Eric Garcetti Parties With Winklevoss Twins at Hollywood Hills Fundraiser

Seeking to bolster his tech cred, Garcetti held a fundraiser last night at the Winklevoss estate. Yes, those Winklevii: Cameron and Tyler, most famous from The Social Network as the guys who claimed they had the idea for Facebook.

The twins won $65 million in an intellectual property lawsuit ($20 million in cash, $45 million in Facebook stock), and recently used $18 million of it to buy an 8,000-square-foot mansion in the Hollywood Hills.

Here, via @DigitalLA, is an image of last night's festivities at the Winklevoss manor:

According to TMZ, Tyler Winklevoss recently moved into the mansion and is eyeing Silicon Beach investment opportunities. (Cameron lives in New York.) The twins have launched Winklevoss Capital, which is looking to get into the whole tech start-up VC scene.

Most recently, the Winklevosses invested in something called Hukkster — which allows you to “hukk” things in an online fashion bazaar. They also put $1 million into SumZero, a social network for hedge-fund types.

Garcetti also is interested in the tech space. He claims 10,600 Facebook fans, more than any other candidate (perhaps a sore subject with the Winklevosses), as well as 7,800 Twitter followers. He's also eager to get into an Ask Me Anything on Reddit — and not just because Obama did it. If elected, he has vowed to hire a Chief Technology Officer to come up with tech-y ways to deliver municipal services.

“The tech community is rallying around Eric Garcetti because they know he's an innovator with an economic agenda that will launch L.A. forward,” said Jeff Millman, a Garcetti spokesman.

In other Garcetti news, his campaign is still working hard to get the backing of the L.A. County Democratic Party. In a letter to Democratic central committee members last week, he tried to present himself as a better Democrat than Controller Wendy Greuel — who grew up in a Republican family and did not become a Democrat until 1992, when she was 31.

“When others wouldn't take a stand, I proudly authored the resolution that made L.A. the nation's largest city to oppose the Bush Administration's pending invasion of Iraq,” Garcetti wrote.

Garcetti authored the anti-war resolution in February 2003. Greuel voted no. 

The county Democratic Party is expected to make its endorsement in early January, but with three Democrats in the race it may be difficult for any one of them to achieve the 60% threshold needed for victory.