Why techies are going for Trump

I confess to audibly guffawing on reading the following X post by historian Timothy Snyder this week: “Got all the way through the Constitution and did not find the provision whereby the South African oligarchs select the vice-presidential nominees on behalf of the Russian dictator.” Snyder was of course referring to Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and David Sacks — all Silicon Valley billionaires at least partly raised in South Africa, or South Africa-adjacent (Namibia in Thiel’s case).

Donald Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate on Monday was their triumphal moment. Not only was Vance’s entry into politics funded by Thiel to the tune of $15mn for his 2022 Ohio Senate campaign; Vance is also a former Thiel employee, having worked for the PayPal founder’s venture capital firm. Musk, meanwhile, has reportedly pledged $45mn a month to a Trump super Pac. David Sacks, who is also a PayPal alumnus, where they all met, was also ecstatic with the Vance pick.

What is it about Vance they like so much? Sifting through the techno-libertarian mind is no easy task. Each has different business interests and personal idiosyncrasies. But I think Snyder was onto something in his tongue-in-cheek posting. Musk, Thiel and Sacks were all exposed at formative ages to the decidedly undemocratic experience of apartheid South Africa. Each has made a ton of cash — some more than others (Musk being the richest man in the world) — on America’s west coast.

And two of them, Musk and Sacks, have made statements seen as sympathetic to Russia’s cause. Indeed Sacks said on the opening night of the Milwaukee Republican convention, which I am also attending, that the US “provoked” Russia to invade Ukraine. As much as Sacks denies strenuously that he was booed by delegates. I beg to differ. The sceptical reception to Sacks’ Putin-friendly diatribe was the least unreassuring moment of what is the most dystopian political convention I have witnessed. Musk, for his part, has said accusations that he is a Putin apologist are “absurd”.

Of the three, Thiel is the one with the longest Trumpian record. I was on the floor of the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland when Thiel endorsed Trump. For those who missed what in retrospect was a highly significant moment, it is worth reading what Thiel said. Musk only endorsed Trump last Sunday following the failed assassination attempt. But to anyone who has been paying attention, Musk has been telegraphing his Trumpism for years.

Much as I have tried, I cannot find a coherent philosophy that links up these tech founders to Vance’s worldview in particular. But the psychology is easy to explain. All three hate Washington, detest the “deep state”, resent America’s cognitive elites, and think the US is being crushed by authoritarian liberalism. Anti-wokery features strongly in their political utterances. It would be a mistake to label them either libertarian or authoritarian. They are very rich people who want to buy political power. This week they got a vice-presidential candidate and potential future president for a bargain basement price. How will Vance repay them? 

Rather than indulge in deeper speculation about their mutual love of Bitcoin and shared countercultural resentments, I think the trade-off is very simple. Vance, like Trump, will cut their taxes, disable the regulatory agencies, and give them gold-plated access to the White House. In spite of Vance’s anti-corporate rhetoric in Milwaukee on Thursday, my bet is that this is the real bargain. No need to overcomplicate things.

Richard, you wrote a Swamp Note with your usual felicity and insight on this subject very recently. So I am aware you have already expressed your more nuanced perspective. My question to you is whether I’m missing some deeper ideological affinity that links up these tech founders to Vance. Or am I right in focusing first of all on the implicit money transaction that is taking place? It seems to me that Occam’s razor fits well in this instance. 

Recommended reading

• My column this week looks at the potentially epoch-changing cost of Joe Biden’s continuing refusal to vacate the Democratic nomination. As I wrote: “If you judge politicians by what they do, not what they say, Democrats have already made their choice. They prefer a probable loss in November to the risk of winning.” I also wrote about the fallout from Trump’s near assassination: “It is not just Donald Trump who dodged a bullet.”

• Do also read the lyrical accounts of my colleagues, Joshua Chaffin, Claire Bushey, Christopher Grimes, and Oliver Roeder, on “What Makes Trump irresistible”. These accounts are drawn from many days of on the ground reporting. 

• I was more than happy to appear on my colleague Gideon Rachman’s podcast, the Rachman Review, in which we discussed this historic moment in US politics. As it happens we’ve been sharing a house in Milwaukee this week. I can truthfully report that Gideon is a highly civilised house mate. Not sure about me. 

Richard Waters responds

Ed, I think you’re absolutely right about the self-serving nature of all of this. As for buying access to the White House: It’s pretty revealing that investor Marc Andreessen and his business partner Ben Horowitz, who just came out for Trump in this podcast, spend a lot of time whingeing about being refused an audience with Biden, whereas they recently had a chance to push their tech policy ideas over dinner with Trump. Andreessen, who historically backed Democrats, says it was a Biden plan to tax billionaires that finally made him defect.

Of course, like Musk and Thiel, they would say that what’s good for them (and the companies they create and tech start-ups they fund) is also good for America. They wouldn’t see anything amiss in this.

If this is all transactional, however, it seems to rest on some questionable calculations. One is that any Trump vendetta against tech (he hates Google and the social media companies) would be channelled into attacking and restricting the big companies. Vance, for instance, has been all for continuing the Biden administration’s antitrust campaign against Big Tech. Andreessen also claims Trump would reverse Biden regulations that tilt the AI market in favour of Big Tech companies.

The risk here is that any attacks on tech would be less targeted and rebound on the whole industry. It’s hard to see how Musk’s X wouldn’t get caught in the fallout, for instance, if the Republicans got control of Congress and really did try to scrap legal protections they claim lead to censorship of rightwing voices on the internet.

Another calculation seems to be that access to the White House will give them an inside track in carving out exceptions to any damaging new policies. Immigration is the big unspoken issue here. The tech industry relies heavily on foreign talent and would be hurt by strict limits on immigration. Expect plenty of special pleading over this and other issues in the name of “the innovation economy”. But that might not carry much weight when set against Trump’s overriding political goals.