Are all the Silicon Valley bosses turning to Trump?

Author: Jessica, Silicon Star Pro

This past weekend, almost all social media headlines and comment areas in the United States were occupied by the news that Trump was shot.

On the evening of July 13, local time, former US President Donald Trump was attacked by a gunman while attending a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. He was shot in the right ear and then left the scene under the protection of Secret Service personnel. The gunman who attacked was shot dead.

Trump later issued a statement describing his injuries, "I felt my skin was torn and there was a lot of blood." He thanked the law enforcement officers for their quick response, expressed condolences to the families of the victims and the injured audience, and said that he would go to the next trip as planned, "May God bless America."

The photo taken by an Associated Press reporter at the first time became a "freeze frame of history."

1.Musk compared it to Roosevelt, and Altman, Nadella and others tweeted...

X became the main battlefield for discussion. Many founders, investors and CEOs in Silicon Valley also expressed their opinions.

Musk immediately made it clear that he supports Trump. He said he would fully endorse "President Trump" and look forward to his early recovery.

He even compared Trump's tough performance to Roosevelt, one of the greatest former presidents known as the "Shaper of Modern America."

He also empathized that his life had been threatened: "In the past 8 months, two people have tried to kill me on different occasions. They were arrested with guns about 20 minutes' drive from Tesla headquarters." In less than a day, Musk has posted and forwarded as many as 15 tweets on his X account, publicly "campaigning" for Trump.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, rarely publishes content unrelated to the industry, and recently he has been unusually absent from any post on X for more than a month. This time, he immediately posted two posts after Trump was shot, first saying "I'm glad President Trump is safe." Later, as more and more Trump supporters commented on his tweet, he added that he was moved to see that everyone "decided together to moderate their rhetoric and find more unity" instead of "succumbing to the impulse of opposing sides."

Greg Brockman, the company's president and chairman and deputy, followed up, saying that he was "grateful that President Trump is safe and sound," and believed that the shooting was "an attack on American democracy."

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella "extends his best wishes and wishes him a speedy recovery."

Apple CEO Tim Cook said "My heart is with him and the victims" and strongly condemned the violence.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had previously had a tense relationship with Trump, broke his nine-month silence on social media and praised "our former President Trump for showing great grace and courage in the face of real bullets."

And a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen, who was once a public critic of Trump and said that Trump's proposal to restrict immigration was "disgusting," has not explicitly stated his support for Trump since he began criticizing the Biden administration recently, but he also posted a picture of the American flag.

2.“It seems as if the entire Silicon Valley supports Trump”

Many people have also sensed the subtle changes in the political stance within Silicon Valley.

Altman’s hot comments on Twitter thus pointed out: “It seems that the whole Silicon Valley supports Trump, finally.”

Someone else described it as “Silicon Valley has become the new Texas.”

Once upon a time, Silicon Valley, a “bastion of liberalism”, was the first echelon that resolutely opposed Trump. As a representative of innovation, openness and globalization, Silicon Valley strongly relies on international talents and a free business environment, and advocates environmental protection and social progress.

Trump is synonymous with “conservatism” and “protectionism”.

He has implemented strict immigration policies and tightened restrictions on H-1B visas, which have been criticized by many company leaders for hindering innovation and talent introduction; he has launched antitrust investigations against technology giants and strengthened supervision of social media platforms, which have been accused of excessive interference in free expression, contrary to the open and free Internet spirit advocated by Silicon Valley; the trade war launched against China and other countries has brought challenges to technology companies that rely on global supply chains and markets, causing widespread concern; while Silicon Valley companies generally attach importance to sustainable development, promise to reduce carbon emissions and invest in clean energy projects, the Trump administration has implemented a "de-climateization" policy, which has aroused strong dissatisfaction in the technology community...

It can be said that the differences and disagreements between the two sides in values ​​and policies have a long history, and even reached the point of being on the verge of a showdown.

Twitter, Facebook and other platforms have blocked Trump's social accounts and directly banned him from speaking. Don't look at Musk's "loyalty" now. When Trump announced his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017, he withdrew from three presidential advisory committees in one go, calling Trump "a liar", and voted for Biden in 2020.

Trump called Musk "a master of nonsense". During the last round of the campaign, Trump often attacked Bezos, saying that he used The Washington Post to avoid taxes, published defamatory reports, and had "huge antitrust problems". Bezos hit back and said "I hope to use my own rocket to send Trump into space".

There is also Bill Ackman, the founder and CEO of Pershing Square, an American hedge fund tycoon. After the Capitol Hill incident on January 6, 2021, Bill Ackman publicly criticized Trump, believing that he should "resign and apologize to all Americans", and raised serious questions about his leadership.

And now Bill Ackman's position has turned 180 degrees. Yesterday, he posted a long article publicly changing sides and announced that he "will officially support Trump's campaign for president". He also said that he recently had the opportunity to spend a few hours with Trump, which gave him a deeper understanding of Trump. This decision was made "after careful and rational thinking, based on a lot of empirical data."

How... did it suddenly change?

Someone commented on X that Silicon Valley's attitude had long changed, and this shooting incident gave everyone the most reasonable opportunity to speak up.

So those few who are still "holding their ground" are now in a "difficult situation".

As a long-term public opponent of Trump, LinkedIn co-founder and Silicon Valley "network king" Reid Hoffman has condemned his leadership style on many occasions as harmful to the rule of law and business environment in the United States and unacceptable in inciting violence.

