2023-12-13 20:11:19
– Biden or Trump? Neither, says Silicon Valley
Neither of them, not at all. This is what tech entrepreneurs in California are thinking a year before the election. And make no secret of it.
Jürgen Schmieder from San Francisco
Published: December 13, 2023, 9:11 p.m
A very old man will win, and the tech industry speaks from the hearts of many Americans when it says it is withholding donations: Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the worst possible candidates of both parties.
Photo: AP
The perfect Silicon Valley candidate for US President was recently in China. Among other things, he was a Alex Reed at the Gigafactory of the electric car manufacturer Tesla in Shanghai and said the following: “Personal transport is currently being fundamentally changed. With the help of artificial intelligence, it shouldn’t take long. There will be flying taxis without pilots very soon.”
These are sentences that Tesla boss Elon Musk and pretty much everyone in the technology valley on the Pacific coast like to hear: They sound optimistic and, above all, like letting the visionaries conduct research without any control or restrictions so that the future quickly becomes the present. The politician in question then added that “the shaping of this future should under no circumstances be left to others.”
It wasn’t Joe Biden who said that. Although he met with China’s head of state Xi Jinping in California, he rarely says such sentences regarding the tech industry; Americans (and not only Americans) have a hard time combining the words “Biden” and “future”.
Trump disappointed the tech companies
Gavin Newsom said these sentences. The governor of California is not running, but is being brought into play by Republicans. This is surprising because Newsom is a Democrat. A year before the election, Biden’s fiercest critics – in the certainty that the nomination cannot be taken away from him – are presenting him as the more dynamic, more energetic, more forward-looking variant. Next to which Joe Biden looks even more doddering than he already is. Newsom is vain, critics call him “Governor Hair Gel,” and he responds to this with a rascal’s smile. However, he is also a savvy politician, which is why he responds to trick questions, such as from Fox News agitator Sean Hannity (“Would you reject a nomination under any circumstances?”), with a rascal’s smile and says: “Of course I would reject.”
One year before the election, one thing is certain given the candidates: a very old man will win, and the tech industry speaks from the hearts of many Americans when it announces that it is withholding donations: Biden (81) and Donald Trump (77) are the ones the worst possible candidates from both parties.
In early October, venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya hosted a fundraising gala at his Palo Alto mansion. The co-hosts: investor David Sacks (who supported Hillary Clinton’s election campaign with $75,000 in 2016), hedge fund manager Brad Gerstner (quoted in January on but also cold-blooded capitalist”), crypto investor Matt Huang. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Palihapitiya has donated a total of $1.3 million to Democrats during his career. But now he wanted the guests – the most famous: Elon Musk – to get to know a Republican: Vivek Ramaswamy for $50,000 per ticket. In current polls he is roughly on a par with Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, all three well behind Trump.
The Valley is politically right-wing and socially left-wing
Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old multimillionaire (Forbes magazine estimates his fortune at $950 million; he became rich as a biotech company founder and investor), styles himself as a more dynamic, energetic and unencumbered version of Trump. One that will keep the promises they in Silicon Valley hoped Trump would keep during his first term: strong deregulation, business-friendly laws, no oversight when experimenting with technologies like artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, robotaxis. But Trump repeatedly clashed with Big Tech, which particularly appealed to his supporters on the frustrated right-wing fringe. A person close to the tech billionaires says: “At some point he disappointed or broke all the alliances he had forged before the election. He might have had it a lot easier.”
Keith Rabois is a member of the so-called “Paypal Mafia,” which includes founders, investors or early employees of the payment service provider, people like Musk, Sacks and Peter Thiel. Rabois is now a manager at Founders Fund, Thiel’s investment firm, which supported Trump in 2016, then advised him and supported Trump’s chosen candidates in the 2022 midterms. “Trump’s big problem: He was undisciplined, character weaknesses sabotaged political reforms,” Rabois recently told the Washington Post. “He just caused chaos and that’s why he didn’t deliver.” Yes, he said: delivered. Thiel has now said – he even made a promise in “The Atlantic” – that he wants to stay out of the 2024 election. Rabois doesn’t do that, he recently supported Nikki Haley with a fundraising gala.
