As Silicon Valley eyes US election, Elon Musk is not the only tech bro to worry about

There was a time when the tech industry wasn’t much interested in politics. -- It didn’t need to be because politics at the time wasn’t interested in it.

Accordingly, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple grew to their gargantuan proportions in a remarkably permissive political environment.

When democratic governments were not being dazzled by the technology, they were asleep at the wheel:

Antitrust regulators had been captured by the legalistic doctrine peddled by #Robert #Bork and his enablers in the University of Chicago Law School
the doctrine that there was little wrong with corporate dominance unless it was harming consumers.

The test for harm was price-gouging,
and since Google’s and Facebook’s services were “free”, where was the harm, exactly

And though Amazon’s products weren’t free, the company was ruthlessly undercutting competitors’ prices and pandering to customers’ need for next-day delivery.

Again: where was the harm in that

It took an unconscionable time for this regulatory slumber to end,
but end it finally did on Joe Biden’s watch.

US regulators, led by #Jonathan #Kanter at the Department of Justice (DOJ), and #Lina #Khan at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC),
rediscovered their mojo.

️And then in August the DoJ dramatically won an antitrust lawsuit
in which the judge ruled that Google was indeed a “monopolist”
which had taken anticompetitive steps to preserve its 90% share of search.

The DOJ is now proposing “remedies” for this abusive behaviour,
ranging from obvious ones like barring Google from contracts such as the one it has with Apple to make it the default search engine on its devices
to the “nuclear” option of breaking up the company.

The shock of this verdict to the tech industry has been palpable,
and has led some movers and shakers in the Valley to think that maybe electing Trump might not be such a bad idea after all.

Some of the loudmouths like Marc #Andreessen
– and, of course, #Musk
– have explicitly come out for Trump,
but at least 14 other tech moguls are providing more discreet support.

And although quite a few tech leaders have – belatedly – come out for Kamala Harris,
some are doing so with some reservations.
Reid #Hoffmann, the founder of LinkedIn, for example, donated $10m to her campaign, but says he wants her to fire Lina Khan from the FTC.

The most dramatic evidence of how Silicon Valley lost its political virginity, though,
comes from the extraordinary amounts of money that #cryptocurrency companies have been putting into the election campaign.
The New Yorker reports that crypto companies have already sunk
“more than a hundred million dollars”
into so-called SuperPACS supporting crypto-friendly candidates.

The interesting thing is that this money seems to be aimed not so much at influencing who wins the presidency
as at ensuring that the “right” people get elected to the House and the Senate.
This suggests a level of political nous that would have been disdained by the early pioneers of the tech industry in the 1960s.

Technology might not have been political then; but it sure is just now.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/20/as-silicon-valley-eyes-us-election-elon-musk-is-not-the-only-tech-bro-to-worry-about?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Elon Musk and Donald Trump have reportedly been speaking together frequently in recent months,
and their bitterly reactionary politics obviously align.

Within days, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk was committing a remarkable
$45 million per month to "America PAC",
a new pro-Trump super PAC that would
also be supported by Palantir cofounder Joe #Lonsdale, Mark #Zuckerberg castoffs Tyler and Cameron #Winklevoss,
and several members of what’s sometimes called the Paypal mafia,
a right-wing network of tech industry leaders with Peter #Thiel as its presiding majordomo.

If, two years ago The New York Times could make the dubious claim that tech giants like Musk were hard to pin down politically, there is no room now for even that level of credulousness.

It’s official:
Silicon Valley has been fully MAGA-pilled, and the tech authoritarians are bringing their money with them.

Trump unveiled as his VP pick Ohio Senator J.D. #Vance, a former Thiel employee and venture capitalist who owes his election to the Senate to a $15 million campaign cash infusion from Thiel.

For the tech industry, whose rightward swerve has been hard to ignore this campaign cycle, the Vance selection was sensational.

“We have a former tech VC in the White House,” crowed Delian #Asparouhov, a partner at Thiel’s Founders Fund who once drew notice for sharing a comic by the neo-Nazi cartoonist known as StoneToss. “Greatest country on Earth baby.”

