Billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya admitted live on CNBC that the media had completely misled him about President Trump, and the clip is racing across social media again.
Palihapitiya made the admission during a July 14, 2026, appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box" with co-host Joe Kernen. "You're 100 percent right on Trump. He's fantastic," he told Kernen, calling the president an "unbelievable person, very smart on top of it, open-minded great president, so far."
The Silicon Valley venture capitalist then explained what changed his mind. "The reality is that most of us were lied to by the media about President Trump," he said.
"And if you just go back to the source material, you should take away two things," Palihapitiya continued. "One, he didn't say half the things he said, and two, why did these other people just fabricate what they wanted to say so that they could essentially assassinate his character?"
He called that second point "completely unacceptable in America," adding that there have "been no repercussions, really." Palihapitiya said he first set the record straight on his "All-In" podcast after rewatching Trump's full remarks about the 2017 violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
"I took the time to learn about it," he said, explaining that he admitted on the show, which has millions of viewers, that he "got it totally wrong." "And, you know, the first person to call me? President Trump," he added.
Palihapitiya said he hung up the phone, called his wife and told her, "We got it totally, totally wrong. We were lied to." "And then I got to know him and he is fantastic," he said.
The admission stands out because Palihapitiya once sat firmly on the other side of the political divide, donating $750,000 to Democrats in 2020 to protest Trump. The Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog, has found that broadcast network coverage of Trump runs negative roughly nine times out of 10.
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