Few lawmakers have done more than Rep. French Hill, a 68-year-old former community banker from Arkansas, to gain Silicon Valley’s support for Capitol Hill — and it has only helped him rise to the top of a of the most powerful committee positions in the world. Washington.
Hill has used his spot as a member of the House Financial Services Committee in recent years to become a leading advocate for policies that would help boost emerging technology sectors, including cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. The focus has bolstered support from an emerging new area of political power in Silicon Valley, which has close ties to newly elected President Donald Trump. Those connections have helped him raise campaign money and given him influential support that gave him a boost in a prized gavel competition against three other senior Republicans in the House of Representatives.
Hill’s ascent illustrates the new influence Silicon Valley has in Washington.
“He knows the community, he knows the industry and you have a new president – that’s what he wants to focus on,” said House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), a leading crypto industry booster who is a member of the GOP steering committee that chooses committee leaders.
The Financial Services panel, long known as a Wall Street-focused committee in which financiers try to influence banking regulations, has increasingly focused on financial technology issues that have opened the door for emerging industries to gain new influence. The priorities of the traditional banking sector do not always match those of the technology sector. But Hill has helped drive the shift and is now poised to give emerging tech sectors like crypto a powerful ally to push industry-friendly policies through Congress during the second Trump administration.
It comes as Silicon Valley majors like billionaire Elon Musk and venture capitalist David Sacks, Trump’s pick for White House crypto and artificial intelligence czar, are gearing up to shape policy in Trump 2.0, which will see venture capital and emerging technology sectors gain more influence. than ever.
“He’s a great choice for this industry,” said Bobby Franklin, president and CEO of the National Venture Capital Association, a trade group that represents venture capital firms. “I expect Frans will not miss a step in advancing many of the things that are important to us.”
Hill’s Silicon Valley connections have helped him become one of the House GOP’s top fundraisers, a position that bolstered his bid for the Financial Services chairman’s gavel. He has collected checks from several top executives at crypto and VC firms over the past year, including billionaire Marc Andreessen, a Trump supporter who founded the venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, and Brian Armstrong, CEO of the largest US crypto exchange, Coinbase.
At an October fundraiser for Hill in the Silicon Valley suburb of Woodside, California, a who’s who of tech and VC business leaders were in attendance. The event was hosted by the founders of crypto investment firm Paradigm, Fred Ehrsam and Matt Huang, plus Kevin Kelly of Sequoia Heritage, Neil Mehta of Greenoaks Capital, Katie Haun of Haun Ventures and Patrick Collison of Stripe, as well as other tech CEOs such as Robinhood’s Vlad Tenev, said three people with knowledge of the event. Others who donated to Hill in the lead-up to the event, which raised about half a million dollars for Hill and the House GOP’s campaign arm, include Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani and Solana Labs co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, according to FEC filings.
Paradigm also hosted another fundraiser for Hill in April, as Chief Legal Officer Katie Biber wrote in a post on X. Biber said she attended with her teenage son and his friend.
Venture capitalists like Franklin say it’s not just Hill’s crypto policy stance that has helped them win over. They also point to his experience launching his own company — a community bank — and his support for the so-called DEAL Act, which would “expand access to capital for early-stage startups,” Franklin said. Hill also co-chairs the Congressional Entrepreneurship Caucus.
“He knows these issues very well,” Franklin said.
It’s fair to say that Hill, like other Republicans on the panel, has been a trusted ally of the banking industry, and technical issues were far from the only factor in the gavel race. He has fought against banking regulations sought by President Joe Biden’s appointees and said one of his top priorities as chairman will be easing “regulatory burdens on community banks.”
But his biggest legislative focus over the past two years has been on crypto. As chairman of a financial services subcommittee on digital assets, he has played a leading role in drafting industry-friendly legislation that would change the way crypto is regulated. The issue is expected to remain a top priority for Trump, who has embraced the sector and gave Hill a shout-out during a speech at a Bitcoin conference in July.
Hill also led a financial services working group focused on AI and has introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at promoting the technology in the financial sector.
He said in an interview last month that his experience in the private sector gave him “an edge” in the process. In addition to founding a community bank, he previously served in the Treasury Department and the White House of former President George HW Bush.
“My legislative track record involves digital assets, but that was, I think, no more important than the fact that I have a long-standing successful track record of having a vision, a plan and implementing it – both in the private sector and the public sector,” he said.
Others involved in the process said the ties between crypto and Silicon Valley were a boon in the secretive seat selection process.
“Those connections really help,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a Trump ally who serves on both the Financial Services and GOP steering committees. Crypto will “become, among other things, an important focus of the committee.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated a social media post about Hill’s April fundraiser.
