[2][14] Shanahan said her father, a computer specialist[17] of German and Irish descent[14] who died in 2014,[2] had bipolar disorder, schizophrenia,[2] and depression,[16] and struggled with substance abuse.

[23][24] Shanahan is a member of the board of Carbon Royalty Corp.[25] She invested in Linus Biotechnology, Inc. (LinusBio), a biotech firm, during a venture funding round in January 2023.

[28] In 2018, Shanahan helped fund and launch the Center for Female Reproductive Longevity and Equality within the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

[4] According to financial disclosure documents over a three-year period, Bia-Echo's sole donor was Shanahan's then-husband, Sergey Brin.

[18] In 2019, Shanahan pledged to contribute $100 million through Bia-Echo over five years,[32] mostly for "reproductive longevity" research, which aims to help women become pregnant later in life.

[18] In 2022, Shanahan gave $70 million to Blue Meridian Partners, which makes grants to nonprofits that aim to help the impoverished.

After Kennedy dropped out of the Democratic primaries in October 2023, announcing that he would run in the general election as an independent candidate, Shanahan said she was "incredibly disappointed" and would not support his candidacy.

[12][40] Shanahan separately donated (also through Planeta Management LLC) half a million dollars to a different super PAC supporting Kennedy's campaign.

[8][42] On March 26, 2024, Kennedy formally announced Shanahan as his selection for vice president during a campaign event in Oakland, California.

[18][44] Shanahan was the richest candidate for vice president in at least 50 years, with a net worth possibly in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

[48] By the time Kennedy dropped out of the race in August 2024, the Kennedy/Shanahan campaign had gained ballot access in only 16 of the 50 states (representing 140 of the 538 electoral votes).

[54] Shanahan expressed support for banning abortion "between 15 and 18 weeks" while a Kennedy spokesman said "he believes the cutoff should be at fetal viability.

[59] She suggested that the campaign had no realistic prospect of winning the general election; that "we draw votes from Trump"; and that if Kennedy remained in the race, it would "run the risk of" aiding Kamala Harris.

[63] In October 2024, The Washington Post reported that Shanahan attempted to bribe a journalist from the same newspaper with US$500,000 to reveal the sources of a profile story on her.

[64][65] In interviews in 2024, Shanahan said she is "not an anti-vaxxer" but expressed support for Kennedy's anti-vaccine advocacy and questioned the scientific consensus on their safety and efficacy.

[69] On January 28, 2025, Shanahan released a video on X where she threatened political retribution against any senator, Democrat or Republican, who didn't vote to confirm her former presidential running mate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

In the video, Shanahan vowed that "I will personally fund challengers to primary you in your next election, and I will enlist hundreds of thousands to join me.

"[70] In 2014, Shanahan married Jeremy Asher Kranz, a San Francisco Bay Area investor and finance executive.

[10] Weeks before their marriage, she began an affair with Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, which Kranz discovered from texts on her phone.

Kruse also accused Brin of participating in a plot by the U.S. government and "Big Tech" to use blue light to control the population.

[45] The New York Times, citing three people with knowledge of Shanahan's finances, reported she has a net worth over $1 billion, mainly as a result of her marriage to Brin.

[10] In 2023, Shanahan held a "love ceremony" of commitment with Jacob Strumwasser,[78] an advisor at Lightning Labs, a Bitcoin software company.