Why Are More Tech Leaders Pivoting to Trump? Follow the Crypto.

The last few weeks have seen a spate of leading technology entrepreneurs, investors and other key figures publicly endorsing Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign to regain the presidency. Among them are elite representatives of PayPal, Tesla, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Palantir. Until rather recently, such a heel turn would have been considered anathema in Silicon Valley. In 2016 and 2020, tech workers to tech billionaire elites channeled the vast majority of donations and endorsements to Democrats — save for some notable exceptions, like Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Now, a political schism may be developing between the pro-business liberal leanings of the California-based industry and a new willingness among certain major figures to welcome reactionaries into the fold.

In truth, the rank and file of Silicon Valley — the programmers and other workers who actually staff the companies and build the products — have in all likelihood not wavered in their decidedly liberal orientation, if political donations are any indicator. Though there are certainly still elements among the elite sympathetic to Democrats, the rarefied air of tech leadership is now echoing with purportedly newfound right-wing sympathies. Inevitably, their reactionary pivot seems poised to open the doors to more widespread social acceptability of Republican alliances in the industry.

Whether or not the new posture trickles down, tech leadership’s stance can, unsurprisingly, be traced to class interest. The game has changed in the intervening years. the rise of cryptocurrency as a vast engine of speculation and wealth, and Biden administration agencies’ attempts to regulate it, have proffered a strong incentive for capital’s elite to do what they characteristically do: place the interests of profit and personal gain above whatever vestiges of moral principle they may harbor.

Tacit Alignments

Tech leaders seemed to reveal their endorsements of Trump en masse in July — even if their real sentiments have been stewing in private for far longer. First, a survey of the figures involved: The standard-bearer for tech’s new right-wing posture, is, of course, the humiliating public spectacle of Elon Musk. (Venture capitalist Peter Thiel could probably be considered Musk’s co-figurehead, but his fascist orientation is nothing new; Thiel has been waiting in the wings for this moment.) Musk’s full-throated backing of Trump, of course, comes as no surprise, given that he has been publicly wriggling around in the reactionary slop trough for some time. His endorsement came immediately in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump, which seemed to supply an advantageous media moment.

Other self-declared Trump backers in tech include billionaire investor David Sacks (who previously said that Trump was “disqualified” as a candidate after January 6, 2021) and venture capitalist Doug Leone of Sequoia Capital. (Though a longtime Republican, Leone also rescinded, then reconfirmed his support.) Some of these key players have committed major financial resources to a prominent pro-Trump political action committee, America PAC, which has seen massive investment from across the sector. Musk pledged, and then reneged, on a monthly $45 million. Other major America PAC donors include Joe Lonsdale, a founder of Palantir, the Facebook-investor twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and members of the so-called “PayPal mafia,” along with a Tesla board member and another Sequoia Capital investor named Shaun Maguire.

This summer, David Sacks and venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, both former Democratic donors, hosted a major fundraiser for Trump, attended by some major names: among them the aforementioned Winklevoss twins and vice presidential hopeful J.D. Vance. Bloomberg quoted Sacks as saying, “I’ve been very critical of Biden’s performance over the last four years, and I would like for him not to win another term. I’ve been looking at all the alternatives and getting to know the alternatives.” That’s one way of saying he’s rallying millionaire donors to elect Trump.

And in July, one of the more notable heel turns took place when the investor duo behind the eponymous firm Andreessen Horowitz apologetically justified their support for Trump on their podcast, claiming opposition to Democratic regulatory policies. They’ve also pledged to donate to America PAC.

It’s not surprising that Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz felt the need to proffer some hesitant, mewling explanations. For years the tech industry attempted to burnish its image: a certain variety of milquetoast liberalism and nominally “progressive” values, part of its public relations quest to portray itself as “making the world a better place,” in the infamous and much-mocked formulation. The failed vision of “tech humanism” has led to some backtracking and second thoughts among tech’s former boosters.

But of course, in practice, there have always been strong covert and overt ideological alignments between tech and the right — their shared interest in laissez-faire regulatory and tax policy and sanctification of entrepreneurial capitalists makes them natural bedfellows. Liberal contingents of the tech elite certainly remain, but they share certain right-libertarian leanings; Silicon Valley has its own California-inflected pseudoutopian flavor of pro-business ideology. While this latest pivot has been called a “mask-off moment” for tech elites, they never really wore a convincing disguise in the first place.

Nevertheless, after a yearslong onslaught of revelations about the corruption, predatory behavior, surveillance and privacy issues, racist and sexist workplace environments, threats to democracy, and other serious issues rife within the industry, there’s an unmistakable sense that any residue of tech’s utopian sheen is long gone, and the PR gambit to present as socially benevolent has been a dismal failure. Perhaps, with that pretense discarded, some see a right-wing allegiance as the next self-evident step.

