Jeffrey Katzenberg faces ire of Hollywood donors after Biden debate

The star-studded event in mid-June featured George Clooney, Barbra Streisand and Julia Roberts, and raised $30mn for Joe Biden’s re-election bid — proof of Hollywood’s backing for the president.

The fundraiser, in downtown Los Angeles, was also a showcase for Biden’s chief fundraiser, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Oscar-winning film mogul behind The Lion King, who launched the DreamWorks studio alongside Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.

Now, in the wake of Biden’s disastrous debate performance, Katzenberg is facing blowback from his Hollywood peers, including accusations that he downplayed the president’s declining health.

“[Katzenberg] would say, ‘He’s fine, I was just with him,” said a Hollywood veteran and longtime Democratic donor. “He had this famous quote for everybody, which was ‘I’m happy to put you in a room with him and you’ll see for yourself.’ But nobody did it.”

Executives in Hollywood and the broader entertainment business said they think donations to Biden’s campaign will slow following his performance in last week’s debate with Donald Trump, which triggered panic among Democrats and calls for the president to step aside for a younger candidate.

On Wednesday, Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix and a major donor to Democrats, became the most high-profile media executive to call for Biden’s withdrawal. He told the Financial Times the president needed to “step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump”.

“I don’t think anybody buys the ‘it was just one bad night’ excuse. The debate was a tipping point,” said another entertainment executive who donated to the Biden campaign. “You’ve got to expect [Katzenberg] is getting hundreds of phone calls saying ‘I’m not doing this again’.”

A representative for Katzenberg did not respond to requests for comment.

A disciplined executive known for planning three breakfast meetings in a single morning, Katzenberg raised eyebrows the day after the debate when he bailed on a meeting with an advisory board for Biden’s campaign that co-ordinates celebrity endorsement appearances, said a person familiar with the matter. The campaign staff was in “shock” about Biden’s performance, said the person.

Katzenberg, 73, has a long history in politics, starting when he was a teenage volunteer for New York mayor John Lindsay, a Republican, in the 1960s. He backed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, and raised millions for Obama’s re-election bid in 2012 with lavish fundraisers.

But he has taken on a much more active role with Biden’s campaign, of which he is a co-chair. He occasionally travels with Biden, and helped him prepare for his well-received State of the Union address in March.

The movie mogul is one of Biden’s top donors. Since April 2023, he and his wife Marilyn have given Biden’s campaign and a pro-Biden super Pac more than $3.8mn.

In an interview with the FT last year, Katzenberg rejected the notion that Biden, now 81, was too old to run for office. “The president has shown that he’s 80 years young and brings with him the wisdom and knowledge and experience that he has shown during the past two years,” he said at the time. “He is fit and engaged and has a high level of energy.”

In other interviews, he declared that Biden’s age was in fact a “superpower” and the source of his “wisdom”. It will be tougher to make that argument to donors now.

Katzenberg is facing pressure from Democrats in Hollywood and beyond, but he has shown a knack for pivoting from adversity. In the early 1990s, he revitalised Disney’s sagging animation business with The Lion King and other hits, earning the respect of Wall Street. But he crossed swords with then-chief executive Michael Eisner, who fired him — leading to an epic lawsuit that cost Disney nearly $270mn.

He later launched DreamWorks with Spielberg and Geffen, and built a powerhouse with DreamWorks Animation after it was spun off. He sold it in 2016 for $3.8bn. Katzenberg’s most high-profile recent venture was Quibi, a short-form mobile video app that closed after an investment of $1.75bn — a rare failure in his career.

Some have sympathy for Katzenberg’s position, noting that he signed on for Biden’s campaign more than a year ago — when signs of the president’s advanced age were not so visible. “You’re sitting here in the spring and you [realise] he’s kind of lost a step,” said the entertainment executive. “But in fairness, what are we going to do? It’s someone who is not on his A-game versus a lunatic.”

Another Los Angeles-based Democratic donor said his fellow party members needed to give up on the idea that Biden would pull out of the race. “It’s just not in his DNA,” he said. “The sooner people realise that, the better. We just have to survive this week and move on, and I’m confident we will.”

Deep-pocketed Hollywood donors are now left questioning how to proceed after throwing their support — and money — behind Biden. “I’m not angry,” the entertainment executive said. “I’m sad.”