July 18, 2024 • 17 mins
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s pick of Senator JD Vance as his running mate has many in Silicon Valley rejoicing — they see the former venture capitalist as one of their own. With Elon Musk’s commitment of $45 million a month to a super-PAC supporting the Trump campaign, it's the latest sign of Silicon Valley elites embracing the MAGA movement.
But the tech world hasn’t always embraced Trump. On today’s Big Take podcast, Bloomberg Businessweek columnist Max Chafkin joins host David Gura to talk about how we got here and what their support could mean for another Trump term.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. When Donald Trump announced JD.
Vance as his running made on Monday, some of the
most prominent people in Silicon Valley rejoiced. Chamath Polyopatia, the
CEO of Social Capital and a former Facebook exec, posted
(00:21):
on X a bestie adjacent as the VP from delhian Asparov,
a well known venture capitalist quote, we have a former
tech VC in the White House. Greatest country on Earth. Baby.
There's been some reporting that Elon Musk himself lobbied Trump
to choose Vance as his VP. Just a few hours later,
news broke of Musk's commitment to donating forty five million
(00:44):
dollars a month to a Trump superpack led by Silicon
Valley alums. The next day, Musk tweeted as a reminder
Doug leone of Sequoia Capital, publicly voiced his support for
Trump six weeks ago. Silicon Valley has shifted. It's an
eye popping series of developments for anyone who remembers when
(01:04):
Elon Musk made his Iron Man cameo and was seen
as the manifestation of Obama era hopes that Silicon Valley
innovation could make climate goals a reality.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Good idea for electric jet. You do, then we'll make
it work.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Today, Musk and many of his former PayPal co founders
and other longtime tech leaders have lined up behind Trump.
One of them, David Sachs, was even a keynote speaker
at the Republican National Convention this week. My friends, we
need President Donald J. Trump back in the White House.
(01:39):
So how did we get here? What does this sudden
infusion of Silicon Valley capital to the Trump campaign mean
for the twenty twenty four election. What might the storied
crew of savvy investors expect in return if Trump gets
a second term? This is the big take from Bloomberg News.
I'm David Gura.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Stereotype of Silicon Valley is liberal. Is just It's wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Max Chafkin covers Silicon Valley and its intersections with politics
for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. He also wrote the book on a
legendary Silicon Valley figure, the contrarian Peter Thiel, and Silicon
Valley's pursuit of power.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
This is an industry that was founded as defense contractors.
Like when you think about like where Silicon Valley comes from,
it comes from tech companies doing business with the military.
That's the root of the industry. I think what has
changed is that Silicon Valley historically was pretty libertarian, you know,
low taxes, limited government intervention, immigration, because the industry has
(02:45):
been and will probably continue to be dependent on immigrant
labor to some extent, and many founders come from different countries.
These are all kind of like basic libertarian values that
both parties a Democrat and Republican have competed for over
the years.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, Max, I remember in two thousand and eight, two
thousand and nine, there was I think a warm relationship
between Silicon Valley and a Democratic president Barack Obama. He
even jokingly said he might think of moving to Silicon
Valley and becoming a VC as a logical next career
step for him when he left the White House. Just
remind us what those days were like and sort of
what the political terrain looked like in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Then, So, venture capitalists their thing is is like, is
not a data business, even though they've invest in a
lot of like data driven companies. It's a vibes business.
It's like getting a feeling and making a gut decision.
And they saw a vibe shift in two thousand and
eight they saw the way that Barack Obama was able
(03:44):
to marshal these giant crowds and generate a lot of
youthful enthusiasm. And also Obama was pretty enthusiastic about Silicon Valley.
