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“Peter is very, very pleased.”
It was an consequential week for the Silicon Valley moguls who have vowed to support Donald Trump in his bid to return to the presidency .
render the collision course of tech and Trump , when Leda Health founding father Madison Campbell asked me if I ’d deal to buy an redundant slate to the Republican National Convention from her , I harmonize . During the four years I attended the event in Milwaukee , I saw the Valley ’s presence everywhere : Jacob Helberg — venture capitalist Keith Rabois ’ husband and former President of the United States Donald Trump ’s evangelist — watched the Republican National Convention from his own private box that overleap the floor , donning a ruddy yarmulke with “ Trump ” stamped on the boundary . InvestorDavid Sacks took the stage , orate to the hundreds of delegates decked out in red . Peter Thiel ’s protégé and former speculation capitalist J.D. Vance sat beaming by Trump ’s side .
In the bright lit hallway , flood with Texas delegates donned in cowboy lid and jeans , Trump superfans in American - signal flag suit of clothes and the occasional woman in a red ball gown , I chance Blake Masters , another Thiel protégé running for office in Arizona . He demur when I asked if he , Vance and Thiel have a group textbook schmooze . But he did smile and say , “ Peter is very , very pleased,”referring to Vance ’s veep nomination .
All week at the RNC , I examine an event defined by Silicon Valley . But I also saw the tech elite experience flashes of discord between their dreamed - of resultant and those of the working - social class MAGA supporters overflowing the hall . Take Sacks , who hasbeen critical of unions , speak at 9 p.m. — only for Sean O’Brien , general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in America , to close out the Nox a few hour later .
On the first day of the pattern , I met Campbell at the Pfister Hotel , where Trump was reportedly staying . Secret Service agents delineate the doors , and a procession of armored new wave continuously pulled up to overlook off congresswoman . ( I passed Alabama senator Katie Boyd Britt as I walked in . ) Every night , delegate and lobbyist sipped espresso martini at the hotel saloon and talked shop beneath the oil - painted mural sky .
Campbell , whose company creates at - home grounds - assembling kits for rape and sexual violation victim , fill me in on her own political journey . She ’s a libertarian ( and famously dated infamous former hedge fund libertarian Martin Shkreli ) who lately doubled down on her hometown of Pittsburgh . She won the Miss Pittsburgh pageantry last year and then lead off working closely with local conservativist . Recently , she ’s opened her thinker to a spot in the Trump government activity , interviewing to be in Project 2025 ’s Presidential Personnel Database , an effort by the Heritage Foundation to centralize potential Trump governance force .
Campbell , who had been selected last minute as an alternative Pennsylvania delegate , tell me she ’s not a die - hard Trump supporter . Rather , she thinks he ’ll be beneficial for business organisation like her own . “ Even if I harmonize with some of the policies of Trump , I do n’t intend I needfully agree with him as a person . And now it calculate like , you know , it ’s Trump for president , ” she say . “ So here we are . ”
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Tense contradictions
To get to the conventionality heart from the hotel , we passed horde of cops on boats floating in the Milwaukee River , on bikes in the street , on Equus caballus milling around the security circumference . We weaved around a gang of protestors waving Palestinian flags .
After we arrived , I pushed through a crowd of newsman to ask Vivek Ramaswamy — former presidential nominee , investor and founder of biotech company Roivant Sciences — what he thought of Silicon Valley ’s support for Trump . He mark the announcements of Trump supporting from Silicon Valley . He said he utter with Musk “ oftentimes about our share passions for reviving this land . ” ( TheWSJ reported this weekthat Musk is donating hard to the Trump Super PAC , althoughMusk has publically disputed the report ) . He sound out that other tech elites have expressed to him that they “ are gon na hail around this yr ” and bode “ a tidal wave this summertime , ” he said .
There ’s good rationality for Ramaswamy ’s optimism . While many Trump supporters among the tech elite group have always traditionally leaned correctly , there have been surprise endorsements . For instance , Ben Horowitz and his a16z co - founder Marc Andreessen in public announcedthis week that they would be supporting Trump , rather than softly donate .