Truthout reached out to Molly White, a tech critic, cryptocurrency researcher and commentator, software engineer and campaign finance watchdog to learn more about tech leaders’ motivations. White agreed that some in tech may just now be gaining the confidence to publicly embrace their self-interest, with less fear of censure. “It’s becoming more socially acceptable to be right-wing in tech,” she said. “We’ve certainly seen that happening the last handful of years, though the Peter Thiels of the world have been around longer than that.”

While this latest pivot has been called a “mask-off moment” for tech elites, they never really wore a convincing disguise in the first place.

Some of it could also be put down to a churlish kneejerk reaction — as White said, “The so-called techlash has been taken somewhat personally by some of these powerful people, who are reacting to that in a sense.” Still, for leading venture capitalists and CEOs to shrug off the stigma of a Republican endorsement — which even fairly recently would have been considered a third rail — would require a more pressing incentive.

A telling moment came when the vice presidential candidate was announced on the Trump ticket: J.D. Vance, the onetime Thiel employee and tech investor turned limply pandering blood-and-soil reactionary. Some in tech were reportedly giddy at his pick. Whether or not the Vance pick was the real inspiration for any endorsements, his appointment did not hurt tech leaders’ interest because Vance is considered a major ally of cryptocurrency, having declared his sympathies with crypto before, despite a stated opposition to “Big Tech.” Vance, as an Ohio Republican senator, also drafted legislation that would have drastically altered the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other agencies’ oversight of the field.

The Crypto-Fascist Influence

As White explained to Truthout, crypto may well be the most salient factor in the Silicon Valley elite’s new willingness to endorse the right. A widespread need among tech elites to protect their crypto investments appears a highly compelling consideration, which is spurring endorsement of Trump.

It’s clear that Trump holds major appeal for crypto interests — the candidate himself has played up his affinity, claiming in a speech to a Bitcoin conference, in typically bombastic form, that he will make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world.”

“A lot of these big figures who are spending a lot of money in politics have substantial crypto holdings,” she said. “A good example of that would be the Winklevoss twins, who hold a substantial amount of Bitcoin. And then there’s the investor class.” White founded the site Follow the Crypto, which tracks the considerable amounts of money animating crypto political advocacy.

“It comes down to the fact that [crypto investors and executives] really have a lot to lose,” White continued. “They stand to gain a lot in the coming few years if they can achieve some change in a federal stance towards crypto.… They’re hoping to install politicians at the congressional level and in the presidential race who would reduce the degree of regulation.”

The capricious and poorly regulated cryptocurrency field has made and crushed innumerable fortunes in recent times. As White pointed out, the highest echelon of tech investors and executives all have major crypto holdings, in both the currencies themselves and the firms that run as, effectively, unregulated securities exchanges. The Biden administration’s SEC under Chairman Gary Gensler has embarked on efforts to regulate and rein in the industry — so far, with some success. Gensler has spoken out about the “frauds and scams” within crypto, and has justified his enforcement actions as cracking down on the “risk of non-compliance with U.S. law.” Democratic lawmakers have shared in his desire to regulate the industry.

Recently, major crypto-investing billionaire Mark Cuban and other industry interests met with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), senior Biden adviser Anita Dunn, and other leading Democrats to lodge complaints about SEC oversight. Gensler’s SEC has brought dozens of enforcement actions against crypto firms, charging them with everything from unregistered securities trading to operating full-fledged pyramid and Ponzi schemes — the industry being highly prone to (some might say fully constituted by) massive fraudulence. Gensler has sought to force crypto exchanges to register as trading platforms with the SEC, which would make the space less of the wild casino that it presently is. Speculation is the raison d’etre of crypto, going hand in hand with predatory behavior and outright fraud.

The SEC has already sanctioned the concept of cryptocurrency exchanges, legitimizing the industry and raising concerns of another speculative bubble that could lead to financial crisis. Yet this is not enough for crypto acolytes — they want to be able to speculate without even the vaguest specter of oversight. Naturally, the proverbial house, which would like to keep winning, has taken issue with the SEC’s approach. (Trump, seeing an opportunity to please donors, made a crowd of cheering crypto fans a promise to fire Gensler.)

The power of the crypto cartel is exemplified by the elite status of its very own special interest political action committee. As Follow the Crypto has documented, vast sums of money have flowed into the top crypto super PAC, called Fairshake, to the tune of $160 million. Top crypto companies like Coinbase and Ripple, plus venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, account for the vast majority of that sum; the Winklevoss twins and other crypto companies made up the rest.