Musk, who had reportedly been agitating privately for Trump to choose Vance, celebrated the pick on X.

“Resounds with victory,” he wrote.
Vivek #Ramaswamy posted wistful, supportive remarks about being drinking buddies with Vance at Yale Law School.

Using the term of endearment favored by his fellow mega-rich “All-In” podcast hosts,
Chamath #Palihapitiya celebrated the news: “A Bestie adjacent as the VP?!?!?!”

Thiel, who is infamous for his stated aversion to democracy, has claimed that he is sitting out this election,
but his baton has been passed to a gaggle of ornery venture capitalists and tech CEOs whom you may recognize from their grievance-laden X posts: #Lonsdale, David #Sacks, Shaun #Maguire, Marc #Andreessen, et al.

They are all very rich and control a lot of capital beyond their own.

They are also wielding increasing influence over the Trump campaign: Sacks spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/silicon-valley-trump-support-donations/

Imagine you could choose your citizenship the same way you choose your gym membership.

That’s a vision of the not-too-distant future put forward by #Balaji #Srinivasan.

Balaji – who is mostly just known by his first name – is a rockstar to the #cryptobros.

A serial tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist who believes that pretty much everything governments currently do,
tech can do better.

I watched Balaji outline his idea last autumn, at a vast conference hall on the outskirts of Amsterdam.

“We start new companies like Google;
we start new communities like Facebook;
we start new currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum;
can we start new countries?”
he asked,
as he ambled on stage,
dressed in a slightly baggy grey suit and loose tie.

He looked like a middle manager in a corporate accounts department.

But Balaji is a former partner at the giant Silicon Valley venture capital firm #Andreessen #Horowitz.

He has backers with deep pockets.

“Imagine a thousand different startups, each of them replacing a different legacy institution,” Balaji told the audience.

“They exist alongside the establishment in parallel,
they’re pulling away users,
they’re gaining strength,
until they become the new thing.”

If startups could replace all these different institutions, Balaji reasoned,
they could replace countries too.

He calls his idea the “#network #state”: startup nations.

Here’s how it would work:

communities form
– on the internet initially
– around a set of shared interests or values.

Then they acquire land,
becoming physical “countries” with their own laws.

These would exist alongside existing nation states, and eventually, replace them altogether.

You would choose your nationality like you choose your broadband provider.

The network state movement doesn’t just want pliant existing governments so that companies can run their own affairs.

It wants to replace governments with companies.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyl171lyewo

Crypto Comes For Sherrod Brown:

$32 Million in Ads Boosting His Opponent

Crypto companies are spending $800,000 a day to take out one of their chief critics in Congress — and replace him with an ally

Late 2023 was not a great time for the crypto industry.

In November, #Sam #Bankman-#Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, learned that no amount of Michael Lewis gymnastics could save him from being convicted on seven charges of fraud and conspiracy.

He was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison after disappearing $11 billion of other people’s money.

The following month, Sen. #Elizabeth #Warren sent letters to three crypto industry giants, the Blockchain Association, Coin Center, and Coinbase, criticizing them for undermining efforts to rein in crypto’s use in #terrorist #financing.

Around the same time, crypto groups began making noises about spending money in 2024 to defeat Ohio Sen. #Sherrod #Brown, the current ️chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Brown is a profound skeptic of the industry and signed off on Warren holding hearings on crypto’s possible links to terrorism.

Asked about the threats, Brown, a mop-topped Democrat with a raspy voice and wry sense of humor, said he was unconcerned.

But Brown had no idea of what was to come.

Rolling Stone has learned that crypto interests are set to spend $32 million on TV ads promoting #Bernie #Moreno, Brown’s Republican opponent, by the end of September, according to Democratic media buyers.

The spending began on August 22
— meaning the crypto interests are spending more than $800,000 per day to flip the Ohio Senate seat, and potentially control of the Senate.

