Grindr’s CEO has acknowledged that the app had a “significant spike in usage” during last year’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. In a new interview with UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers, George Arison dismissed rumors that traffic had caused servers to crash, but confirmed there had been a surge in users as supporters celebrated Trump’s confirmation as the Republican candidate.

At the time of the event last July, rumors spread across social media that Grindr had crashed due to the influx of young Republicans in the Midwestern city. Disgraced former Republican Congressman George Santos even dubbed the convention “the Grindr Superbowl”. Arison told UnHerd that while “there was a tweetstorm last summer […] we didn’t actually crash”, but revealed there was “a definite spike in usage”.

Confirming the longstanding rumors, Arison said: “Yes, it was actually true that there was a significant spike in usage in Milwaukee during the convention.” For him, “the reality is our audience is very diverse.”

In 2016 sources from Grindr told Vice there had been a 120% increase in traffic before the first night of that year’s RNC in Cleveland. However, this is the first time anyone from the company has gone on the record to confirm the surge in users triggered by the convention.

Arison also revealed his thoughts about the President’s views on gay people, saying: “It’s totally reasonable to say that Donald Trump has a lot of gay people around him.” According to the Grindr CEO, this implies “he is very comfortable with them.” The dating app boss went on to suggest that gay members of the administration — such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — were “frankly some of the most senior openly gay people in human history”. In Arison’s view, the respect Bessent receives “from both sides of the aisle is a good thing, and speaks to the fact we are reaching a level of acceptance of us in society that is positive”.

However, the Grindr CEO criticized those in the administration who want to cut Pepfar, a $7.5-billion program which provides most of the HIV treatment in developing countries across the world, referring to the decision as “awful.” He also expressed fear over federal funding for the HIV prevention drug PrEP being cut, saying: “that would be severely detrimental to the health of the United States.” On the subject of DOGE’s cuts to HIV testing and screening, he told UnHerd: “I can’t sugarcoat it. This is really bad.”

Arison has waded into politics before, expressing his support for former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 Democratic primary. He also faced criticism when he was announced as Grindr CEO in 2022 for an old tweet which read: “I am a conservative & agree with some Trump policies.” Arison has maintained that he is firmly non-partisan in his current role, and insisted his “job is to support gay people of any political stripe”.

Watch the full interview HERE.

---

Jack Davey is a freelance writer. He writes on Substack.

jacques_davey

---