As a result, Musk was exposed in a recent public debate with Stanford alumnus, PayPal founder and well-known investor Peter Thiel. During the verbal exchange, Thiel sarcastically thanked Hoffman for funding the lawsuits against Trump, arguing that these lawsuits turned Trump into a "martyr" and thus increased his chances of re-election. Hoffman responded sarcastically: "Yeah, I really hope to turn him into a real martyr."

Mas retweeted and said: "The Reid Hoffmans of the world got what they wanted most. But the martyrs survived." It implies that although those who oppose Trump have made a lot of efforts, these have not only failed, but have also fulfilled the saying "Whatever doesn't beat me makes me stronger."

This tweet gathered a large number of excited Trump supporters, who sneered at Reid Hoffman. Some people said that it seems that this person is the only suspect at present.

As a result, Hoffman had to post a response himself. He reiterated that he firmly opposed violence, and that Trump should not have encouraged violence during the riots in Congress. In addition, the so-called "hope that Trump will become a martyr" in the debate with Thiel refers to being responsible for his lies and actions, not being physically hurt.

The result... was scolded again. Some people in the comment section called him Reid "woke" Hoffman, some asked him to apologize, and some asked him to delete his account directly. Naval Ravikant, a legendary Silicon Valley investor and the "pioneer of equity crowdfunding," criticized, "Stop funding and defending legal battles. That monster will eventually devour you, too."

3."Openly supporting Trump will not face the same reaction and opposition as eight years ago"

In fact, Silicon Valley has been changing its direction for some time.

More than a month ago, Trump held a fundraising event here, hosted by investor David O. Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, at Sacks's mansion in San Francisco.

Ticket prices for the event range from $50,000 to $500,000, of which "priority dinner seats" and "photos with Trump" VIP treatment require a donation of $300,000. Tickets were sold out early, attracting many Silicon Valley technology leaders and investors, including Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman, the Winklevoss brothers in the cryptocurrency field, data analysis provider Palantir Technologies senior policy adviser Jacob Helberg and the billionaire Bill Ackman mentioned above, raising a total of $12 million in campaign funds.

Helberg has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Biden administration in the past. This time he publicly donated $1 million to Trump and said that now "when people like me publicly support Trump, they will not face the same reaction and opposition as eight years ago."

And this change is not because of how good Trump himself is, but to be precise, it is "all based on peers." Some comments say that Silicon Valley may not support Trump much, but they have indeed become very opposed to Biden.

From the initial strong opposition to the recent gradual support, the scales tilting towards Trump are actually driven by dissatisfaction with the current US economic policies, regulatory environment, and the Biden administration.

For example, in terms of industry regulation, the Biden administration has conducted antitrust investigations on technology giants such as Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI. The high-pressure regulation in emerging technology fields such as cryptocurrency and AI has caused many people in Silicon Valley to worry that it will severely restrict technological innovation and industry development.

The Trump administration has promoted deregulation measures in multiple industries to reduce the compliance burden and operating costs of enterprises. For example, in 2018, it proposed to reduce the federal government's regulation and regulatory barriers to self-driving cars, and encouraged state governments and private enterprises to provide greater flexibility for technology research and development and testing. Since then, Waymo and Tesla's business has developed significantly; instructing the FAA to simplify the commercial licensing process for drones, prompting Amazon and UPS to expand the coverage of drone delivery services.

In terms of economic policy and tax reform, in 2017, Trump passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. It also reduced personal income tax rates for high-income people and increased standard deductions. He also introduced a minimum tax rate on foreign income to encourage American companies to transfer overseas profits back to the country. This is particularly beneficial to Silicon Valley's technology companies and the large group of "rich people" behind them. In fact, Trump has also hinted that as long as he is in power, he will serve the immediate economic interests of the top 1%, or even 0.001%, of the rich, which is the group of Silicon Valley's big money owners.

In contrast, Biden proposed to increase the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% to increase federal revenue. Increase taxes on individuals with annual incomes of more than $400,000 and cancel some tax breaks for high-income earners. The tax on annual incomes of more than one million dollars is as high as 39.6%. The money was used to build infrastructure and social welfare security, but not only did it not achieve any results, it also created "zero-dollar shopping". As a result, the middle class and wealthy people in Silicon Valley have become precise sniper targets, complaining and miserable.

Therefore, although Silicon Valley tends to be Democratic on social and cultural issues, supports freedom, diversity and social progress, it still shows a conservative and pragmatic side when facing its own economic interests to protect its own growth and competitiveness.

Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia who was once a member of Trump's opposition but has now turned into an active supporter, wrote, "The public has been led to believe that Trump is Hitler, when in fact he is Churchill."

The change in the positions of people around him made AngelList founder Babak Nivi sigh, "Today may be the biggest change in American political views since 9/11."

Of course, there are still many people who think that all this is a show. Some netizens ruthlessly exposed Maguire: "Silicon Valley technologists are the least confrontational people on the planet. They are most like sheep and will say and do whatever is currently popular. This is ridiculous. He deleted all tweets (against) Trump before 2023." In a recent article in the Financial Times, the change in Silicon Valley's mainstream attitude towards Trump was also pointed out. At the end of the article, the author wrote that when Trump is re-elected with the support of Silicon Valley, "by then, many American business leaders, Republicans and Democrats, will look back at Biden's administration with a hint of melancholy."