A kingdom of start-ups and new technologies, Silicon Valley is largely committed to the progressive cause embodied by the Democrats. But a growing number of voices are being raised to support Donald Trump, in the wake of Elon Musk.
“People revere Elon Musk here, he has a great influence,” assures Vivek Wadhwa, professor at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley University.
“More and more people on the right say they are fed up and are voting for Trump. They no longer hide it,” continues this columnist.
No tech boss has ever so openly supported a right-wing candidate. Elon Musk is campaigning with tens of millions of dollars, interventions on his social network (X, formerly Twitter) and in person.
The boss of Tesla and SpaceX recently met with voters in Pennsylvania, a key state to win Tuesday's presidential election, and distributed checks for one million dollars.
The tech world has always included libertarians, like Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal with Elon Musk), recalls Nick Pinkston, founder of Volition.
“Some were already very conservative, and now they have complete freedom to express themselves,” analyzes this entrepreneur, very involved in politics.
According to him, libertarians hope to see the government scale back – “that is to say less taxes and less regulations” – by bringing Trump back to the White House. Just like the supporters of cryptocurrencies.
– “Too far” –
In 2020, the former president received 34% of the vote in California and 12.7% in San Francisco.
No one expects the billionaire to make inroads in the San Francisco Bay Area, but voices on the right have become more audible.
Especially since the pandemic: local authorities have made enemies by enforcing strict health rules, including the temporary closure of companies like Tesla.
“San Francisco is much more left-wing than the rest of the country, and a lot of people think that’s going too far,” notes Sheel Mohnot, co-founder of the investment fund Better Tomorrow Ventures.
“We have a lot of problems, crime, homelessness… People want that to change,” he added.
Republicans regularly portray San Francisco as an unlivable cesspool, proof they say that Democrats promote insecurity, even though the city has a lower homicide rate than most American metropolises of comparable size.
Silicon Valley conservatives also reject diversity policies in companies, and do not recognize themselves in the attention given to the protection of the rights of LGBT+ people.
“This goes too far, we don’t have the same extreme progressive values, especially immigrants like me, we are more conservative,” notes Vivek Wadhwa, specifying that he has “gay friends and trans friends.”
– “Oligarch” –
Most tech workers are “relatively apolitical, centrist Democrats,” says Nick Pinkston, “who don't spend a lot of time thinking about women.”
The right to abortion, protected in California but abolished in many American states, is one of the major themes of Kamala Harris' campaign.
And then the start-ups with idealistic slogans at their beginnings grew.
“They considered themselves revolutionaries, good guys,” said Lawrence Quill, professor of political science at San Jose State University. “This simplistic view is difficult to maintain in a global market.”
Engaged in a standoff with Donald Trump during his presidency over major defense contracts, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, prevented the daily from officially supporting the Democrat.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, now prefers to stay away from politics, especially since Donald Trump is not angry with the social networks which had banned him for his role in the assault on the Capitol by his supporters. January 6, 2021.
The Republican was pleased to have received phone calls from leaders, including Sundar Pichai (Google), and Tim Cook (Apple).
But if the bosses keep a low profile, Elon Musk and Trumpism nonetheless irritate many “techies”.
“Objectively, *you* are the biggest threat to democracy in America today,” Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta, wrote to Elon Musk on X this week.
“You are an oligarch who bought a huge megaphone to support a would-be dictator.”
