The Richest People in Silicon Valley Are Backing Trump After He Got Shot ⇥ rollingstone.com

Miles Klee, Rolling Stone:

Whether the stigma attached to MAGA culture is truly softening in deep-blue California, it’s clear that players large and small in its business culture feel emboldened and energized by the attempt on Trump’s life. Musk and his far-right Twitter friends have meanwhile done everything they can to elevate those voices and convince other people reluctant to share their admiration for Trump that the time to start is now. […]

Some of the richest people in the United States — including Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the Winklevii, and David Sacks — are firmly behind this Republican nightmare ticket, but this should not surprise anyone. Aside from the odious behaviour of these specific individuals over the years aligning with the Trump ethos, wealthy Americans generally backed the Trump/Pence campaign in 2020 and in 2016.

Whether and how this trend fits in California is murkier, as fully one-third of respondents said they had an income of $100,000 or greater; I could not find a state-level breakdown for higher incomes, let alone one at a county level. But it should not be too surprising for financial elites to back this ticket. Some of them did in 2016; more did in 2020. Trump is an increasingly safe choice for the faux contrarians of Silicon Valley.

Update: Steven Levy, Wired:

Andreessen and Horowitz are smart enough to know this, so their objections come off as both paranoid and self-interested. But I think there’s something more happening, an element that’s often cited to explain why some Silicon Valley people have turned to Trump: They resent how the media, some of the “woke” population, and left-leaning politicians don’t appreciate them, and even vilify them. In Trumpland, their wealth and the wisdom supposedly associated with it is respected.

For all anyone talks of prioritizing facts over feelings, a whole lot of people would do well to acknowledge they have emotional stakes in a situation. The tech industry is no longer being treated as an endless factory of greatness by the public and the press. Not all criticisms are valid or warranted, but nobody should believe the “pseudo-populist effort” of the Trump/Vance ticket when the people with financial stakes do not.