When President Biden announced his intention to seek reelection last year, some key Democratic donors expressed skepticism: They worried that Biden was too old and wouldn't have the strength to serve another four years.
Jeffrey Katzenberg was tasked with telling them they were wrong, and when some still didn't believe him, he invited them to come to Washington and see for themselves, then arranged for the dubious donors to fly to the White House to meet with the 80-year-old president to convince him he was still wise enough.
“He said, 'Trust me. If you don't trust me, trust me. But check it out. Come with me, check it out, engage with the president,'” California Governor Gavin Newsom, a longtime ally of Katzenberg's, said in an interview. “And he started to do that consistently.” Newsom added: “He played a key role in really getting people off the sidelines and getting them fully committed to this campaign.”
Few people have been as committed to the president's reelection campaign as Katzenberg. A longtime Hollywood mogul known for his work on “The Lion King” and “Shrek,” among other films, Katzenberg is one of the biggest donors to a Democratic president in a generation. On Saturday night, he'll host Biden at a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles with former President Barack Obama, George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Jimmy Kimmel. It follows a $26 million fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall he organized with Obama and former President Bill Clinton in March.
Katzenberg never solved Biden's age issue, and Biden aides say some of the people he invited to the White House didn't need convincing. But his work to earn the president's trust from the wealthy is helping to bring in more money than the Trump campaign. But he's gone far beyond his previous political career, joining Biden's campaign as co-chair and throwing all his energy into defeating former President Donald J. Trump.
He's been doling out advice and guidance in the corridors of the West Wing of the White House. He was at Camp David the weekend before the State of the Union, helping the president prepare for his nationally televised address. He's been working with the campaign to record reaction videos of the president for social media and connecting Biden aides with writers to help him come up with jokes for the president to deliver at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
“He truly believes in the importance of this election,” said deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty. “He talks about it in really existential terms. He says he wants to spend his time on this election and he can't focus on anything else. He's a really obsessive guy.”
The president speaks with Mr. Katzenberg several times a week, as do many of his other advisers. “As far as I'm concerned, this guy doesn't sleep,” White House Chief of Staff Jeffrey D. Zients said, noting that he was speaking in his personal, not campaign, capacity. “He works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, which is invaluable.”
But he can also be unruly. “He won't take no for an answer,” campaign finance chairman Rufus Gifford says. “He definitely has opinions and he's vocal about them, and I like that.” The two talk so much, Gifford says, that “he calls us Batman and Robin. We argue about who's Batman and who's Robin.”
It's not at all surprising that Democrats would be willing to endorse Katzenberg. He's long been the party's go-to man for Hollywood fundraising, raising millions for Clinton, Obama and others. It's equally not surprising that skeptics wonder what he has in store. People who raise a lot of money usually want something, whether it's policy or perks. Katzenberg has had a lot of business interests lately, mostly in the technology sector.
But if there are demands on him, Democrats say he hasn't done so yet. “I've never gotten the impression that there's any personal interest, you know what I mean? Never, never,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has received Katzenberg's backing in the 2022 election. “He's not trying to be an ambassador. He's not trying to get a Cabinet position.”
Lean and intense but affable, Katzenberg, at 73, exudes the same ambitious, animalistic energy as if he were a movie star. He's famous in Hollywood for rising at 5 a.m. to pedal an exercise bike for 90 minutes while simultaneously reading four newspapers before attending three breakfast meetings, and his breakfast is not the California leafy treat but waffles or eggs and crispy bacon. “He eats like a horse, but he never puts on weight,” good-naturedly complains Casey Wasserman, a close friend and sports, music and entertainment mogul.
Mr. Katzenberg declined to be interviewed for this story, but in public he described himself as a “super triple-A” personality and a demanding boss who became famous for telling employees that if they wouldn't come in on Saturday, they didn't have to come in on Sunday. “Exceed expectations” was his two-word motto.
“I'm not a bunt guy,” he said in an onstage interview at Summit Palm Desert in California in 2022. “I'm not a base hitter, I'm not a runner. I just know one thing: I've been swinging for the fences my whole career.” He can't stand playing second base. “Show me how to lose, and I'll show you how to lose,” he said.
Mr. Katzenberg grew up on New York's Upper East Side, the son of a Wall Street stockbroker and an artist, and was sent to the Fieldston School of Ethical Culture. He inherited his father's penchant for gambling, which got him kicked out of summer camp.
The lost teenager went on to work for Mayor John V. Lindsay and eventually became a valet for the mayor, carrying bags of papers and cash to pay for speaking engagements in an era before credit cards. “That was my college degree,” said Mr. Katzenberg, who dropped out of New York University.
