Nicole Shanahan, a lawyer and entrepreneur who was once married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, spent $4 million to help fund Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial new Super Bowl ad. In 2022, Shanahan found herself at the center of another media firestorm, after The Wall Street Journal reported that her divorce was precipitated by an affair she allegedly had with Elon Musk. (Musk denied the allegation.) Shanahan told The New York Times this week that she is backing Kennedy because of his environmental record and skepticism about vaccines. “I do wonder about vaccine injuries,” she told the Times, though she insisted that she is “not an anti-vaxxer.” “I do think we have an environmental health crisis in this country,” she added. “I do believe Americans deserve clean water. And we can’t achieve that in the current climate of politics.” Shanahan has previously supported Democrats; she donated to Joe Biden in his 2020 race against Donald Trump.
