VOX
Former President Donald Trump used to be persona non grata in Silicon Valley.
Nearly all of the dollars spent by Silicon Valley elites in 2016 went to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. In 2020, those elites spent even more to defeat Trump. The few who supported Trump that year — such as venture capitalist Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Paypal and Palantir — did so knowing they were standing on a third rail, and many did not speak openly about it for fear of backlash that could hurt their businesses.
Something has changed since the last election cycle.
This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk, who endorsed Trump Saturday after the assassination attempt against him, planned to send $45 million a month to a pro-Trump super PAC starting in July. (Musk appeared to push back on the reporting with a meme on X reading: “FAKE GNUS.”)
The prominent tech investor and entrepreneur David Sacks — who previously said that Trump should be disqualified from office for his actions surrounding the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol — has now endorsed the former president. Sacks gave a speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday.
One of Silicon Valley’s largest venture capital firms, Andreessen Horowitz, has also recently indicated that it will donate large amounts to PACs supporting Trump.
“The Blue Wall of tech is crumbling before our very eyes,” Ryan Selkis, the founder and CEO of the crypto research firm Messari, wrote on X last month.
Selkis’s assessment might not be entirely true. By most indications, Silicon Valley is still overwhelmingly Democratic. But tech elites who are supporting Trump seem to be more comfortable doing so openly and without fear of being ostracized for it.
Why some Silicon Valley leaders are backing Trump
Silicon Valley is not undergoing a seismic rightward shift.
As of 2022, a little over half of voters in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties (which encompass Silicon Valley) were registered Democrats. That share hasn’t changed much since the 1970s. The share of voters with no party preference has increased, while the share of Republican voters shrank to about 15 percent in 2022.
Silicon Valley venture capitalists also seem to be supporting Democrats at a higher-than-average rate compared to the last 10 election cycles. A recent Wired analysis found that Democrats received $2 for every dollar that Republicans received from the 20 firms that, together with their employees, made the most political contributions.
That suggests Silicon Valley’s political views are still largely consistent with a 2017 study indicating that wealthy technologists supported many liberal policies: redistribution of wealth, abortion, gay rights, immigration, and more.
But there was one issue on which, even in 2017, they chafed with Democrats: They didn’t want the government to interfere in the operation of their businesses. And that might be driving at least some of the support for Trump among Silicon Valley elites this election cycle.
President Joe Biden has taken a hardline approach against Big Tech that might be perceived by some donors as overreach. The administration has filed sweeping antitrust lawsuits against four major tech companies: Apple, Google (now known as Alphabet), Meta, and Amazon.
Since the downfall of the crypto exchange FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, the Biden administration has also cracked down on crypto, filing lawsuits against Coinbase and Binance and trying to advance more stringent regulation.
Trump’s new running mate, J.D. Vance, seems to broadly share the Biden administration’s philosophy: he has applauded Lina Khan, the head of the Federal Trade Commission behind the antitrust suits against Big Tech. It’s not clear whether he will temper that position now that he’s running for vice president, but some tech titans seem to be supporting the Republican ticket anyway.
Andreessen Horowitz had previously suggested that government regulation would determine which party receives their dollars. “We are non-partisan, one-issue voters: If a candidate supports an optimistic technology-enabled future, we are for them. If they want to choke off important technologies, we are against them,” the firm announced in December.
In a video posted on Tuesday, founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz further explained why their firm would be supporting Trump.
“The future of our business, the future of … new technology, and the future of America is literally at stake,” Horowitz said, acknowledging that he would be angering friends and family. “We think Donald Trump is actually the right choice.”
Crypto leaders, who have for years poured money into the fight against further regulation of the industry, have also contributed more heavily to Republicans. The crypto PAC Stand With Crypto has not issued an endorsement in the presidential race but has identified Trump and Robert F. Kennedy as better options than Biden.
Beyond regulation, it seems that some Silicon Valley billionaires are becoming more vocal in their support of Trump just because they can without suffering boycotts or lots of bad press. For instance, Musk has always been a bit of a contrarian but seems to have taken on a more politically active presence online since he bought Twitter and renamed it X. And while his stance may have cost him users and advertisers early in his X tenure, his endorsement of Trump has yet to be met with a similar backlash.
Biden is on the back foot on fundraising
The support Trump is receiving from a few wealthy patrons in Silicon Valley should nevertheless worry the Biden campaign.
As of the last campaign finance reports through the end of May, Trump had surpassed Biden in cash on hand. Trump had $116.6 million in his campaign coffers compared to Biden’s $91.6 million.
That advantage has likely only grown in the months since. Biden has reportedly struggled with fundraising since his disastrous debate performance last month. Some donors think he should drop out and have promised to suspend donations to Democrats until he does so; others have paused contributions while they wait for assurance that he will not be replaced with another Democratic candidate.
Trump, meanwhile, has started fundraising off of the assassination attempt against him. His campaign website redirected to a photo of him punching the air with blood on his face at the campaign rally where he was shot in the ear.
If Musk is indeed planning to contribute tens of millions to Trump’s campaign monthly through the election, it’s hard to see how Biden can keep up.
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