Last week, the media discussed Bill Gates’s $50 million donation to a Super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign for president. It was his first major donation supporting a presidential candidate.
But in reality, this announcement of support for Harris is becoming the exception to the rule. The striking trend this election cycle is that Silicon Valley is moving to the right.
Silicon Valley is home to dozens of the world’s most influential companies, such as Google, Meta and Nvidia, not to mention countless startups. As a result, San Jose has the third highest GDP per capita of any city on Earth.
Silicon Valley’s tech titans punch well above their weight economically and politically — and increasingly they are using that to boost the GOP.
The shift come slowly but surely, since the start of the Biden administration four years ago. Elon Musk — who says that he voted for Joe Biden in 2020 — saw an increasingly illiberal approach to free speech. He was so alarmed that he actually bought the public square — Twitter, now X — and is actively campaigning for Trump.
Mark Zuckerberg isn’t getting involved in the election this year. That is essentially a $400 million loss for Democrats compared to 2020. Zuckerberg’s first major investor — and Musk’s fellow Paypal Mafia member — Peter Thiel has been a prolific funder of right-wing causes.
