Silicon Trump: Musk, Thiel and Other Tech Giants Bet on “The Donald”
From Silicon Valley to Silicon Trump: more and more tech and frontier research magnates are donating to The Donald for his presidential campaign. And in a certain sense, the attack on the former and potential future president in Butler, Pennsylvania, has served as a “Big Bang” to bring many out into the open. He began, with Trump’s wound still fresh, the “king” of the new common area created between the world of the libertarian right in economics and the conservative world on values and aggressive finance, Elon MuskThe richest man in the world first announced his presidential endorsement of Trump in the race against Joe Biden, then donating $45 million a month to The Donald’s campaign coffers. Who would be ready, according to various rumours, to reward the Tesla and SpaceX founder with a top White House advisory role if he wins.
Musk Like Thiel: Supporting Trump
Musk has long been in an orbit of rapprochement with Trump in the wake of a former business partner of great weight, Peter Thiel. The co-founder of PayPal and venture capitalist, a long-time emblem of the “right-wing” tech galaxy against the ostentatious progressivism of the big names in traditional web multinationals, has been a friend and point of reference for Trump for years. With his capital he helped found Palantira data mining company that uses profiling tools and sophisticated algorithms to apply artificial intelligence and simulation models to scenarios ranging from anti-terrorism analysis to the management of illegal immigration. These are clearly issues dear to Trump and his followers. Thiel, with 7.2%, is Palantir’s second largest shareholder, halfway between two funds: Vanguard and BlackRock. Palantir co-founder, Joe Lonsdalealong with Sequoia Capital co-founder Doug Leone and his partner Shaun Maguire contributed to an $8.7 million donation raised by America Pac, the committee that Bloomberg recently highlighted could also receive investments from Musk.
Thiel’s Ties to Vice Presidential Candidate JD Vance
The influence of this world on Trump’s campaign is also inherent in the vice presidential nomination of J.D. Vance, Senator of Ohio. The former Marine and Yale alumnus worked with Thiel from 2016 to 2017 at the investment boutique Mithrill Capital, before joining Revolution LLC in 2017, a fund that has pushed for the tech race in areas far from the traditional California epicenter. In 2019, he finally founded the fund Narya Capitalaimed precisely at promoting technological start-ups with the support of the capital of the aforementioned Thiel and the co-founder of Google, Eric Schmidt.
Therefore, his profile is absolutely welcome to investors who from this new course ask, above all, fresh air and less regulation for their investments. In addition to the confirmation of the fiscal stimulus promoted in 2017 and expiring in 2025 which drastically reduces the tax rates on high incomes and corporates. While Biden wants to eliminate them, Trump aims to strengthen the tax cuts passed by his administrationthe confirmation of which would reduce federal budget revenues by 3.4 trillion dollars.
The Other Tech Giants Funding Trump’s Campaign
The Financial Times quotes other important donors from the alternative tech world to the digital giants were also among those struck on the way to Mar-a-Lago, home of Trump’s villa: “David Sackswho hosted a fundraiser last month at his San Francisco home where Vance introduced Trump, spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday. Keith RaboisCEO of Khosla Ventures, told the FT that he will also donate $1 million to support Trump.” Chamath Palihapitiyawho previously supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential run, and Crystal McKellar, of Aloft Venture Capital, have also joined the team.
The consensus of those tech entrepreneurs who belong to two sectors is coalescing around Trump, and will be able to do so even more thanks to Vance’s decisive support. On one side, the technological complex most rooted in the military and geostrategic field, as Musk with Starlink and Thiel with Palantir testify. On the otherventure capitalists who invest in start-ups seeing in the return to power of the Republicans the possibility of attacking the hegemony, considered oligopolistic, of the digital giants, from Meta to Microsoft. Interesting is the commentary on Vance by the Australian Financial Review which in fact underlined that “Vance praised the Biden administration’s enforcement of technology-focused antitrust rules, particularly the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan”.
Tech is no longer the exclusive hunting ground of the Dems
Big Tech, an oligopolistic and thought to be structurally designed to help the Democratic Party, is seen as a rival that must be taken down. It is no coincidence that after the Butler attack, Trump was compared by Musk to Theodore Roosevelt, a president who made the dichotomy between a healthy small business to be defended and monopolies to be dismantled the center of his consensus. And, continues the Afr, “while Senator Vance’s criticisms of the big tech players may irritate some in the sector, they are similar to the sentiments expressed by the smaller ones. Startups and venture capitalists have long complained that the size and power of the big tech players have made it difficult for small companies to compete”. In short, there will be a Trump-Vance duo for all the components of this Janus Bifrons that represents the galaxy of pro-Republican tech financiers. The Dems have been warned: innovation is no longer their exclusive hunting ground.
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