He eventually went west, became an assistant to media mogul Barry Diller, then moved into the film industry, where he became friends with longtime Hollywood powerhouse Lou Wasserman. “His grandfather passed the baton to him,” says Casey Wasserman, now chairman of the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympics committee. “He doesn't do much maneuvering. He's just incredibly straightforward and who you would expect to see.”
Katzenberg first worked at Walt Disney Studios, then, after being forced out in a power struggle, founded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, where he produced films such as “Star Trek,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Good Morning, Vietnam,” “Pretty Woman” and “Death Becomes Her,” as well as animated films such as “Aladdin,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Madagascar” and “Kung Fu Panda.” By his own count, he has worked on 406 live-action films, 41 animated films, more than 85 TV shows and five Broadway plays.
Not known for excessive self-doubt, he was depressed after the embarrassing failure of his attempt to build a streaming video app for short-form content with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Despite $1.75 billion in investment, their startup, Quibi, failed to find a market against competitors like TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic and folded after just six months. But his tech investment firm, WndrCo (pronounced wonder company), just announced this month that it had raised another $460 million from venture capital funds.
Katzenberg, whose net worth is estimated at $2.1 billion, has long been interested in politics, becoming what longtime Democratic strategist Paul Begala calls “the greatest fundraiser alive.” A native of Texas, Begala likened the way ranchers put bells on their lead cows to make sure the herd follows them. “Jeffrey Katzenberg is the bell cow of the Democratic Party,” he said.
Begala said Katzenberg was so enthusiastic that he called him on election night in 2012, the night Obama was declared the winner. “Who are you going to support in 2016?” Katzenberg demanded. “You should support Hillary. Get started.” Begala recalled protesting that he hadn't yet celebrated his victory that night: “Jeffrey, I haven't even had a drink yet.”
But it does mean Katzenberg can get ahead of things. On Election Day in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was expected to beat Trump, he met with actor Alec Baldwin at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The two were planning a TV comedy in which Baldwin would play Trump in an alternate reality where Trump had won the presidency.
Like many Democrats, Katzenberg has a visceral dislike for Trump. He met Trump in New York decades ago and has told associates he found the real estate mogul arrogant and rude ever since. “He was a f****** jerk then and nothing's changed,” he said in an expletive-filled speech at an Axios-sponsored rally in West Hollywood last month. But Katzenberg did appear as a guest on “The Apprentice” with Trump in 2006.
When asked why he's so determined to defeat Trump now, Katzenberg often talks about a high-school assignment he did interviewing his European-born grandparents about the situation before World War II, learning that Adolf Hitler posed no real danger at the time of his rise. He tells associates he doesn't want his grandchildren to ask him what he was doing when his country faced similar challenges.
Trump also happens to fit Katzenberg's theory on politics and movies — he likes to quote Walt Disney as saying that a movie is only as good as its villain — and Trump is much easier to present to voters as a villain than, say, John McCain or Mitt Romney.
If Trump is Scar from “The Lion King,” Katzenberg sees Biden as the wise father king Mufasa. That may not be the best analogy, though: Scar kills Mufasa in a coup to take over the Pride Lands, and Mufasa's son Simba ends up defeating the usurper in pursuit of justice.
But importantly, Mr. Katzenberg has encouraged the Biden team to think of the campaign as a story to tell. “He's been a good thinking partner in terms of how to bring all the different pieces together,” said campaign communications director Michael Tyler, who estimates he speaks with Mr. Katzenberg several times a week. “How do you create moments? How do you make sure they're not cliché moments?”
So he was at Camp David before the State of the Union, sitting in the Aspen Lodge with the president's advisers. Mr. Katzenberg didn't write or edit the speech, but he offered input on how to structure the narrative and also pleaded, not entirely successfully, for brevity. Mr. Katzenberg argued that Mr. Biden should focus on the age issue, calling presidential longevity “his superpower.”
Katzenberg is no policy expert, but he's been immersed in the issue of homelessness in Los Angeles lately: He pressed Mayor Bass on the issue, then flew to Sacramento in a fierce storm to meet with Governor Newsom for 15 minutes to urge stronger homelessness measures before turning back and flying home.
But all of that pales in comparison to his enthusiasm for the Biden campaign. Even those who benefit from his influence are mystified by his dedication to the campaign. “I asked him 10 different ways for 10 days: 'Why are you doing this?'” Newsom recalled. “Every time I asked him, 'What are you doing this for?' he would squint his eyes at me and get upset.”