Behind him, a host of Big Tech billionaires are busy. Noting the ties that unite them, as well as their business interests, almost gives the feeling of giving in to the conspiracy theory of the “deep state”, the very one that Donald Trump and others claim to want to bring down. Their presence around the President-elect is proven. Their intentions are no mystery. Previously disappointed by the Republican's first term, even put off by his attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 elections, they once again granted him their favors and their massive financial support in 2024.
Some, like Peter Thiel and David Sacks, former business associates of Elon Musk, have been pouring millions into the campaigns of the most extreme Republicans for nearly a decade. Having built their fortune in venture capital and investing in start-ups, they also support the social media ecosystem of thealt-rightthis extreme movement of the American right.
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They adhere to libertarianism. This typically American trend is resistant to any form of regulation or state tax. It infused the short-lived Tea Party, a popular movement born in opposition to the election of Barack Obama in 2008. The latter's anger was appropriated by Donald Trump's MAGA movement. “The right-wing project is largely defined by the most extreme libertarians. says historian Timothy Snyder, professor at Yale University. “Often coming from Silicon Valley, they are supporters, like Elon Musk, of a State reduced to the strictest minimum, without regard for the constitutional framework.. The ongoing presidential transition is seen as “one of the most tainted by conflicts of interest in modern history”, according to the New York Times.
When Donald Trump's campaign still seemed threatened by the lawsuits against him, Peter Thiel and David Sacks supported the Republican nomination campaigns of JD Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy, before rallying behind Donald Trump. The first will be his vice-president, the second will co-direct with Elon Musk the Department of Government Effectiveness. Vance and Ramaswamy built their fortune thanks to Peter Thiel. During his campaign, partly financed by Musk, Ramaswamy vowed to trim the federal government by 75%. He also perpetuated conspiracy theories, including those of the fantastical “great replacement” (“a principled position of the Democrats”) and the “stolen” 2020 election by – we will appreciate the irony – “Big Tech”.
Elon Musk's loved ones
People close to Elon Musk are unofficially participating in Donald Trump's transition, identifying candidates for certain positions and even conducting selection interviews. Jared Birchall, 50, Elon Musk's wealth manager and director of his companies Boring (civil engineering) and Neuralink (neurotechnology and transhumanism), for example, reportedly interviewed candidates for positions at the State Department (he did not no experience in this area), according to the American press.
Presented as “the one who whispers in Elon Musk's ear”Shaun Maguire, 39, investor and partner in investment fund Sequoia Capital, is involved in the selection of candidates for positions within the Ministry of Defense. This graduate in quantum physics worked for Darpa, the Pentagon agency which subcontracts research on new technologies for military use (including drones and stealth planes or ships). Shaun Maguire has caused controversy on social networks with his sometimes virulent pro-Israeli positions. In particular, under the hashtag #Pallywood, he spread the news of the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza, which were allegedly staged.
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JD Vance and the “PayPal Mafia”
David Sacks, 52, will take on the new role of advisor in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies – two sectors in which he has interests. Sacks has known Musk since their partnership in the creation of PayPal, whose resale to eBay was the beginning of their fortune. He is one of those who whispered to Donald Trump the name of JD Vance as vice-president. David Sacks financed the senatorial campaign of JD Vance, in 2022, who, as soon as elected, went on a crusade against federal regulations. A millionaire, the Vice-President-elect draws his fortune from a venture capital fund that he created: Narya Capital. This name is a reference to the novel Lord of the Rings of JRR Tolkien, a characteristic that he shares with several companies of Peter Thiel, his godfather in business and politics since 2016.
Thiel, 57, belongs like Musk and Sacks to what is called the “PayPal mafia” (this nickname stems from a group photo that parodied mafia imagery, published in the magazine Fortune). The interests of its members have intersected for a quarter of a century. Among them, Peter Thiel has built up the stature of a “Silicon Valley guru” by investing in a number of start-ups that have become giants: Airbnb, Spotify and Facebook, now Meta (of which he was one of the directors until 2022). Since their studies at Stanford University, Peter Thiel and David Sacks have never made a secret of their very radical conservative and libertarian opinions. The duo were among the first supporters of Donald Trump in 2016, bringing in their wake several figures from Silicon Valley, formerly considered a Democratic stronghold.
