An extraordinary couple of weeks in US politics was dominated by the near assassination of Donald Trump, and his subsequent return at the euphoric, bombastic, carnival of Americana that was the Republican National Convention. But behind the scenes, something seismic, something extraordinary was unfolding that could tilt the balance of power long after Trump’s recovery and the ticker tape swept away. Silicon Valley seemed to shift right.
Tech companies and personalities who for decades have voted and donated almost exclusively Democrat began whispering, then voicing, their support for the Trump campaign. Not only that, but Peter Thiel – the Silicon Valley conservative outlier – is credited with securing the VP nomination for J.D. Vance. Vance, though a child of Appalachia, has climbed the ranks of venture capitalism and reflects a new tech identity completely at odds with the uber-progressive sect who have dominated in the past.
The degree to which progressive politics had captured the world’s richest and most powerful companies cannot be overstated. Political donations tell part of the story: Big Tech employees donated more than $95 to Democrats for every $5 directed to Republicans in the 2023 midterms. During the 2016 presidential campaign, research by Crowdpac—a nonpartisan electoral research organisation—found a similar split, with 95% of Silicon Valley donations going to Hillary Clinton and just 4% to Trump. However, the donation data only tells part of the story.
The true Democratic bias of companies like Google/Alphabet, Apple and Facebook/Meta is perhaps most evident in the radical cultures they’ve created and the knock-on effects reflected in their policies and behaviours. While champions of industry, these companies have embraced an identity-based politics and pursuit of ‘equity’ akin to the college campuses of Berkeley or Stanford. Or indeed the Democratic party, where Biden’s choice of running mate was openly and proudly led by diversity considerations, excluding male and white prospects from the selection pool. By leading the charge on identity politics and culture war policies, many tech companies have found themselves embroiled in controversy.
Back in 2017 Google made headlines for firing software engineer James Damore for his pro-diversity memo arguing for more effective strategies of promoting women in tech. His crime? Suggesting men and women were different; an example of ‘harmful stereotypes’ in the view of Google and an affront to a Marxist blank slate-ism that underpins many DEI initiatives. The creep of such radical ideology into the actual tech products produced was as predictable as it was worrying. Google’s transition began with diversity-minded home-page Doodles and ended with their disastrous Gemini AI launch that came so hard-coded with anti-Western grievance that it proved unable to present white people in any positive aspect whatsoever..
But this is old news. What has changed and why have tech luminaries like Elon Musk (an Obama voter) and David Sacks (who previously called for Trump to be disqualified from office) suddenly come out for Trump? Well, an easy answer would be that winners back winners, and they may feel that Trump is likely going to win. Another easy answer is that the assassination attempt created enough sympathy to move the Overton window and allow even anti-Trumpers to come on side. Facebook/Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg – whose company sought to censor Trump – had to concede that Trump’s reaction to the shooting was ‘badass’. Perhaps the easiest answer was trotted out by Pete Buttigieg on Real Time with Bill Maher recently, when he suggested Silicon Valley is run by rich men who simply back the Republicans because they make life easier for rich men. The clear problem with this argument is that Silicon Valley has always been rich but never embraced the GOP.
No, to fully understand the Silicon Valley shift we need to understand California and some of the personalities involved. In both business and social terms, Democratic policies are delivering outcomes that would test the progressivism of even staunch liberals. On the business side, Californian cities have become too dangerous to house many corporate offices. In what has been called the great ‘tech-x-odous,’ LinkedIn, Microsoft, Meta, and many more have left San Francisco due to a crime explosion and law and order collapse, linked to Democrats’ soft-touch sentencing and budget cuts to police departments following the Black Lives Matter movement.
On social issues, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has introduced a host of laws that run counter prevailing wisdom elsewhere. Chief amongst these is Assembly Bill 1955 that allows educators withhold information from parents regarding their child pursuing a gender transition. The UK inquiry into the Tavistock Clinic is one of several double-takes across the West that highlighted the devastating potential of ‘gender affirming care’ for children and young people. Left-leaning tech executives are questioning if their support for Democratic politics and West Coast progressivism aligns with their values. One billionaire in particular has personal reasons to fight against such woke orthodoxy.
Elon Musk has long criticised the impact of liberal District Attorneys and soft policing. He recently claimed he was “tricked” into allowing his son to be treated with puberty blockers by doctors who raised the spectre of his child’s suicide without such ‘gender-affirming’ care. The exact claims to justify interventions made in Musk’s case have been refuted as ‘unfounded and dangerous’ by a leading expert in the UK. Musk has announced plans to move the headquarters of two of his companies from California to Texas.
So no flight of fancy is this shift to the Trump camp by Musk, Sacks, Marc Andreessen and others. It is no superficial tax play or sympathy vote. It is a deeply felt resentment towards the way Democrats have enacted their power and – in Musk’s case – enough antipathy to form the basis of a super-villain origin story. Enter Peter Thiel; the gay Republican famous for successfully plotting the demise of an entire media organisation for outing him. A decade he waited. And in similar fashion he sat in the long grass watching his Silicon Valley peers whip themselves into an anti-Trump fervour. He watched as the biggest tech companies lent ever more into identity politics, obsessing over ‘equity’ where once they sought ability.
He observed Hillary Clinton’s infamous 2016 ‘basket of deplorables’ comment, contending half of Trump’s supporters were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.” Years later, with Trump odds-on to win a second term, Thiel played his card. His man was J.D. Vance.
Vance represented everything cosmopolitan Democrats are accused of leaving behind: white, military, Christian, dirt-poor Kentucky. He would be the centrepiece in Clinton’s basket of deplorables and – should Trump win in November – is also likely to be Silicon Valley’s man in the White House. Cold-blooded Thiel always did appreciate irony when dispensing his justice.
It is possible that this shift in Silicon Valley’s political landscape may not a fleeting trend but a harbinger of a new era in tech politics. As Big Tech giants realign their political allegiances, the implications for the future of American politics and global technology are profound. This emerging partnership between conservative values and technological innovation might reshape not only the political map but also the cultural and economic landscape for years to come.