“Outside groups are spending record amounts to try to defeat Sherrod because they know he will always fight for Ohio, not special interests,” said Reeves Oyster, a Brown campaign spokesperson.

So far, the ads have been primarily fluffy positive spots boosting Moreno; some of the spots fearmonger about immigrants and China.

Tracing the roots of "Defend American Jobs" can be as convoluted as tracing crypto currency itself.

The group is effectively a subsidiary of #Fairshake
— the second-largest fundraiser among Super PACs this season according to OpenSecrets,
with over $200 million in its coffers.

The bulk of Fairshake’s money has been donated by three crypto monoliths: Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, and Ripple.

#Coinbase and its affiliates have donated $86 million.

The founders of the venture capital firm #Andreessen #Horowitz have together given $44 million.

#Ripple has contributed $25 million. (The #Winklevoss #Twins, who donated nearly $5 million to Fairshake, previously tried to donate $1 million in bitcoin to Donald Trump
— well beyond what is legal.)

Coinbase’s CEO #Brian #Armstrong has led the latest charge to bring crypto into the political mainstream,
hosting a Super Tuesday rally with Nas in Los Angeles where he proclaimed,
“More Americans own crypto than own electric vehicles or are in a union
— yet some people in D.C. are still underestimating how much and how many people care about crypto.

In 2024, it will become clear that being anti-crypto is bad politics.”

Rep. #Katie #Porter found that out the hard way.

During the California Democratic Senate primary, Fairshake spent over $10 million against her campaign, apparently because she had the temerity to question the energy uses of the industry.

Porter didn’t make the runoff, losing to Adam Schiff, a longtime collaborator with crypto who received an ‘A’ rating from "Stand With Crypto", a self-described grassroots advocacy hub nonprofit led by Coinbase and fronted by Armstrong.

Porter got an ‘F.’
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/sherrod-brown-crypto-bernie-moreno-millions-1235102478/

Silicon Valley is maximizing profit at everyone’s expense.

It doesn’t have to be this way

A public battle has broken out among the titans of Silicon Valley.

One side, led by #Elon #Musk, PayPal co-founder #Peter #Thiel and venture capitalists #Marc #Andreessen and #Ben #Horowitz,
is backing Donald #Trump for president.

The other, led by LinkedIn co-founder #Reid #Hoffman, is behind Kamala #Harris.

We should not make the mistake of thinking this is a battle over ideology or policy.

It’s a battle to maximize Silicon Valley’s profits regardless of the consequences for society.

On this objective, both sides agree.

Andreessen Horowitz is one of the largest investors in #cryptocurrency and #artificial #intelligence,
and Trump has signaled that he would keep the government out of its business.

Meanwhile, soon after donating $7 million to a Harris super PAC,
Hoffman called for her to oust Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman #Lina #Khan,
who has brought antitrust cases against Big Tech and introduced rules to protect workers.

Silicon Valley, a longtime engine of human achievement,
has become a significant source of human harm.

Aware of the gathering backlash, its leaders have dived into the political fray to protect their wealth.

Two Silicon Valley obsessions threaten the most damage:
creating human #addiction to increase profits
and #eliminating #humans altogether to decrease costs.

Social media platforms,
which started out by bringing old friends together and giving voice to the otherwise powerless,
have become “social slot machines”
compelling excessive use.

Gaming companies have a similar objective.

Teenagers today spend more than eight hours a day on screens,
fueling digital advertising revenues that reached $225 billion last year.

Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence revolution promises to cut labor costs.

A recent study by MIT economist #Daron #Acemoglu found that 50% to 70% of the growth in inequality between more and less educated workers can be attributed to automation.

Poverty rates in Silicon Valley’s home state are rising
even as AI makes Big Tech richer.

The broader prospects are equally concerning.

AI is enabling killer robots, autonomous weapons and massively destructive misinformation.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-08-30/silicon-valley-big-tech-profit-ai-elon-musk-reid-hoffman-peter-thiel-andreessen-horowitz-kamala-harris-donald-trump-election-2024