a GOP donor who attended Friday’s event, ABC News reported.
In discussing Mr. Trump further, Ms. Whitman reportedly compared the presumptive GOP nominee to both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, attendees told Politico on condition of anonymity.
Speaking with ABC News after the event, however, Ms. Whitman fell short of full-on endorsing the presumptive Democratic nominee for president over Mr. Trump.
“I haven’t made that decision. We’ll see, get to the conventions, see who the vice presidential picks are. And then I will make that decision,” she told ABC News.
Ms. Whitman, 59, served as CEO of eBay for a decade starting in 1998 before being taking on the same role at HP in 2011. She unsuccessfully campaigned for governor of California against Democratic incumbent Jerry Brown in the interim, shattering the record for the most money ever spent by a political candidate on a single election, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2010.
She advised Mr. Romney during his 2012 effort to prevent President Obama from being re-elected president, and supported New Jersey Governor Chris Christie before he dropped out of the GOP race earlier in the election season.
As of last June, Forbes estimated Ms. Whitman’s net worth to be valued at roughly $2.1 billion.
In a statement provided by campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump said he isn’t interested in garnering the businesswoman’s endorsement.
“I never met Meg Whitman, but the job she is doing at Hewlett-Packard is not a very good one,” he told CNN. “Based on the disastrous campaign she ran in California, and the tens of millions of dollars she wasted, I have learned a lot from her. I do not want her support.”
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Corrected from earlier report which erroneously said Mr. Romney’s meeting was in Washington, D.C.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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