Hill and Valley Forum Third Annual Dinner — TikTok-Ban Coalition Coordination, Speaker McCarthy, Pre-Shou Zi Chew Testimony Staging

Overview

In mid-March 2023 — the exact date is not confirmed at day-level; it preceded Shou Zi Chew’s House Energy and Commerce Committee testimony on March 23, 2023 — Jacob Helberg, Christian Garrett (137 Ventures), and Delian Asparouhov (Founders Fund) hosted the third annual Hill and Valley Forum dinner in Washington, D.C. The event brought together approximately 400 participants (dinner plus daytime programming) including then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Warner, Representatives Michael McCaul and Mike Gallagher, venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Vinod Khosla, and roughly 200 guests at the dinner. The event’s explicit strategic purpose was legislative preparation for the TikTok confrontation: Helberg told press, “We’re preparing Congress for this testimony.” 137 Ventures and Founders Fund jointly funded the meal alongside Helberg personally.

Date-precision note: This entry uses 2023-03-15 as a working placeholder. The documented date range is mid-March 2023, prior to March 23, 2023. No day-level date has been confirmed in primary sources as of 2026-05-28. The timeline ID uses 2023-03-XX to signal the date-precision gap.

Founding note: This was the third annual Hill and Valley Forum, not the founding event. The forum was first convened in 2021 as a private dinner of approximately 100 people. The 2023 event is the first to receive major press attention due to its TikTok-timing — which is why many sources cite “March 2023” as the founding date. The actual founding year is 2021.

What Happened: Key Facts

The March 2023 Hill and Valley Forum dinner was the moment the forum’s China-hawk political-coordination work became publicly legible through its explicit timing against TikTok legislation. Key documented facts:

Attendees and co-hosts:

• Legislators: Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA); Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mark Warner (D-VA); Representatives Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Mike Gallagher (R-WI) — a bipartisan mix spanning both chambers and both parties
• Regulators: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr — the FCC official most publicly opposed to TikTok’s FCC license application and a China-hawk voice in telecom regulation
• VC participants: Peter Thiel (Founders Fund chairman; Palantir co-founder); Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures)
• Co-founders: Helberg, Garrett, Asparouhov
• Scale: ~400 total (dinner + daytime programming); dinner component approximately 200

Stated purpose: Helberg publicly stated the forum was designed to “prepare Congress” for the March 23 testimony of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He promoted specific lines of inquiry about TikTok’s data practices and Chinese government access.

Funding: 137 Ventures (Garrett’s firm) and Founders Fund (Asparouhov’s and Thiel’s firm) covered the cost of the meal, alongside Helberg personally. This funding architecture places the event’s costs on firms with material financial interests in U.S.-China technology policy outcomes: 137 Ventures holds positions in Anduril, SpaceX, and Applied Intuition; Founders Fund holds Palantir (co-founded by Thiel), defense-AI portfolio companies, and Varda Space.

Helberg’s concurrent roles: At the time of the March 2023 dinner, Helberg was a USCC Commissioner (2022–2024) and had not yet joined Palantir as Senior Advisor (that came September 2023). He was operating from his think-tank and advisory perch — Stanford, CNAS, Brookings — plus the USCC commission role.

Why This Event Matters

1. TikTok-ban coalition staging: The March 2023 dinner is the documented origin point of the organized bipartisan coalition that produced PAFACA (April 2024) — a 13-month legislative arc from this dinner to Biden’s signature. The forum did not write the legislation (Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi introduced H.R. 7521), but it built and maintained the political-institutional relationships and the shared-threat frame that made the bipartisan vote (352-65 in the House) possible.

2. Bipartisan-coalition architecture documented in real-time: The presence of both Rubio (R-FL) and Warner (D-VA) — respectively the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Republican and the committee’s Democratic chair at the time — at the same VC-funded dinner explicitly staged before a major China-tech congressional confrontation is a documented instance of the bipartisan-coalition mechanism. These are not casual attendees; they are the Senate’s two most powerful voices on intelligence and China technology, brought into the same room by a VC-funded organization.

3. Commercial alignment: The firms funding the dinner (137 Ventures, Founders Fund) hold significant equity positions in U.S. defense-AI and space companies whose valuations and government contract prospects benefit from a China-hawk policy environment and the restriction of Chinese tech competitors in the U.S. market. This alignment is documented; the “captured-X political coalition layer” reading is analytical RAMM framing.

4. Helberg credentialing arc: The 2023 dinner is a key step in Helberg’s credentialing-for-government trajectory: USCC Commissioner → HVF convener → Palantir Senior Advisor (September 2023) → USCC hearing (February 2024) → Senate confirmation as Under Secretary of State (October 2025). Each step builds on the institutional relationships and policy advocacy the forum enabled.

Broader Context: PAFACA Legislative Arc

The March 2023 HVF dinner sits at the beginning of the TikTok-ban legislative arc. The documented correlation with subsequent legislation:

Correlation documented; causation not asserted: HVF’s advocacy is one documented input into the legislative process. Gallagher, Krishnamoorthi, and the House committee had independent policy motivations. The forum’s contribution was relationship-building and shared-frame maintenance — not direct drafting or lobbying in the registered LDA sense.

Research Gaps

• Exact day-level date of March 2023 dinner — not confirmed in available sources; working placeholder is 2023-03-15
• Whether HVF filed any LDA lobbying disclosures in connection with TikTok advocacy — interactive-only lookup required
• Full attendee list for March 2023 dinner — current sourcing captures named VIPs but not the full 200-person dinner guest list
• Whether Peter Thiel or Vinod Khosla gave remarks or participated in structured sessions, vs. attending as guests
• Wall Street Journal’s original March 17, 2023 reporting (paywall-gated; secondary citations available)

Related Entries

• hill-and-valley-forum — Organization profile; full founding history, governance, funding, event series
• helberg-jacob — Co-founder; operational architect; Under Secretary of State; $840K Palantir consulting; ongoing Karp advisor at time of government entry
• thiel-peter — HVF participant; Founders Fund chairman; funded the March 2023 event
• 2024-06-06–pacific-heights-12m-sacks-trump-fundraiser — Helberg ~$1M donation; same Silicon Valley China-hawk network; six weeks before VP selection; post-PAFACA passage
• route-around-the-checkpoint-meta-mechanism-captured-x-administrative-bypass-architecture — Bipartisan-coalition-as-political-cover as adjacent captured-X variant
• kompromat-as-operational-coordination-mechanism-captured-x-personal-leverage-variant — Contrast mechanism: HVF coordinates via shared-frame, not personal leverage