Technology Whiz Macricostas Gives $1.1M to Rand Paul GOP Campaign
California technology entrepreneur George Macricostas, who started the off-site data backup management site RagingWire, has donated $1.1 million so far to the campaign of Republican Presidential candidate Rand Paul, a Republican U.S. Senator from Kentucky.
Macricostas ranked 29th on a list of donors of more than $1 million to presidential campaigns more than a year before the election and as the Republican field has swollen.
Paul, a physician, is the son of former U.S. Congressman Ron Paul from Texas. Sen. Paul is a libertarian and strong supporter of the ultra-right Tea Party movement who announced his candidacy on April 7, 2015 and has seen Macricostas being his prime supporter among the $6 million raised so far for the campaign.
Paul is known for being accessible to the media but he admitted in an interview on CNN to being “short-tempered” with the press.
The big donations flow through so-called Super PACs (Political Action Committees). Leading the list of donors to candidates is Robert Mercer, co-Chief Executive of Renaissance Technologies, who gave $11.3 million, 98 percent to Texas Republican conservative Sen. Ted Cruz, and the rest split between Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina.
RagingWire is largely owned by the Japanese company NTT Communications. Macricostas gave his donation to Paul through America’s Liberty PAC, which is run by Paul’s former campaign manager Jesse Benton, the Huffington Post said.
Macricostas donated to the 2012 Presidential campaign of Paul’s father and to a joint fundraising committee providing money to Rand Paul’s Presidential campaign, 2016 Senate account, and leadership PAC.
RagingWire started as a co-location center providing off-site data backup for financial and technology companies. George Macricostas was a founder in 2000 and served as the company’s first CEO.
In a profile, the Sacramento Business Journal reported that he led the company from its somewhat rocky birth — coming just as the dot-com crash occurred — to rapid growth.
In October he struck a $350 million deal to sell 80 percent of the company to NTT Corp. aimed at allowing the business to continue rapid growth.
With the deal, RagingWire overnight went from from being a local company to a major international player, part of a Japanese giant and now with 150 data centers.
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