He saw, you know, the new economy and tech as
a way to help the nation's grow and he was
very vocal about that. Obama was very supportive of Elon Musk,
(04:04):
gave this big loan to Tesla that helped save it
in the wake of the economic crisis. Very big on
electric cars, very big on alternative energy, and Elon Musk,
being essentially the savvy operator that he is, embraced that
part of his identity and his company's identity. He really
framed Tesla during those years as an environmentalist project.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
During the twenty sixteen election, many of these tech leaders
did not endorse Trump. In fact, about one hundred and
forty industry executives published an open letter denouncing him. One
notable exception was Peter Teel.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Co founder of PayPal, co founder Palenteer, and more importantly,
a really big deal venture capitalist. His main firm is
called Founder's Fund. He's also invested in many other venture
capital firms and really what's most important about Peter Teel
is that he has this network of kind of like
minded technologists, many of whom are very wealthy, many of
(05:03):
whom are very powerful. It's called the PayPal Mafia.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's a name that's kind of shrouded in some mystery
here Max PayPal Mafia, What is it and who's in it?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
It refers to the early employees and founders of PayPal
who got together in the late nineties, took PayPal public,
sold it to eBay, got very rich, and then use
that money essentially to make other investments. And so it's
a group that includes Elon Musk, who was effectively a
(05:32):
copounder of PayPal, Max Levchin, who runs a company called
a Firm, David Sachs, who was at the Republican Convention,
has become a major donor, reied Hoffman, founder of Lincoln
who's a big Democratic donor, founders of YouTube, Yelp. You know,
it goes on and on. Many of them have stayed
in touch. They invest in each other's companies, They help
one another. It's not just a business network, it's a
(05:54):
political network. In addition to helping one other's companies, advancing
a vision of politics as well well.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
During the twenty sixteen campaign, Peter Tele made waves by
endorsing Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
First of all, it was shocking because very few business people,
not just Silicon Valley people, were enthusiastic about Trump, but
also because like Trump's whole thing seemed one hundred and
eighty degrees from the stereotype of Silicon Valley, even the
stereotype of like Silicon Valley conservatism. Like we're talking about
a proud lud eite, a guy who doesn't use email.
(06:29):
We're talking about a guy who wants to have like
extreme crackdown on immigration. And Peter Tele, like many very
successful people in Silicon Valley, is an immigrant. It just
like goes on and on. Right, He seemed like the
very opposite of everything that like somebody like Peter Tele
stood for, and even like Teal had talked about that,
he'd said, like, Donald Trump, I'm paraphrasing, is like a
(06:51):
symptom of everything that's wrong with New York City. On
the other hand, when you sort of look a little deeper,
Donald Trump, despite being kind of an odd fit in
terms of his character sort of an awkward match with
many of these technologists, they actually fit in sort of
well together. And the reason for that, I'd say, is
so Teal, over the course of his career, his whole
(07:13):
thing had been this idea that we as a society
had stagnated. It was this idea that big business and
government have sort of slowed down and startups, these Silicon
Valley companies are the thing that's going to bring us
back to that crazy sci fi future that we once imagine.
That was the future of Peter Teel's boyhood. Right. But
(07:36):
it's also just kind of another formulation for mega. It's
a backward looking idea, it's an idea of nostalgia. It is,
in a weird way, kind of like a Silicon Valley
version of what Donald Trump was saying. Donald Trump was saying,
we need to get back to the future. We need
to make America grade again.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
You could hear that sentiment during Teal's speech at the
twenty sixteen Republican National Convention.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Donald Trump asked us to make America great again.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
He's not suggesting a return to the past.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
He's running to lead us back to that right future.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
October twenty sixteen, a critical moment for the Trump campaign.
The Access Hollywood tape just released at.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
The time, like every Republican was sort of running away
from him, and like that's when Peter Teal chose to
donate to Donald Trump. He gave a million dollars to
a Donald Trump political action committee, and he gave this
speech where he kind of explained himself and the explanation
was like, I don't agree with what Donald Trump said,
I'm offended by them, but he's the guy. And Teal
(08:39):
had this very memorable line, you know, you shouldn't take
Trump literally, you should take him seriously, implication being like
he may be a little different from what you and
I want, but he's the guy we need. And like
that became the kind of like default Teal position, and
I'd say like a position that was sort of adopted
by many in the corporate world after Trump got elect
(09:00):
did and they had to work with him.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Trump is elected and there's this meeting that takes place
at Trump Tower in Manhattan. All these tech executives come.
