Tech billionaires solidify their grip on US politics with Trump's backing
Bill Kristol, the editor-in-chief of Bulwark, wrote on Monday that billionaires from the tech sector, such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, are the "new oligarchs" who backed Donald Trump to cement their influence in the Republican Party and control the US administration.
Significant donors for the Republicans and their candidate in this year's presidential elections are primarily billionaires of the "new generation," who are far removed from traditional conservatism and uninterested in maintaining the status quo, explains Kristol, a writer, commentator, and one of the most well-known American neoconservatives.
"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 notes.
According to Kristol, however, it should be considered that 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 moment to ensure influence in a potential Trump administration.
Capitalism and defence 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 when he was officially nominated as the party's presidential candidate. In it, Roosevelt said, "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 tech company CEOs from Silicon Valley are following Musk's example and starting to support Donald Trump and finance his election campaign.
The British newspaper at the time assessed that, to a large extent, the heads of tech giants hope that a possible Trump administration will not fight against their monopolistic position, will not raise their taxes, and will cease dragging companies like Meta, Google, or Apple to court as part of competition protection policies.
However, the simplest explanation for this new trend is the growing conviction that Trump will win the presidential election, and therefore, it's worth gaining influence in his circles early - emphasised the "FT".
According to the "Wall Street Journal," Musk announced that he would allocate about £37 million per month to his new super PAC, an unofficial committee supporting Trump that is not formally linked to his campaign. Fox News reported that the billionaire offers a high hourly rate - £24 - and additional bonuses to people mobilising Republican voters.
Trump announced that if he wins the election, he will appoint Musk to lead a special ("government efficiency commission") tasked with developing a budget-cut plan.
