Tech titans back Trump: New wave of political power shifts
Bill Kristol, the editor-in-chief of Bulwark, wrote on Monday that technology billionaires such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are described as the "new oligarchs" who supported Donald Trump to cement their influence within the Republican Party and gain control over the U.S. administration.
Significant donors to the Republican Party and their candidate in this year's presidential election are largely "new generation" billionaires who diverge from traditional conservatism and are not interested in maintaining the status quo, writes Kristol, a well-known American neoconservative writer and commentator.
"It’s not that I had an excessively high opinion of the virtues or judgment of the super-wealthy. But I assumed that, having done well in America over the last few decades, they’d be a 'conservative' force in more or less upholding the current political and economic order," the author observes.
According to Kristol, Trump, and his vice-presidential candidate were supported by "the new oligarchs: Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and the tech bros, as well as some from a previous generation who’d been newly radicalized." They understood that now is the opportune time to secure influence in a potential Trump administration.
Capitalism and defense of democracy
The author warns that the combination of "oligarch arrogance" with "populist demagoguery" threatens America's political and economic order.
Kristol recalls Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech at the Democratic Convention in 1936, where he became the party's official presidential candidate. Roosevelt stated, "It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself."
Saving a healthy, liberal, capitalist democracy will need "a recognition of the healthy elements of a social democratic tradition that some of us have neglected in recent decades (...). The defense of democratic capitalism is too important to be left to the capitalists," Kristol concludes.
In June, the Financial Times pointed out that a growing group of investors and CEOs from Silicon Valley tech companies are following Musk's example and beginning to support Donald Trump and finance his election campaign.
The British newspaper assessed that, to a large extent, the heads of tech giants hope that a potential Trump administration won't oppose their monopolistic position, won't raise their taxes, and will stop taking companies like Meta, Google, or Apple to court as part of competition protection policies.
However, the simplest explanation for this new trend is a growing belief that Trump will win the presidential election, making it strategically advantageous to gain influence with him early on, emphasized the "FT."
According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk announced that he would allocate around $45 million per month for his new so-called super PAC, which unofficially supports Trump and is not formally linked with his campaign. Meanwhile, Fox News reported that the billionaire is offering a high hourly rate—$30—and additional bonuses to people involved in mobilizing Republican voters.
Trump has announced that if he wins the election, he will appoint Musk to lead a special commission, the "government efficiency commission," to develop a budget-cut plan.