Just set the scene for us. What did they talk
about at that meeting? And what does it say to
you about the relationship that Donald Trump had with big tech?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So Teal after the election was named a prominent position
on the transition Committee. December fourteenth, twenty sixteen. There's this
meeting on the twenty fifth floor of Trump Tower. Just
to set the stage, glass all around this big boardroom table,
and you have basically a who's who of Silicon Valley
(09:38):
seated with Trump in the middle. You got Trump, Mike
Pences on his right side, Peter Tele's on his left side,
and then going around it's all the biggies jol.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Musco CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, Eric Smith, Alphabet Google, and
Saffricatz I'm CEO.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Of Borco, Tim Cook on the other side of the table,
Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Eric Trump, Don Junior. So it's
like Silicon Valley has made it to the inner sanctum.
Once the cameras are gone, they just snapped into business mode.
You know, they were lobbying. You know, they were got
right down to business. And that's essentially the story of
the first Trump presidency. Trump didn't follow through with many
(10:14):
of these incredibly aggressive proposals. You know, there was a
trade war with China, but Apple won a lot of exemptions.
Trump talked ad nauseam about how terrible Facebook was and
how social media need to crack down social media. There
were all these events at the White House with various
like far right bloggers and so on, but nothing actually happened.
(10:37):
The stocks of these companies did very well. Trump essentially
left these guys alone.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So by the end of Trump's first term, he had
a pretty favorable relationship with big tech. But then came
January sixth. Trump was kicked off Twitter and Facebook and
everything changed. That's coming up. January sixth initially seemed like
(11:06):
it would make Trump toxic even to the business minded
execs in Silicon Valley, But as Bloomberg BusinessWeek reporter Max
Chafkins says, Silicon Valley is more often about vibes, and
soon the vibes were back in Trump's favor.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And so what happened is, I think first the Republican
Party sort of figured out that Donald Trump was still
very popular and that voters were going to be willing
to look past January sixth. Teel also kind of he
never totally distanced himself from Trump, but he sort of
went quiet after the twenty twenty election, and he started
(11:42):
getting active again during the mid term. And these MAGA
Republicans did not necessarily have a great general election. Some
of them lost, but it was clear that the Republican
Party was Donald Trump's party, and I think from the
mid term to today, the sort of comfort with Trump
has grown.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
If you look at the list of people who are
supporting Donald Trump this time around from Silicon Valley, is
there a common thread of grievances that they have with
this curt administration with President Biden.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
There's sort of two buckets of grievance with the Biden
administration that you hear from Silicon Valley. One bucket is policy.
Many of these guys are investors on this list. Many
of these guys made enormous investments in various crypto companies,
and Biden administration cracked down on crypto to some extent.
(12:35):
There have been a bunch of criminal prosecutions of some
really prominent crypto figures and also lots and lots of
civil actions. As many people in crypto see it, the
Biden administration has essentially gone to war against crypto. A
second bucket anti trust. Because of this kind of slightly
(12:56):
more aggressive pose of the FTC, the M and A
market has really cooled off because these big tech companies
don't feel like they can do, you know, big acquisitions
as easily because there's always a risk of anti trust
and so like that has really disrupted the business of
many of these venture capitalists. And so the industry thinks
(13:17):
that Biden has been too hard on them, and that's
a policy thing, but there's sort of a related thing,
which is like character and manner and like how Biden
talks about the industry. He has not been as solicitous
of these guys. There's a sense that they do not
have a president who is accommodating them.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Trump certainly represents a more accommodating president, but they also
seem to think they'd have an accommodating vice president, somebody
who could pick up the Republican Party mantle in a
post Trump world. I want to ask you about jd. Vance,
the junior senator from Ohio, now Donald Trump's running mate.
What familiarity does he have with with a lot of
these people.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
He met tiol Ata a law school event while he
was at Yale, and then he writes this book Hillbilly Elogy,
which is, you know, a super successful memoir that really
struck a nerve, especially it was published in twenty sixteen,
kind of became a sort of way to understand like
what was happening. With the rise of Trump, Teal blurbed
(14:18):
the book and Teal hired JD. Vance at Mythrol, which
is like kind of one of his other venture capital firms.
His time at Mithroll was very short. This is not
somebody who had like a long distinguished career in tech
before he went into politics. And then the political story
really intensifies in twenty twenty one after Trump, you know,
(14:40):
lost reelection after January sixth, Teal takes jade Vance Tomorrow
Lago to essentially introduce him and also help kind of
repair some of the damage because jade Vance, when he
was promoting Hillbilly elogy, was super down on Donald Trump.
