A surprising partisan swap is underway within the stratosphere of the tech titans: The business recognized for its wokeness is betting big bucks on a Republican.
Final week former President Donald Trump gave a thumbs-up to the notion of teaming up with billionaire innovator Elon Musk if he wins in November. Hours later, Musk posted a message on X: “I’m keen to serve.”
Elon Musk for Commerce secretary? Or maybe for the newly created place of Free Speech Czar?
Whether or not or not Musk truly joins a Trump administration — Trump himself stated Sunday that the mogul is probably going too busy to achieve this, but could “consult” — his daring steps to again the Republican sign a turnaround.
Musk voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. But final month he launched a pro-Trump tremendous PAC, which he and several other different tech moguls are funding— regardless that Trump would seemingly take away federal subsidies for EVs, a serious Musk business, if he wins a second time period.
Investor and “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban called the phenomenon of tech bosses boosting Trump “insane.”
Not likely: Whereas Democrats strove mightily final week to push “freedom” because the theme of their conference, tech leaders are betting that freedom of speech, freedom to innovate and freedom from crushing authorities rules and confiscatory taxes are extra seemingly in a Trump reign than in a Kamala Harris administration.
Amongst these Silicon Valley heavyweights is Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s working mate.
“I might say that I belief the long run of this nation extra underneath the management of Trump . . . than I do proper now underneath Harris,” Shanahan said last week as Kennedy weighed his resolution to back Trump in the race.
Harris’ financial plans, Shanahan warned — “significantly her flawed concepts about worth caps on meals” — echo “the very insurance policies that prompted the famine my household suffered by in Mao’s Communist China.”
The RNC platform, dictated largely by Trump himself, pledges decrease taxes and deregulation, and describes innovators as nationwide treasures.
In distinction, the Democrats’ 2024 platform vilifies companies as grasping profiteers who don’t pay “their justifiable share” and proposes mountain climbing company taxes to 28% and elevating taxes on capital good points.
Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley enterprise capital agency, stated in December that it might resolve which presidential ticket to assist based mostly on one situation: “If a candidate helps an optimistic technology-enabled future, we’re for them. If they need to choke off necessary applied sciences, we’re towards them.”
The agency known as “unhealthy authorities insurance policies” the No. 1 menace to their business.
Trump has expressed his enthusiasm for new technologies, even promising to “make America first in AI.”
By July, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the funding agency’s principals, had modified sides and endorsed Trump, saying the Republican will scale back regulation and decrease taxes.
When Trump chose running mate JD Vance, a enterprise capitalist with Silicon Valley expertise, tech entrepreneurs applauded.
PayPal founder David Sacks is throwing his assist to Trump and even spoke on the Republican Nationwide Conference. Palantir Applied sciences cofounder Joe Lonsdale and cryptocurrency kings Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are donating to Musk’s America PAC to again Trump.
In fact, the tech business is an business like every other, involved with what authorities can do to harm the enterprise surroundings.
Count on extra tech leaders to change sides if Harris and Walz roll out coverage proposals as misguided as these we’ve seen up to now, like price controls.
Huge Tech reacts to unhealthy financial insurance policies at each stage, not simply federal.
The identical political metamorphosis bringing tech figures to Trump can be inflicting hundreds of corporations to flee California’s excessive taxes and overbearing rules and relocate to Texas. They’re buying and selling woke for business-friendly.
Austin, the state capital, has change into a tech hub dubbed Silicon Hills. Musk introduced just lately he’s transferring his corporations X and House X to Texas.
But Musk is greater than a Silicon Valley titan — he’s additionally a crusader at no cost speech.
Final month he stared down a European Union bureaucrat who objected that Musk’s uncensored two-hour conversation with Trump on X might end in “disinformation.”
“Take a giant step again,” Musk responded via a cheeky meme, after blasting the bureaucrat for his “alarming disregard for freedom of expression.”
Musk just lately closed X in Brazil slightly than adjust to authorities censors there. X is suspended in Venezuela for refusing to take down posts difficult dictator Nicolás Maduro’s phony victory claims.
Ending authorities censorship is a prime Republican precedence. The Biden-Harris administration has used businesses from the FBI to the Division of Well being and Human Companies to strain social media to do the administration’s bidding. The RNC platform pledges that federal interference will cease.
Musk needs “to promote the rules that made America nice within the first place,” naming meritocracy and free speech among the many core concepts his America PAC is pushing.
They’re not on Harris’ agenda — extra causes tech cash is transferring to Trump.
You don’t want AI to determine that out.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
Elon Musk leads parade of tech titans switching to Trump nypost.com 2024-08-26 22:27:17
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