“The Tech industry, still perceived as a den of awkward but well-intentioned big heads, is today a materialist and amoral power. believes Max Chafkin, author of a biography of Peter Thiel (The Contrarian : Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power, Penguin Press, 2021, untranslated). Peter Thiel financed Vivek Ramaswamy's investment fund and supported his brief bid for the Republican nomination. Elon Musk and Thiel presided over the formation of America PAC, a pro-Trump super PAC (PACs are “political action committees” that support an electoral campaign). One of the fund's directors is Joe Lonsdale, a former PayPal intern and co-founder with Peter Thiel of Palantir Technologies, a Big Data and AI company under contract with the Pentagon. Lonsdale could join Musk at the Department of Government Effectiveness.
Free the cryptos!
The support of this “Silicon Valley mafia” for Donald Trump is motivated by the prospect of a new ultra-capitalist era. Unlike the President-elect's first term, where they remained more in the background, Big Tech billionaires are much more mobilized and better organized, particularly those active in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies. A super PAC (campaign financing committee), Fairshake, and two related organizations, Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, have spent a total of about $135 million on candidates supporting cryptocurrency law relief. . While he described them “scam”Donald Trump converted last summer, after choosing JD Vance as his running mate. The President-elect now promises to make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet”.
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Donors to the Fairshake super PAC include the Andreessen Horowitz fund which has dedicated $2.2 billion to cryptocurrencies in 2021. Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen was seen at the headquarters of the transition team Donald Trump in West Palm Beach, where, according to New York Times, he heard from candidates for senior positions at the State Department, the Pentagon and the Health Department. Aged 53, Andreessen made his name by founding Netscape in 1993, the first consumer Internet browser. In 1996, the magazine saw him as the model of the “golden geek” (golden geek), capable of combining innovation and finance. The billionaire sits on the board of directors of Meta (Facebook), which Peter Thiel left in 2022, before supporting Vance's senatorial campaign.
The Techno-optimist Manifesto
To understand the ideology of Tech billionaires, we can refer to their writings. Their opinions go far beyond the entrepreneurial or technology domain. Vivek Ramaswamy is the author of both works Woke, INC. (which could be translated as Woke mafia day) et Nation of Victims, in which he attacks gender theories and inclusive policies.
In 2023, Marc Andreessen published the “Manifesto of the Techno-optimist” (The Techno-Optimist Manifesto). He promotes “the techno-capital machine”alliance of technology and markets and “engine of perpetual material creation, growth and abundance”. In this creed, he believes that “human wants and needs are infinite, and entrepreneurs continually create new goods and services to satisfy these wants and needs”.
In this techno-optimistic ideal, “prices fall, free up purchasing power and create demand”. THE “enemies” are, among other ideas or concepts, the precautionary principle, degrowth, ethics in tech, bureaucracy, “vetocracy”, gerontocracy, blind respect for tradition, monopolies, cartels and, also ( we will appreciate): “The ivory tower, worldview of accredited experts who know it all, wallow in abstract theories, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected and unaccountable – playing God with the lives of others, in s 'totally insulating from the consequences'. Of which act.
Namely
Presidents and businessmen
Precedents. The presence of businessmen around a President is not exceptional. Donald Trump and his Tech billionaires cite the example of best and the brightest (“the best and the brightest”) of John F. Kennedy, the team of rivals (the Rivals) by Abraham Lincoln or the Manhattan Project (design and manufacturing of the atomic bomb) by Franklin D. Roosevelt. It will be recalled that Lincoln and Roosevelt both faced a conflict (Civil War for one, World War II for the other). The mobilization of all the vital forces of the Nation was essential. The case of Lincoln, moreover, is a counter-example, since he surrounded himself not with loyalists but with political adversaries. Among the “geniuses” of JFK, Robert McNamara left his job at Ford when he became Minister of Defense, an appointment motivated by his role as a logistician within the Air Force during the Second War. His intelligence did not avert the disaster of the Vietnam War, despite his statistics and numerous reports. When the press revealed in 1971 these Pentagon Papers, the Americans will discover that their leaders and McNamara have been hiding the truth about the conflict from them since 1965.
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