Of that staggering income, Fairshake has spent around $15 million — making it, at present, the eighth-largest super PAC for expenditures and the fourth-largest for total fundraising. The Fairshake site describes the PAC’s aims as “Providing blockchain innovators the ability to develop their networks under a clearer regulatory and legal framework.” It is safe to surmise that regulatory “clarity” is not the only variable they wish to tweak when it comes to financial oversight.

Fairshake, intriguingly, channels money to two other PACs. One, called Defend American Jobs, promotes conservative candidates and causes; the other, Protect Progress, does the same for liberals. These parallel groups exist to, in essence, launder Fairshake money and obscure one PAC’s donations from the other, so as not to upset any Fairshake donors with particular leanings. What could better illustrate the industry’s amoral self-interest? This attempt to play both sides of the aisle is reminiscent of disgraced FTX crypto exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s bipartisan double-dealing, noted White.

The leaders of Silicon Valley, meanwhile, “have substantial investments in [crypto] that do strongly color their motivations when it comes to the political end of things,” she added. “Certainly, those people have spoken out — particularly Andreessen and Horowitz have spoken out — and have funded very crypto-specific political movements,” with Fairshake being the most trenchant example.

White also pointed out that there has been an unconvincing effort by its acolytes to portray support for crypto as a grassroots effort cheered by a wide swath of Americans. Stand with Crypto — a group operating both a PAC and a 501(c)(4) under that name — claims that it has received nearly $180 million in donations from 1.3 million “crypto advocates.” However, as White has discovered in the course of her investigative work, the majority of the money Stand with Crypto claims to have raised came from either the wealthy and venture capital donations to Fairshake, or otherwise to MoonPay, a crypto company. The PAC’s individual donations amount to “about $13,000 from seven people, two of whom work for the crypto PAC, and two of whom work for Coinbase,” she said.

In other words, like so much associated with cryptocurrency, the industry’s political influence effort is hollow and fraudulent, representing nothing but the avaricious concerns of a segment of elite hustlers, and almost no one else. Yet, thanks to its overflowing coffers, the crypto lobby is able to exert undue influence on the political system.

It’s not like Democratic Party tech donors haven’t displayed similar tendencies: Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and a Microsoft board member, seems to be conditioning his support of Kamala Harris on her firing of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who has advocated for better regulation of cryptocurrency; Hoffman is a crypto holder who was an early investor in Coinbase. His opposition to Khan, though, seems to have more to do with her seeking antitrust enforcement against Microsoft regarding its acquisition of Inflection AI, which Hoffman co-founded. His fellow billionaire and Harris donor Barry Diller has echoed Hoffman’s call to fire Khan. (Interestingly, J.D. Vance has spoken positively of Khan and antitrust in the past — it remains to be seen whether he will flip on the matter.)

It also appears that a pivot from Democrats on crypto, antitrust, or other tech concerns is not impossible, as former businesswoman and venture capitalist, Gina Raimondo, the secretary of commerce under Biden who is widely perceived as pro-tech, is reportedly being vetted for the vice presidential candidacy.

Venture capitalists are also not, of course, totally unanimous in their support for Trump. Reid Hoffman, along with investor Vinod Khosla and 100 other figures, have come together as “VCs for Kamala,” representing the Democratic donor base in tech. Meanwhile, a report in the Financial Times seemed to indicate that, for their part, the Harris campaign has sought a “reset,” making overtures to crypto companies — though White pointed out that the sourcing on that news item is hazy — and it wouldn’t be the first time that crypto interests have exaggerated their sway with Harris.

Regardless of the direction Biden’s replacement takes towards crypto, the issue of the distorting influence of crypto, tech investors and donors in general is a bipartisan one — elites are able to deploy their wealth and power to exert disproportionate interest over the political system that governs us all. If any meaningful number of average Americans are concerned in the slightest with crypto, it’s likely only because its false promises robbed them of their meager savings. The industry preys widely on the poor with dubious enticements to buy in, including by the use of Bitcoin ATMs that target poor areas. To jack up coin values and inflate the asset bubble, the industry needs buyers to prop up its speculative schemes. The major holders get rich, while those who bought in, lured by promises of quick wealth, lose their savings and are left holding the bag.

And yet the perpetrators of these and other schemes are given pride of place in consideration by political candidates. The nation’s most vaunted technological entrepreneurs have made it clear that they will willingly cross the reactionary Rubicon, electing an aspiring dictator and placing their desire to enrich their already perversely bloated fortunes over all else. That valorization of self-interest — which at heart has always been the animating principle of Silicon Valley entrepreneurialism — would seem to indicate that tech leaders will likely get along just marvelously with their new reactionary allies.