Why tech companies support Trump

Donald Trump, who became a reprobate with many in the business world during his presidency, has found new allies among technology leaders as his path back to the White House takes shape.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, became the former president's biggest celebrity backer ever by endorsing him and getting involved in his fundraising efforts.

The move was the culmination of a growing backing for Trump from the tech industry, with influential venture capitalists and tech leaders, including former Democratic donor Alison Huynh, investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and the cryptocurrency giants, the Winklevoss twins, publicly voicing their support for Trump over the past few weeks.

Support for Trump is not universal.

But it marks a significant shift from just a few years ago, when companies rushed to distance themselves from Trump in the weeks following the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol.

The shift is particularly striking in Silicon Valley, where executives have lost their jobs for supporting Republican Party policies banning same-sex marriage.

Speaking at a cryptocurrency event at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Nicholas Longo, 27, of asset management firm Fortuna Investors, said he felt stigmatized when he voted for Trump four years ago.

“It would have been unwise to voice my support for Donald Trump in 2020,” he said. But now, all that has changed.

The shifting political winds have been evident for some time on social media, where Musk and investor David Sachs have been among those regularly scorning President Joe Biden.

But their decision to donate money to the Trump campaign will significantly expand their influence beyond their traditional ties and will have a major impact on the election.

Support from technology industry leaders has helped Trump close the fundraising gap he faced against Biden a few months ago.

“At the end of April, he was really behind and struggling,” said Sarah Breiner, research director at Open Secrets. “The last eight weeks have really made the campaign look very different.”

She said the pledges sent a strong signal that the tides were turning, noting that signs of victory at the polls often help sway potential donors to make decisions.

“Success begets success,” she said.

Democrats have claimed the lion's share of venture capitalist donations in recent elections, according to OpenSecrets data, and Biden's decision to drop out of the race is expected to spark further interest.

But Trump's new friends remain devoted.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk has pledged to donate $45 million per month to the Trump campaign, making him one of its largest donors this year.

The billionaire acknowledged his work in fundraising related to the campaign but denied the amount.

“I believe in an America where individual liberty and individual talent are maximized. That used to be the case for Democrats, but the pendulum has now swung to the Republicans,” Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns, formerly known as Twitter, after Biden's departure.

Analysts say the company has support from key figures in the tech industry. This suggests that Trump is broadening his support.

“Trump has convinced Republicans that he's not as bad as they say he is, and now we're seeing that spreading even more,” said Sal Russo, a veteran California-based Republican consultant.

“Do I think he'll win Santa Clara County? No, but he'll do better,” Russo said.

Technology industry leaders They are concerned about the Biden administration's crackdown on cryptocurrencies and its cautious approach to artificial intelligence, including a recent executive order requiring companies to comply with government AI safety standards.

“Misguided government policies are now the biggest threat to little tech,” Andreessen and Horowitz, who invest in startups and also own major crypto and AI companies, wrote in a recent essay. “It's time to stand up.”

Musk's decision to support Trump may seem like a surprising about-face for someone who has previously steered clear of political donations.

He once reportedly stood in line for six hours to shake President Barack Obama's hand, and in 2018 described himself as a political centrist.

In 2017, he broke with President Trump over climate change policy and was one of the first members to quit the White House Business Council.

Trump's company, Tesla, makes electric cars, which Trump has repeatedly criticized as expensive and impractical.

But Musk has long resented oversight from financial regulators.

Trump's criticism of Biden intensified two years ago when he was not invited to a White House business meeting, telling CNBC in an interview that he felt unfairly “ignored.”

On social media, he has become increasingly active in weighing in on other debates, including coronavirus lockdowns, the war in Ukraine, China policy and transgender issues.

Musk, whose rocket company SpaceX does billions of dollars of government business, also has to consider his relationship with the Trump administration.

Democrats say the changes in the tech industry are motivated by self-interest and point to Biden's proposed new taxes on billionaires and unrealized capital gains.

He has also alienated some people with his support for labor unions and his administration's willingness to go after tech companies in antitrust and other lawsuits.

Mark Cuban, a businessman who supports the Democratic Party, suggested the pull towards Trump was a “Bitcoin play,” a bet that the cryptocurrency would rise in value in the face of what Democrats say will be high inflation and political turmoil under a Trump administration.

Neil Malhotra, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business who studies the political views of technology founders, said it's a mistake to confuse the “most vocal people on Twitter” with the industry as a whole, or with industry elites whose views have historically straddled both parties.

A 2017 survey by his team found that tech leaders leaned toward Democrats on issues like same-sex marriage, abortion and even taxes, but leaned toward Republicans when it came to strongly opposing regulation.

He noted that since the survey, new social issues have come to the forefront, including policing, education and transgender rights, and San Francisco has become a key battleground in those debates, sparking backlash from the tech industry.

“There's a suspicion that most people in the venture capital industry are still left of center,” Malhotra said, but he added that “there's definitely been a movement toward the Republican Party.”

Evan Schwartztrauber, an adviser to the think tank Foundation for American Innovation, said tech industry leaders expect Trump to take a more hands-off approach on crypto and AI.

But the gamble is not without risk.

As president, Trump won praise from the business community for lowering taxes, imposing anti-labor policies on workers' rights officials and generally avoiding regulation.

But Trump has taken a decidedly more interventionist approach to the economy and tech than previous administrations, starting a trade war with China, ordering a ban on TikTok and initiating several ongoing anti-monopoly lawsuits against tech companies.

Since then, Trump has pushed the Republican Party further in that direction, while at the same time softening and reversing his stance on issues like the TikTok ban and cryptocurrency.

Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow for technology policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Trump may be shifting his stance on some technology issues, noting that he now owns social media platforms.

Trump's pick for vice president, J.D. Vance, also previously worked in venture capital and received key support from PayPal's Peter Thiel in his 2022 Senate campaign.

But she warned that efforts to distinguish between the interests of “big” and “little” tech will be difficult when it comes time to govern.

David Brockman, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said Trump has found success in the business world by presenting himself as more moderate on social issues such as abortion than others in his party.

After bragging that he was “proudly responsible” for eliminating Roe v. Wade protections, Trump rejected claims pushed by many conservatives that he would support a nationwide ban and said the issue should be left to individual states.

But Professor Brookman noted that while Trump ran a relatively moderate campaign in 2016, he has adopted more radical policies since taking office.

These undermined his public support and ultimately weakened the GOP's traditional source of support: Wall Street.

“Tech companies and other business leaders are banking on a lot of Trump's outlandish policy ideas, and they haven't come to fruition,” Brockman said. “But they could come to fruition.”

Outside of tech, President Trump supports radical reforms, including mass deportations of illegal immigrants, drastic cuts to the government workforce, and a 10% tariff on all goods entering the country.

But Garrett Johnson, co-founder of the Foundation for American Innovation and now an executive at a venture-backed technology company, said he believes more of the tech and business elite have come to sympathize with Trump's ideas over time.

“Trump singlehandedly made the China threat to our country a national talking point,” he said. “He was right, and everyone else had to follow suit.”

“So I think that's definitely part of the dynamic of the atmosphere changing,” he said. “Was he right on everything? No, but on a lot of the big issues Trump was right.”

Jude Sherin reports from the Republican National Convention