“The problem is that most people in Silicon Valley are politically conservative – but not socially,” says a person who mediates between donors and candidates in the technology valley. Another person, who also wants to remain anonymous, becomes clearer: “People in Silicon Valley believe that the debate regarding what should be taught in schools in terms of the history of racism and sexism, who goes to which gender toilet, and whether there are quotas for women and minorities “At least on a purely political level, it is not as important as the question of whether the USA is the place to be able to work on visions as free from restrictions as possible.” Even if California remains socially left-liberal – and there is no sign why this should change in the medium term – the tech billionaires at the federal level support applicants who promise them the greatest possible freedom.
It is one of the fundamental rights of a democracy that everyone can vote for or support whoever they want for their own personal reasons. The calculation in Techtal 2016 was simply a selfish one: Trump would do more for them than Clinton.
They want to prevent Trump as a candidate
Trump had numerous backers from Silicon Valley between 2015 and 2020: Thiel ($1.25 million for the first election campaign), venture capitalist Doug Leone ($200,000), Oracle founder Larry Ellison (lent Trump his house for a… fundraising gala 2020) or Sun Microsystems founder Scott McNealy ($500,000), who hosted a $100,000-per-ticket fundraising gala for Trump in 2019. Now: conspicuous calm around Trump.
The problem in a two-party system with a social gap deeper than the Grand Canyon: Who should you vote for if you are environmentally conscious and socially more left-liberal, but also business-friendly and once morest excessive government interference? The tech industry’s response to this speaks to the hearts of many Americans: definitely not Biden, definitely not Trump.
The consequence of this is therefore pragmatic: Biden is the incumbent president and de facto cannot be prevented as the Democratic candidate. The only solution from Silicon Valley’s point of view: under no circumstances should Trump become the Republican candidate.
DeSantis railed once morest wokeness rhetoric
The first fallback option for the tech billionaires was Ron DeSantis; Leone, for example, donated two million dollars. The governor of Florida announced his candidacy in conversation with Musk on Twitter, Sacks (who also donated to DeSantis) mediated. DeSantis liked his role as an electable Trump so much that he tried extreme anti-wokeness rhetoric – but they in Silicon Valley had no interest in that: someone on the right-wing fringes of society trying to get votes once more – and possibly not delivering once more . Tech entrepreneurs turned away from DeSantis. Ellison donated to Tim Scott, who dropped out of the race last week. McNealy donated $6,000 to Doug Burgum, who is trailing hopelessly in polls with less than 1 percent of the vote. Rabois supported Haley with the gala. The calculation: Yes, Trump is way ahead, with more than half of all votes; But if the field thins out and there is only one opponent left for Trump, things might perhaps get exciting.
The favorite in Silicon Valley: Ramaswamy. Its agenda: de-bureaucratization. He wants to fire three quarters of all federal civil servants; as little government interference as possible; no quotas for equality or for minorities. Ramaswamy stood out with his statements once morest the LGBTQ+ movement and abortion, but has recently become noticeably quiet on these social issues. This is how you lose Trump fans on the right. It is therefore heard from those around Silicon Valley donors that Ramaswamy will soon introduce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a possible candidate for the office of Vice President. Kennedy initially ran on the Democratic side, but is now running as an independent. He made his already very famous name a little more prominent by openly displaying his stance as an anti-Covid vaccination activist.
Kennedy might serve as a vote-catcher on the right-wing fringe, but as a deputy he would later be politically irrelevant. Ramaswamy would then be the one who delivers as president for Silicon Valley. That’s the calculation because it’s the only realistic chance of preventing Trump’s candidacy – apart from his legal problems.
And if none of this works? Then it might be that tech billionaires keep their money vaults locked until 2028. There is someone who is positioning himself as the great friend of Silicon Valley: Gavin Newsom, Democrat.
The USA in an election year
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