Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images
Silicon Valley has gone MAGA.
GOP vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is a former venture capitalist with deep ties to the conservative tech milieu, and the choice seems to have galvanized some of the industry’s big names into proclaiming their support for Trump. For a minute there, Elon Musk pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in support for the campaign, before thinking better of it and launching a potentially fraudulent voter registration website to harvest data for the Trump campaign instead. Others, such as investors Marc Andreessen and David Sacks, are all in.
This flies in the face of stereotypes about the industry as a bastion of contrarian libertarians and “left coast” liberals, but there’s nothing new about powerful Silicon Valley conservatives. In fact, they were in the valley well before silicon.
But amid the focus on Vance and his Bay Area fanboys, the press has missed something important: Trump not only attracts tech billionaires, he also is one.
The early days of Trump’s campaign in 2016 owes significant thanks to the conservative Stanford tech mogul Peter Thiel, who made a seemingly strange bet to back the former reality TV star. Thiel was a conservative gadfly at Stanford when he was a student, a campus member in the vast right-wing conspiracy that Hillary Clinton later blamed (accurately) for trying to take down her husband. Thiel pulled his Stanford-centric network up with him as he rose in the tech-business world. After hitting it rich with PayPal, Thiel got seats on the board of directors at both Facebook and the Hoover Institution, the latter of which has served as a platform for his political theorizing.
Trump was a long-shot investment of the kind Silicon Valley investors appreciate, and Thiel hit big.
Trump was a long-shot investment of the kind Silicon Valley investors appreciate, and Thiel hit big. He got a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention, but more importantly, he arranged for a meeting between Trump and Silicon Valley’s biggest names. Since the Trump meeting, Silicon Valley companies have been inching their way into the role of primary government contractors, something they previously left to companies such as Verizon and Boeing.
At that meeting early in his administration, Trump promised that he would help the tech industry “go long,” and he did, inflating what the New York Times called “the tech bubble that never burst” to an unheard-of size.
Simply based on past performance, we shouldn’t be surprised to see tech billionaires come out for Trump. That’s what Vanity Fair’s Nick Bilton concluded, writing that pro-Trump Silicon Valley leaders maintain a focus that is “laser-sharp on the policies that directly affect their bottom lines: taxes, regulations, and immigration policies that benefit their companies.”
Then Trump saw how the tech moguls were printing money and decided to get into the game himself, starting with Trump-branded NFTs. The windows were hardly replaced at the Capitol building after the January 6 coup manqué, and the ex-president was already pivoting. Always in tune with which sector would reward him the most with the least amount of work, Trump availed himself of the same financial tools that puffed up the unburstable tech bubble. As the inspiration for and leading shareholder of social media firm Truth Social, he remade himself into a tech entrepreneur. In 2024, with Trump’s political fortunes resurgent, Truth Social jumped onto the public markets. Now, according to Forbes, Trump derives the supermajority of his net worth — $5.6 billion out of $7.5 billion — from founder shares in a social media company, just like Mark Zuckerberg.
As it turns out, Trump fits in perfectly as a tech billionaire. Previously not a fan of cryptocurrency, he has adopted the scam as one of his own, going so far as to headline the recent Bitcoin 2024 conference. There, Thiel assured attendees that bitcoin mining would “flourish” under a second Trump term. This vocal support has encouraged the crypto crowd to back the GOP, led by the famous Facebook-losing Winklevoss twins. Truth Social went public so fast thanks to a stock market trick called the SPAC, which was pioneered and promoted by tech vet and gadfly Chamath Palihapitiya, who has also lined up behind Trump.
Always in tune with which sector would reward him the most with the least amount of work, Trump availed himself of the same financial tools that puffed up the unburstable tech bubble.
To find common purpose with tech oligarchs, Trump didn’t have to learn the difference between silicon and silicone. Though the industry leaders like to portray themselves as a bunch of science geniuses, they’re just as likely to be Trump-style flimflams.
One of the nominee’s key tech supporters, Sacks, invested in a digital health startup named Done Global, whose executives have been charged with operating a glorified Adderall pill mill.
Trump’s interactions with overseas authoritarians and oligarchs have not alienated him. Silicon Valley standout Sam Altman has been attempting to raise trillions of dollars in Gulf oil money for his latest project, following the hype from the money-losing OpenAI – a plan reminiscent of Trump.
Even if Trump becomes the first tech billionaire president, with a venture capitalist as his running mate, he would not be the first conservative figure with strong ties and backing in the Bay Area.
The first U.S. president from Santa Clara Valley, elected in 1928, played a significant role in transforming Stanford University into a powerhouse of American conservatism. Herbert Hoover, a successful mining engineer, utilized his Stanford connections to implement a pro-business agenda during his time as president. He later established the Hoover Institution on Stanford’s campus, which remains a stronghold of far-right ideology.
Stanford has a history of producing prominent engineers involved in both industry and conservative politics. Figures like David Packard and William Shockley Jr. have left a mark on the intersection of technology and conservatism in the region.
The legacy of conservative influence in Silicon Valley extends beyond individuals like Hoover. The connections between tech leaders in the region and the conservative movement have persisted over the years, shaping political and economic landscapes.
Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and other Republican leaders have looked to Silicon Valley for support and leadership, tapping into the expertise and influence of figures associated with the Hoover Institution and the Bay Area business community.
While tech employees may lean towards supporting Democrats, the industry’s leadership has often aligned with conservative principles, viewing government involvement as beneficial when it serves their interests.
The tech industry in Silicon Valley has a long history of intertwining private economic interests with political philosophy, advocating for a government that prioritizes their needs. Trump’s alignment with tech leaders reflects his embrace of a sector led by individuals with right-wing ideologies and questionable reputations. As prominent as Thiel, Musk, Altman, or any other figure in Silicon Valley, Trump serves as the region’s representative – regardless of whether he has ever operated a computer.
Source link