He presented himself not as a a enthusiastic supporter of
(15:02):
trump Ism, but kind of as an explainer of trump
Ism and a critic of trump Ism. And then most importantly,
Teal gives him a huge chunk of change to get
his primary candidacy off the ground. I think without the
fifteen million dollars that Teal puts into JD. Fance's campaign,
(15:22):
you know, we don't have JD. Vans the Senator. We
don't have JD. Vance the vice presidential candidate.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Teal's donation to JD. Vance, Elon Musk's eye popping pledge
of forty five million dollars a month to a Trump
super pack, and now the Republican ticket with Trump and
Vance at the top. It all raises a question, Max,
there's something kind of inherently transactional. I think not to
be too cynical about political donations, but you know, if
(15:48):
you're ponying up forty five million dollars a month, one
would think that you'd want something in return. What do
these leaders in Silicon Valley expect to get or want
to get from Donald Trump if he's reelected.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
They want to be left alone. For the most part,
Palenteer during the Trump years did exceedingly well, got lots
and lots of contracts. The government denied that there was
any reason other than merit for Palenteer to get those contracts,
but there were a handful of companies that were less
well politically regarded that did not get contracts. And Elon
(16:21):
Musk is, in addition to an electric car executive, a
defense contractor. There are a lot of economists right now
in twenty twenty four writing about how terrible Trump's various
proposals would be we saw, you know, earlier this week
the stock market dived because Trump made some comments Bloomberg BusinessWeek,
and it has implications for chip companies or whatever. But
(16:43):
I think what a lot of these CEOs know, and
the Trump supporters know, or at least think they know,
is that Trump didn't follow through with many of these
incredibly aggressive proposals. Trump essentially left these guys alone. When
you look at who is supporting Trump this time, they
see a president who was fairly hands off on tech,
and that's kind of like what they're hoping for. Again,
(17:05):
they don't take the rhetoric literally, you know, just as
Teal suggested.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerre.
This episode was produced by Julia Press and Andreana Tapia.
It was fact checked by Thomas lou. It was mixed
by Bill Moss. Our senior producers are Kim Gittleson and
Naomi Shaven, who also edited this episode with Stacy vanick Smith.
Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Nick cool Beemster Borr
is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts.
(17:40):
Thanks so much for listening. Please follow and review The
Big Take. Wherever you get your podcasts, it helps new
listeners find the show. We'll be back tomorrow.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. When Donald Trump announced JD.
Vance as his running made on Monday, some of the
most prominent people in Silicon Valley rejoiced. Chamath Polyopatia, the
CEO of Social Capital and a former Facebook exec, posted
(00:21):
on X a bestie adjacent as the VP from delhian Asparov,
a well known venture capitalist quote, we have a former
tech VC in the White House. Greatest country on Earth. Baby.
There's been some reporting that Elon Musk himself lobbied Trump
to choose Vance as his VP. Just a few hours later,
news broke of Musk's commitment to donating forty five million
(00:44):
dollars a month to a Trump superpack led by Silicon
Valley alums. The next day, Musk tweeted as a reminder
Doug leone of Sequoia Capital, publicly voiced his support for
Trump six weeks ago. Silicon Valley has shifted. It's an
eye popping series of developments for anyone who remembers when
(01:04):
Elon Musk made his Iron Man cameo and was seen
as the manifestation of Obama era hopes that Silicon Valley
innovation could make climate goals a reality.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Good idea for electric jet. You do, then we'll make
it work.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Today, Musk and many of his former PayPal co founders
and other longtime tech leaders have lined up behind Trump.
One of them, David Sachs, was even a keynote speaker
at the Republican National Convention this week. My friends, we
need President Donald J. Trump back in the White House.
(01:39):
So how did we get here? What does this sudden
infusion of Silicon Valley capital to the Trump campaign mean
for the twenty twenty four election. What might the storied
crew of savvy investors expect in return if Trump gets
a second term? This is the big take from Bloomberg News.
I'm David Gura.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Stereotype of Silicon Valley is liberal. Is just It's wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Max Chafkin covers Silicon Valley and its intersections with politics
for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. He also wrote the book on a
legendary Silicon Valley figure, the contrarian Peter Thiel, and Silicon
Valley's pursuit of power.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
This is an industry that was founded as defense contractors.
