Millions from Musk every month More and more tech billionaires are backing Trump
At first he didn't want to donate money to either candidate. Now Elon Musk is donating 45 million dollars to Trump after all - per month. He's not the only tech billionaire backing the Republican.
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- Multi-billionaire Elon Musk wants to support Donald Trump's election campaign with 45 million dollars a month.
- A few months ago, Musk announced that he would not be donating to either candidate.
- In addition to Musk, who has become friends with Trump, there are more and more supporters of the Republican in Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley is traditionally considered liberal. But now more and more tech giants are taking the side of right-wing populist presidential candidate Donald Trump - with Elon Musk leading the way. According to a newspaper report, the multi-billionaire wants to support the Republican's election campaign with 45 million dollars (around 40 million Swiss francs) a month.
Just a few months ago, Musk declared that he would not be donating to either Trump or President Joe Biden. However, he makes no secret of his political views to the world: since Musk took over the X platform (then Twitter) in 2022, it has moved significantly to the right; he himself also contributes to this with inflammatory posts.
Trump and Musk become friends
Musk and Trump met in Florida in March, and since then the entrepreneur and politician have become increasingly friendly. Just a few moments after the assassination attempt on Trump on Saturday, Musk announced that he fully supported Trump. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal then reported on the planned monthly donations of millions to the Republicans. The money will go to the fund of the lobby group America PAC.
Individual campaign donations in the USA are actually limited to 3,300 dollars per person. However, major donors can pay money to funds run by political action committees (PACs), which can spend unlimited amounts on candidates and specific causes.
In addition to Musk, lesser-known tech giants are also financing Trump - for various reasons. These include the promotion of cryptocurrencies and opposition to the supervisory authorities appointed by President Joe Biden to monitor the technology sector more closely.
Support from the "PayPal mafia"
Trump supporters from Silicon Valley are predominantly male and white. They are united in their dislike of the so-called Woke ideology, which they believe promotes diversity and equality at the expense of efficiency and excellence.
Many of these investors greeted Trump effusively at a fundraiser in June. It was hosted by David Sacks, a member of the so-called "Paypal Mafia" - a group of people who worked at the start-up in the late 1990s and have since led the growing right-wing faction of the tech industry. Musk is one of them.
His support for Trump earned Sacks a speaking slot at the Republican nominating convention currently taking place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "In my hometown of San Francisco, Democrat rule has turned the streets of our beautiful city into a cesspool of crime, homeless encampments and open drug use," Sacks told delegates.
Arch-conservative with German roots
Another member of the "Paypal mafia" is Peter Thiel, a German-born arch-conservative who already declared his support for Trump during his presidency. After Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington in 2021, Thiel announced his intention to stay out of politics. But now he has generously contributed to the election campaign of J.D. Vance, Trump's candidate for the vice presidency.
Former Facebook manager Chamath Palihapitiya was also one of the initiators of the fundraising campaign for Trump. Palihapitiya was a proponent of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC), a controversial method for companies to go public via shell companies without being bothered by regulators. This practice came to a halt after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, which slowed the venture capital business and turned many in Silicon Valley against Biden's economic policies.
"Our country is blocked"
On Tuesday, the news portal "The Information" reported that Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who run one of the best-known venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, also supported Trump. The two invest in cryptocurrencies and are fighting against plans for tighter controls. Crypto billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are also among the ex-president's backers. "Trump will end the Biden administration's war on cryptocurrencies," said Cameron Winklevoss in June.
Trump's fellow campaigners in Silicon Valley also include executives from Palantir, a data analysis company co-founded by Thiel. Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir, is a shareholder in the Trump fund and criticizes Biden's policies as too left-wing. "Our country is gridlocked because these crazy people are in power," he recently told CNBC.
