Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s pledge to break up Silicon Valley’s biggest tech companies has provoked a surprising response from some of those firms’ employees: They’re writing her checks.

The Massachusetts senator received more than $39,000 in donations from employees of Amazon, Apple, Facebook or Google, ranking third among her fellow Democratic 2020 presidential contenders. And she did even better among all donors who describe themselves as software engineers or programmers, coming in second behind Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The first quarter fundraising reports, which were released this week, are a sign that the Warren’s controversial plan for restructuring the tech industry has won support among techies who like the idea of taking the giants down to size.

“Monopoly power is bad for democracy,” said Alex Feldman-Crough, a software engineer in San Francisco who gave Warren $250 last month. “Folks hear a lot from the biggest players, like the lobbyists or spokespeople for large tech companies — but the actual people who make up these companies are far more diverse in their views.”

Under Warren’s proposal, the largest firms would be banned from operating marketplaces and participating on those platforms. For example, Amazon couldn’t sell its own Amazon-branded products on its online store, and those functions would have to be spun off into separate companies. Other recent tech mergers, like Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, would also have to be rolled back.

The plan has been blasted by industry groups representing large tech firms, which have argued that it’s too extreme and would end up ensuring the dominance of Chinese tech companies. But Warren’s supporters argue it will promote competition — and some of the tech giants’ workers agree.

Among employees of the Big Four tech companies (as well as Google’s parent company Alphabet), Silicon Valley’s home-state senator, Kamala Harris, led with $51,700. Sanders was in second with almost $47,000 and Warren in third with $39,500, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data. (Only donors who gave more than $200 were counted, as smaller contributions don’t have to be reported individually.)

Max Kaehn, a Google software engineer and Sunnyvale resident, said he gave Warren $275 because he thinks she’s been offering more substantive policy proposals than the other candidates, including her tech plan. If the search giant is forced to spin off parts of its business under Warren’s proposal, “that’s a lot of work for Google, but a reasonable price to pay if some of the more worrisome monopolies in tech are broken up,” Kaehn said in an email, pointing to examples like Amazon’s domination of the online shopping industry.

“I don’t think it will magically take us back to the days of the tech boom when there were lots of startups having IPOs after a handful of years, but I think it would create some more variety in the job market,” he said.

Sanders has also talked about the need for more antitrust enforcement without going into specifics about how that would apply to tech companies, and he’s also proposed legislation targeted at Amazon over low-wage jobs. Harris hasn’t said what she thinks of breaking up tech companies, although she’s had tough questions for tech executives during Senate hearings.

While Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey trailed in tech employee donations, he did receive big contributions from a number of prominent tech executives, including former Google chair Eric Schmidt.

Sanders was the clear leader among donors who reported their employment as “software engineer,” “programmer,” or a variation of those terms. The Vermont senator raised nearly $175,000, while Warren was in second place with about $71,500 and Harris came in third with $46,800.

Another candidate who’s far higher in the rankings among tech workers than the general public is long-shot entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who has attracted attention in Silicon Valley for his universal basic income proposal. He’s fourth after Sanders, Warren and Harris, raising more than $26,000 from programmers.

Related Articles Is Kamala Harris the Democrats’ secret to stopping Trump’s Supreme Court nominee?

California fires bring Kamala Harris back home for first visit as Dems’ VP nominee

As election draws nearer, Biden assembles legal team

Charges, sanctions revive specter of Russian interference in presidential election

Opinion: Christians must fight Trump attempt to monopolize faith Warren only announced her proposal to break up the biggest tech firms in early March, more than two-thirds of the way through the fundraising quarter, so not all of the techies who bankrolled her campaign did so knowing her stance on the issue. But a majority of the money she raised from the big tech firm employees came in after she rolled out the plan.

Justin Kruger, a freelance developer in San Francisco who’s worked on a number of startups and gave Warren $450 over the course of three months, said that a more level playing field in the industry would help entrepreneurs like himself.

“I see a lot of people start companies and their whole plan for the company is to get acquired,” he said. “It creates this narrow environment where you’re only trying to please Facebook or Apple or Google, and I think that is ultimately bad for our country.”