Have you heard the one about the world’s richest man, the convicted former president and the one million-dollar giveaway? It sounds like the prelude to a joke of questionable taste, but that’s exactly what happened this week when Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk promised to randomly award a million to a registered swing state voter, every single day, until the US election.
The catch: you have to sign a petition that pledges your support for the First and Second Amendments (for those who aren’t too up on US constitutional rights, these relate to freedom of speech and the right to bear arms – both hot-button issues for Republicans). If Musk makes good on his offer, he can expect to hand out almost $20m over the duration of his one-time only deal, and he’s already presented cheques to two people in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, which Joe Biden wrestled from Donald Trump in 2020 with a razor-thin margin of 1.17 per cent.
“Sounds like your garden variety eyebrow-raising Elon Musk stunt,” you might think. Well, yes – the impossibly rich billionaire certainly has previous form. Who can forget those images of him jumping up and down at a Trump rally like a toddler who doesn’t quite have full control of their limbs? But Musk’s sudden generosity towards voters is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tech elites flexing serious and highly financially solvent political muscle – and the X owner’s explosive debut on the political scene is only a harbinger of things to come.
Take fellow Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who at one point was in business with Musk at PayPal. Thiel’s fingerprints are all over the rise of vice-presidential nominee JD Vance – the venture capitalist introduced Vance to Trump in 2021 and donated millions to his Senate campaign in 2022. Thiel also donated $1.25m to the Trump campaign in 2016 and landed a plum gig putting people forward for various administration gigs – although, it has to be said, only one of his picks successfully passed the job interview and got in to the White House.
If that hasn’t convinced you, just take a look at tech venture capitalist duo Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz – both donated $2.5m to a pro-Trump political action committee (PAC) and announced it with glee on their podcast The Ben & Marc Show. “Sorry, Mom, I know you’re going to be mad at me for this,” Horowitz said, “But, like, we have to do it.”
They’re not the only ones contributing to these pressure groups, which have the ability to raise and spend unlimited funds for or against political candidates, away from electoral rules. Musk is also bankrolling a PAC and has already blown $75m on the group so far. Then there’s the cryptocurrency bigwigs, who have sunk $134m into electing pro-crypto candidates to Congress.
Why the influx of cash? Like every corporate interest worth their billion-dollar bottom line, Silicon Valley wants to put their preferred candidate in the White House and believe that flashing the cash and helping them get elected will help to curry favour, particularly if sweeping anti-tech regulations are proposed by lawmakers.
Some of these tech titans – particularly those in the so-called “crypto clique” – believe that the Biden administration has cracked down unfairly on their business. The Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, has lobbed multiple fines and lawsuits at various crypto companies in the industry. (Not that Trump is a sure political bet – the fair-weather crypto lover once declared bitcoin to be a “scam against the dollar”.)
But, much like every nouveau riche entrant to a rarefied circle of influence, these mega-donors are prone to the odd stumble. After receiving blowback from his support of Trump, Horowitz seemed to have a change of heart – he and his wife Felicia donated $5m to the Harris campaign earlier this month. Thiel, who is regarded as a kind of visionary prophet amongst some of the tech elite, has walked back from his support of Trump and isn’t funding anybody in 2024. Even Musk’s super PAC has come in for criticism from Republican insiders over concerns that it may be bungling the Trump campaign’s canvassing efforts in swing states.
As gratifying as it may be to see these so-called tech gods with egg on their faces, these may well just be teething issues.
Over the past few decades, Silicon Valley has produced a seemingly infinite wellspring of millionaires and billionaires – so much so that my BBC World Service podcast Good Bad Billionaire is littered with the stories of Stanford dropouts who have ridden the technology boom to ludicrous wealth.
The growing ranks of these one-percenters swells every year – AI has already crowned its first few billionaires and will undoubtedly produce more in the years to come. Whatever their political allegiances, it’s clear from their lobbying efforts that most of the tech elite don’t genuinely care about making the world a better, more well-connected place – they just care about whatever best serves their interests.
According to Forbes, these billionaires command a combined wealth of $2.6trn – more than any other billionaire-producing sector – and they’re only getting richer. All of this matters, of course, because money talks in politics – and right now, tech is talking a little too loudly for many people’s tastes.
Zing Tsjeng is a journalist, non-fiction author, and podcaster
