Why Trump Is Finding New Friends In Silicon Valley

SAN FRANCISCO — Donald Trump’s visit to San Francisco this week highlights a rising power player in California: the nerd right.

The former president traveled to San Francisco Thursday to court a small but vocal group of sympathetic tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who, following the likes of Elon Musk, are embracing Trump's bombastic but business-friendly platforms in rebuke of President Joe Biden and Democrats' policies.

It’s not surprising that business leaders would favor policies that benefit their bottom lines, but this new faction is brasher than the typical boardroom set. As self-styled iconoclasts, they loudly rebel against California's liberal tradition. Backing Trump helps scratch that contrarian itch.

The $300,000-per-person fundraiser, hosted at billionaire venture capitalist David Sacks’ Pacific Heights mansion, included many of the Silicon Valley elite that have bristled at Biden’s approach to antitrust enforcement, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. Co-host Chamath Palihapitiya, an early Facebook executive turned tech investor who has long touted the digital currency sector, last week on his podcastspoke positively about the former president.

“President Trump in the last few weeks has become incredibly pro-crypto,” he said.

A key difference between this newer cohort and the ultra-wealthy Bay Area class that has traditionally tried to shape business regulation is their willingness to freelance on other issues. Sacks has continually criticized the U.S. spending on Ukraine, for example, accusing Biden of prolonging and escalating the conflict with Russia. 

The approach to foreign policy was among the reasons that Sacks on Thursday night gave his official endorsement to Trump, also citing the economy, the border, and what he sees as Democrats’ use of the justice system for political gain — all issues where “the Biden administration has veered badly off course and where I believe President Trump can lead us back,” he said.

The rapid acceleration of AI has meanwhile put Democrats who want to contain it at odds with the most regulation-adverse leaders of the tech sector.

Just this week, news broke that the feds are now setting the table for antitrust probes into Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI — the largest tech companies developing AI. The push has been led in part by Lina Khan, the Biden-appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission, who for months has expressed a desire to weed out what she sees as potential anti-competitive practices stewing in Silicon Valley.

All this while the industry is shoring up its defenses in Sacramento, looking to fight off Democratic legislators’ attempts to tame AI with new policies on risk assessments, liability and transparency.

Trump isn’t always a perfect match for this group either: There’s a divide among tech giants on regulating AI, with some like Musk echoing Democrats’ calls for safeguards as well as aligning against Trump on electric cars. And Silicon Valley is still well stocked with Democratic mega-donors. Biden has regularly fundraised in the area, and just last month was hosted by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.

One former Trump backer, billionaire Peter Thiel, is notably taking a step back from politics this year.

Sacks, on his podcast, said Trump has broad support in Silicon Valley — and that he hoped his event emboldens others to speak up.

“Maybe it creates a preference cascade and it becomes acceptable to acknowledge the truth,” he said. “Which is that a lot of people support Trump.”

Dustin Gardiner reported from San Francisco. Lara Korte reported from Sacramento.

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