Like when you think about like where Silicon Valley comes from,
it comes from tech companies doing business with the military.
That's the root of the industry. I think what has
changed is that Silicon Valley historically was pretty libertarian, you know,
low taxes, limited government intervention, immigration, because the industry has
(02:45):
been and will probably continue to be dependent on immigrant
labor to some extent, and many founders come from different countries.
These are all kind of like basic libertarian values that
both parties a Democrat and Republican have competed for over
the years.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, Max, I remember in two thousand and eight, two
thousand and nine, there was I think a warm relationship
between Silicon Valley and a Democratic president Barack Obama. He
even jokingly said he might think of moving to Silicon
Valley and becoming a VC as a logical next career
step for him when he left the White House. Just
remind us what those days were like and sort of
what the political terrain looked like in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Then, So, venture capitalists their thing is is like, is
not a data business, even though they've invest in a
lot of like data driven companies. It's a vibes business.
It's like getting a feeling and making a gut decision.
And they saw a vibe shift in two thousand and
eight they saw the way that Barack Obama was able
(03:44):
to marshal these giant crowds and generate a lot of
youthful enthusiasm. And also Obama was pretty enthusiastic about Silicon Valley.
He saw, you know, the new economy and tech as
a way to help the nation's grow and he was
very vocal about that. Obama was very supportive of Elon Musk,
(04:04):
gave this big loan to Tesla that helped save it
in the wake of the economic crisis. Very big on
electric cars, very big on alternative energy, and Elon Musk,
being essentially the savvy operator that he is, embraced that
part of his identity and his company's identity. He really
framed Tesla during those years as an environmentalist project.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
During the twenty sixteen election, many of these tech leaders
did not endorse Trump. In fact, about one hundred and
forty industry executives published an open letter denouncing him. One
notable exception was Peter Teel.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Co founder of PayPal, co founder Palenteer, and more importantly,
a really big deal venture capitalist. His main firm is
called Founder's Fund. He's also invested in many other venture
capital firms and really what's most important about Peter Teel
is that he has this network of kind of like
minded technologists, many of whom are very wealthy, many of
(05:03):
whom are very powerful. It's called the PayPal Mafia.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's a name that's kind of shrouded in some mystery
here Max PayPal Mafia, What is it and who's in it?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
It refers to the early employees and founders of PayPal
who got together in the late nineties, took PayPal public,
sold it to eBay, got very rich, and then use
that money essentially to make other investments. And so it's
a group that includes Elon Musk, who was effectively a
(05:32):
copounder of PayPal, Max Levchin, who runs a company called
a Firm, David Sachs, who was at the Republican Convention,
has become a major donor, reied Hoffman, founder of Lincoln
who's a big Democratic donor, founders of YouTube, Yelp. You know,
it goes on and on. Many of them have stayed
in touch. They invest in each other's companies, They help
one another. It's not just a business network, it's a
(05:54):
political network. In addition to helping one other's companies, advancing
a vision of politics as well well.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
During the twenty sixteen campaign, Peter Tele made waves by
endorsing Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
First of all, it was shocking because very few business people,
not just Silicon Valley people, were enthusiastic about Trump, but
also because like Trump's whole thing seemed one hundred and
eighty degrees from the stereotype of Silicon Valley, even the
stereotype of like Silicon Valley conservatism. Like we're talking about
a proud lud eite, a guy who doesn't use email.
(06:29):
We're talking about a guy who wants to have like
extreme crackdown on immigration. And Peter Tele, like many very
successful people in Silicon Valley, is an immigrant. It just
like goes on and on. Right, He seemed like the
very opposite of everything that like somebody like Peter Tele
stood for, and even like Teal had talked about that,
he'd said, like, Donald Trump, I'm paraphrasing, is like a
(06:51):
symptom of everything that's wrong with New York City. On
the other hand, when you sort of look a little deeper,
Donald Trump, despite being kind of an odd fit in
terms of his character sort of an awkward match with
many of these technologists, they actually fit in sort of
well together. And the reason for that, I'd say, is
so Teal, over the course of his career, his whole
(07:13):
thing had been this idea that we as a society
had stagnated. It was this idea that big business and
government have sort of slowed down and startups, these Silicon
Valley companies are the thing that's going to bring us
back to that crazy sci fi future that we once imagine.
