Middle East Eye reports:

Sumaiya Balbale, the chief operating officer at Sequoia Capital, resigned from the Silicon Valley venture capital firm in August, after partner Shaun Maguire wrote posts about New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani that she reportedly viewed as Islamophobic, the Financial Times revealed on Wednesday.

Maguire, an American venture capitalist with close ties to X owner Elon Musk, wrote in a July post on the platform: “Mamdani comes from a culture that lies about everything. It’s literally a virtue to lie if it advances his Islamist agenda. The West will learn this lesson the hard way.”

According to the FT, Balbale raised her concerns with senior partners at Sequoia, one of the world’s biggest venture capital companies, but the firm declined to take action against Maguire, saying that he had the right to free speech. She resigned shortly after, citing her role as untenable.

Maguire’s comments also prompted over a thousand founders and tech professionals to sign an open letter in July, demanding Maguire face disciplinary action.

The letter urged Sequoia to issue an “immediate public condemnation and apology”, to commission “an independent investigation into Maguire’s conduct over the past two years”, and to “unequivocally denounce Maguire’s remarks as hate speech and anti-Muslim bigotry”. [Continue reading…]