“We’re one of the few organizations that has gone to the State Department and not asked for money,” Hack said. “What we say is…we want to use our platform to get information out to educate people and to teach people how to prevent getting this.’”
There are quieter, more domestic efforts too: pushing policies that make it easier and more affordable for same-sex couples to have children, including expanded IVF access. And, in true Washington fashion, two lawmakers who have been allies on their HIV prevention advocacy have been willing to accept donations from Grindr. Hack hosted a lunch fundraiser for Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in September 2025 that brought in about $25,000, and plans to host a fundraiser for Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) in June.
Grindr’s push to be taken seriously is being driven by CEO George Arison, who has been quietly steering to rebrand as an all-encompassing lifestyle brand with policy interest to match. Arison was installed as CEO in 2022, three years after the company was forced out of Chinese ownership from Beijing-based gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech on national security grounds because of the sensitivity of the data it holds, like users’ sexual orientation, location data, and private messages.
Arison has tried to present himself as politically neutral, but Washington has a long memory and screenshots. After becoming CEO, past posts resurfaced in which he described himself as conservative and expressed support for figures like Donald Trump and Glenn Youngkin, the former Republican governor of Virginia, neither of whom are closely associated with LGBTQ+ policies.
“FYI I am a conservative & agree with some of Trump policies,” Arison wrote in a since-deleted 2020 post, sparking backlash and a brief #DeleteGrindr moment among users.
Just a few days ago, Arison endorsed San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a moderate Democratic candidate for governor of California.
“Grindr loves the First Amendment, because it’s integral to protecting America,” Arison told VF in a statement.
“There is no company in the world better at making connections than Grindr, so hosting the party this weekend was a no brainer.”
Grindr is not the first dating app to discover K street. Since 2019, Bumble lobbied lawmakers to support the federal Consent Act that targets non-consensual image sharing often referred to as cyberflashing. They branded it as a way of protecting women online from unsolicited, sexually explicit images. Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid has a more serious presence in Washington, spending about $10 million in lobbying since 2020 alongside tech titans like Google for privacy and other online platform regulations. They fought to pass the Earn It Act in 2020, to enhance child safety.