That was the future of Peter Teel's boyhood. Right. But
(07:36):
it's also just kind of another formulation for mega. It's
a backward looking idea, it's an idea of nostalgia. It is,
in a weird way, kind of like a Silicon Valley
version of what Donald Trump was saying. Donald Trump was saying,
we need to get back to the future. We need
to make America grade again.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
You could hear that sentiment during Teal's speech at the
twenty sixteen Republican National Convention.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Donald Trump asked us to make America great again.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
He's not suggesting a return to the past.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
He's running to lead us back to that right future.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
October twenty sixteen, a critical moment for the Trump campaign.
The Access Hollywood tape just released at.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
The time, like every Republican was sort of running away
from him, and like that's when Peter Teal chose to
donate to Donald Trump. He gave a million dollars to
a Donald Trump political action committee, and he gave this
speech where he kind of explained himself and the explanation
was like, I don't agree with what Donald Trump said,
I'm offended by them, but he's the guy. And Teal
(08:39):
had this very memorable line, you know, you shouldn't take
Trump literally, you should take him seriously, implication being like
he may be a little different from what you and
I want, but he's the guy we need. And like
that became the kind of like default Teal position, and
I'd say like a position that was sort of adopted
by many in the corporate world after Trump got elect
(09:00):
did and they had to work with him.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Trump is elected and there's this meeting that takes place
at Trump Tower in Manhattan. All these tech executives come.
Just set the scene for us. What did they talk
about at that meeting? And what does it say to
you about the relationship that Donald Trump had with big tech?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So Teal after the election was named a prominent position
on the transition Committee. December fourteenth, twenty sixteen. There's this
meeting on the twenty fifth floor of Trump Tower. Just
to set the stage, glass all around this big boardroom table,
and you have basically a who's who of Silicon Valley
(09:38):
seated with Trump in the middle. You got Trump, Mike
Pences on his right side, Peter Tele's on his left side,
and then going around it's all the biggies jol.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Musco CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, Eric Smith, Alphabet Google, and
Saffricatz I'm CEO.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Of Borco, Tim Cook on the other side of the table,
Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Eric Trump, Don Junior. So it's
like Silicon Valley has made it to the inner sanctum.
Once the cameras are gone, they just snapped into business mode.
You know, they were lobbying. You know, they were got
right down to business. And that's essentially the story of
the first Trump presidency. Trump didn't follow through with many
(10:14):
of these incredibly aggressive proposals. You know, there was a
trade war with China, but Apple won a lot of exemptions.
Trump talked ad nauseam about how terrible Facebook was and
how social media need to crack down social media. There
were all these events at the White House with various
like far right bloggers and so on, but nothing actually happened.
(10:37):
The stocks of these companies did very well. Trump essentially
left these guys alone.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So by the end of Trump's first term, he had
a pretty favorable relationship with big tech. But then came
January sixth. Trump was kicked off Twitter and Facebook and
everything changed. That's coming up. January sixth initially seemed like
(11:06):
it would make Trump toxic even to the business minded
execs in Silicon Valley, But as Bloomberg BusinessWeek reporter Max
Chafkins says, Silicon Valley is more often about vibes, and
soon the vibes were back in Trump's favor.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And so what happened is, I think first the Republican
Party sort of figured out that Donald Trump was still
very popular and that voters were going to be willing
to look past January sixth. Teel also kind of he
never totally distanced himself from Trump, but he sort of
went quiet after the twenty twenty election, and he started
(11:42):
getting active again during the mid term. And these MAGA
Republicans did not necessarily have a great general election. Some
of them lost, but it was clear that the Republican
Party was Donald Trump's party, and I think from the
mid term to today, the sort of comfort with Trump
has grown.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
If you look at the list of people who are
supporting Donald Trump this time around from Silicon Valley, is
there a common thread of grievances that they have with
this curt administration with President Biden.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
There's sort of two buckets of grievance with the Biden
administration that you hear from Silicon Valley. One bucket is policy.
Many of these guys are investors on this list. Many
of these guys made enormous investments in various crypto companies,
and Biden administration cracked down on crypto to some extent.
