Silicon Valley is descending on Washington in droves as tech leaders take on key formal and unofficial roles in President-elect Donald Trump's second term.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is the most famous technology figure in Trump's inner circle, but Silicon Valley executives are numerous in the president-elect's administration.
Earlier this month, President Trump selected venture capitalist David Sachs as White House czar of artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies, a new role dedicated to steering the administration's policy on those two technologies.
“We feel this is a turning point. David Sachs here may be a small part of that, but he represents the connection between the tech community and President-elect Trump,” Appian co. said Matt Calkins, Founder and CEO. , a cloud computing and enterprise software company.
The president-elect also nominated Jacob Helberg, senior advisor to the CEO of Palantir Technologies, to serve as assistant secretary of state for economic growth, energy, and environment.
Jim O'Neill, a close ally of biotech investor and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, will join the administration as deputy secretary of Health and Human Services.
According to Politico, President Trump is reportedly considering hiring Shyam Sankar, Palantir's chief technology officer, to lead the Pentagon's research and technology division, and co-founded Anduril. Trey Stevens, who is also known for his role in the Pentagon, is also reportedly being considered for a position at the Pentagon.
Most notably, Musk and fellow tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, but Musk's influence extends far beyond the Cost Cutting Board. It seems so.
This week, the billionaire's pressure campaign against Congress' year-end funding deal succeeded in sinking the stopgap bill, leading some to jokingly refer to him as “President Musk.”
Many of Trump's Silicon Valley picks supported his campaign, underscoring the president-elect's determination to reward loyalty to the new administration.
“It makes sense that we're going to have a lot of these people in the administration,” said Andrew Loquay, senior research analyst at Beacon Policy Advisors.
“Mr. Trump is someone who has shown that he values loyalty, so I think he is trying to prioritize loyalty in his nominations and selections,” he added.
Mr. Musk has donated at least $250 million to Mr. Trump's bid, much of it to his own pro-Trump super PAC, which played a key role in the campaign's vote-getting efforts in battleground states. .
Mr. Sachs endorsed Mr. Trump in June and hosted a fundraiser for the Republican candidate in San Francisco that raised millions of dollars. It is noteworthy that venture capitalists, who had previously supported the Republican Party, supported Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, in 2016.
Eight years ago, few people in Silicon Valley supported Mr. Trump. Mr. Thiel almost single-handedly supported Republican candidates at a time when the tech industry was considered completely blue.
But Trump and the Republican Party seem to have made inroads into Silicon Valley roads in recent years. Several high-tech executives who previously supported Democrats have endorsed Trump's bid for president this term.
Helberg was once a prominent Democratic donor, having given to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is running for the Democratic nomination in 2020, Vice President Harris, and even President Biden.
In recent years, Palantir advisers have begun supporting Republican candidates in major Senate races. He endorsed Trump this cycle and attended Sachs' fundraiser, saying it was evidence the former president was “creating a generational realignment among technology founders and other key groups.” Ta.
“We've come a long way since the Obama era, when Silicon Valley was perceived as really pro-Democrat,” Lokey said.
Leaders of the world's largest technology companies are also taking a very different approach to President Trump ahead of his second term.
In 2016, then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos criticized President Trump, calling for him to “restraint” his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and saying that suggesting he would not concede in the election “erodes democracy.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, at the time the company was still known simply as Facebook, also explicitly criticized the then-presidential candidate, saying, “People and nations are turning inward.'' '' expressed concern.
At Facebook's annual conference in 2016, Mr. “We hear you,” he said, adding, “Instead of building walls, we can help.” People build bridges. ”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai also spoke out against President Trump's call to end Muslim immigration to the United States at the end of 2015.
Now, the same tech industry leaders who once criticized Trump are traveling to his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida to meet with the president-elect, and some have donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund. are donating.
The steady stream of Silicon Valley titans descending on the Palm Beach resort for meetings includes Bezos, Zuckerberg and Pichai, as well as Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. , TikTok CEO Xu Zi Chiu, and Google founder Sergey Brin.
Some of this shift may be strategic, as the industry seeks to avoid Mr. Trump's well-known ire against those he views as adversaries. They may also hope that the incoming administration will loosen up on tech companies, which have come under intense scrutiny under the Biden administration.
“They've seen what it's like when the tech community is distanced from the administration, but they haven't tasted it,” Calkins said. “And I don’t think they want that, especially given what it’s like to be outside of President Trump.”
“I think this is a practical move,” he continued. “It's a real political gesture, but it's also a constructive gesture.”
President Trump has indicated that he may support loosening regulations, especially regarding AI. According to the Washington Post, he has promised to repeal Biden's AI executive order, and his allies are planning new executive orders during the campaign to reduce AI regulations and accelerate the development of military technology. It is reported that they are preparing.
But the president-elect's choice for a prominent antitrust role and his history on the issue may not give Big Tech companies the full reprieve they were looking for.