(12:35):
There have been a bunch of criminal prosecutions of some
really prominent crypto figures and also lots and lots of
civil actions. As many people in crypto see it, the
Biden administration has essentially gone to war against crypto. A
second bucket anti trust. Because of this kind of slightly
(12:56):
more aggressive pose of the FTC, the M and A
market has really cooled off because these big tech companies
don't feel like they can do, you know, big acquisitions
as easily because there's always a risk of anti trust
and so like that has really disrupted the business of
many of these venture capitalists. And so the industry thinks
(13:17):
that Biden has been too hard on them, and that's
a policy thing, but there's sort of a related thing,
which is like character and manner and like how Biden
talks about the industry. He has not been as solicitous
of these guys. There's a sense that they do not
have a president who is accommodating them.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Trump certainly represents a more accommodating president, but they also
seem to think they'd have an accommodating vice president, somebody
who could pick up the Republican Party mantle in a
post Trump world. I want to ask you about jd. Vance,
the junior senator from Ohio, now Donald Trump's running mate.
What familiarity does he have with with a lot of
these people.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
He met tiol Ata a law school event while he
was at Yale, and then he writes this book Hillbilly Elogy,
which is, you know, a super successful memoir that really
struck a nerve, especially it was published in twenty sixteen,
kind of became a sort of way to understand like
what was happening. With the rise of Trump, Teal blurbed
(14:18):
the book and Teal hired JD. Vance at Mythrol, which
is like kind of one of his other venture capital firms.
His time at Mithroll was very short. This is not
somebody who had like a long distinguished career in tech
before he went into politics. And then the political story
really intensifies in twenty twenty one after Trump, you know,
(14:40):
lost reelection after January sixth, Teal takes jade Vance Tomorrow
Lago to essentially introduce him and also help kind of
repair some of the damage because jade Vance, when he
was promoting Hillbilly elogy, was super down on Donald Trump.
He presented himself not as a a enthusiastic supporter of
(15:02):
trump Ism, but kind of as an explainer of trump
Ism and a critic of trump Ism. And then most importantly,
Teal gives him a huge chunk of change to get
his primary candidacy off the ground. I think without the
fifteen million dollars that Teal puts into JD. Fance's campaign,
(15:22):
you know, we don't have JD. Vans the Senator. We
don't have JD. Vance the vice presidential candidate.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Teal's donation to JD. Vance, Elon Musk's eye popping pledge
of forty five million dollars a month to a Trump
super pack, and now the Republican ticket with Trump and
Vance at the top. It all raises a question, Max,
there's something kind of inherently transactional. I think not to
be too cynical about political donations, but you know, if
(15:48):
you're ponying up forty five million dollars a month, one
would think that you'd want something in return. What do
these leaders in Silicon Valley expect to get or want
to get from Donald Trump if he's reelected.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
They want to be left alone. For the most part,
Palenteer during the Trump years did exceedingly well, got lots
and lots of contracts. The government denied that there was
any reason other than merit for Palenteer to get those contracts,
but there were a handful of companies that were less
well politically regarded that did not get contracts. And Elon
(16:21):
Musk is, in addition to an electric car executive, a
defense contractor. There are a lot of economists right now
in twenty twenty four writing about how terrible Trump's various
proposals would be we saw, you know, earlier this week
the stock market dived because Trump made some comments Bloomberg BusinessWeek,
and it has implications for chip companies or whatever. But
(16:43):
I think what a lot of these CEOs know, and
the Trump supporters know, or at least think they know,
is that Trump didn't follow through with many of these
incredibly aggressive proposals. Trump essentially left these guys alone. When
you look at who is supporting Trump this time, they
see a president who was fairly hands off on tech,
and that's kind of like what they're hoping for. Again,
(17:05):
they don't take the rhetoric literally, you know, just as
Teal suggested.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerre.
This episode was produced by Julia Press and Andreana Tapia.
It was fact checked by Thomas lou. It was mixed
by Bill Moss. Our senior producers are Kim Gittleson and
Naomi Shaven, who also edited this episode with Stacy vanick Smith.
Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Nick cool Beemster Borr
is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts.
(17:40):
Thanks so much for listening. Please follow and review The
Big Take. Wherever you get your podcasts, it helps new
listeners find the show. We'll be back tomorrow.
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Sarah Holder
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