The GOP has n’t exactly been subtle about courting Silicon Valley , either . Earlier this month , the partyreleasedits platform , highlighting support for crypto development “ free from Government Surveillance and Control . ” Trump is also scheduled to speak at Nashville ’s Bitcoin Conference later this month — inspire investor Mark Cuban to offer up a misanthropic take on why techies are turning to Trump . “ It ’s a Bitcoin play,”he tweeted , explaining that it ’s all about driving Bitcoin prices higher .
The platform also supports “ AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing . ”
Of course , politicians at the RNC had a more classical down - with - regulation principle . “ Just like with Elon Musk and the rest , [ Trump ] supports free speech , he digest the liberal market place , ” Florida Rep. Cory Mills tell apart me , “ not the ideas of stimulate insurance drive our secret sphere . ”
Still , Silicon Valley ’s embracing of Trump is fill with tense contradictions : Trump ’s government was actually fairly problematic on crypto ( he evenbanned Venezuela ’s crypto coin ) , and Trump himself hasderided subsidy for electric vehicles . Even Vance ’s track record is questionable in damage of being pro - tech , and he ’s campaignedon being anti - large Tech . “I judge I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I imagine is doing a passably good job , ” Vance saidin February . Khan ’s time at the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) has been marked by aggressive pursuit of antitrust cases block acquisitions .
Despite all that , Daniel Castro , vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation , told me that Biden ’s antitrust bar and protagonism for AI ordinance has force the already - libertarian - leaning parts of Silicon further and further away .
“ The Biden administration should be careful not to kind of demonise Silicon Valley , ” he say .
It might be too late .
Inside the VIP party
Everywhere Campbell and I move , we could see Silicon Valley in the MAGA - poetry . Outside the convention center , we campaign into Conor Sweeney , a Snapchat software engineer , wear thin a snakeskin belt . We natter with him shortly after Vance was announced as the vice presidential pick . “ Anything with Peter Thiel turns to atomic number 79 , ” he said .
At night , in the Pfister ’s mahogany tree - lined bar , Campbell strike up a conversation with Jeff Miller , a powerful political strategist and close intimate of former House loudspeaker system Kevin McCarthy . Campbell move over Miller the pitching for her household Brassica napus - kit evidence ship’s company , and he steered the conversation to his stance on abortion . ( He was opposed to it but did agree that there should be exceptions in the fount of “ ravishment , incest , and life sentence of the female parent ” ) . That conversation ended with a tantalizing hope to get her passes to the high muckamuck after - party . by and by , I noticed that Miller had like an Instagram exposure of Campbell during the swimsuit competition of the Miss Pittsburgh rivalry .
The next night , Miller seek Campbell out in the Pfister measure and handed her a glossy party invitation , consummate with a drafting of a grinning ringleader . Campbell and I take an Uber to a rooftop natal day company for Indiana Rep. Jim Banks , where we were held up by Secret Service broker sending their lookup dogs to sniffle each vehicle . The line of cars was back up after the officers discover a cup of tea of white gunpowder in the car in front of us . ( We had a raucous argument over the fortune of the pulverisation while we waited but never rule out more ) .
The company was a dull assembly of mostly staffer in suits sip their beer . But at 1 ante meridiem , we have a car over to the main attracter : a warehouse bedeck out in pink lights on the outskirts of townsfolk , where the big GOP donor and power players went every night to unwind . We run into Miller again , hem in by women , and then hung out with CJ Pearson , a 21 - year - old button-down influencer , one of about 70 such influencers at the RNC .
Ironically , given the Trump giving medication ’s anti - China stanceand his attack to blackball TikTok , he ’s now on the popular app as a candidate , as are the immature influencers .
“ If we ’re in the business of truly advance elections , then we have to go to where young mass are , and new mass are on TikTok and young people are on Instagram , ” Pearson said . “ I ’m not a buff of the Chinese Communist Party . But what I am a fan of is changing the hearts and minds of America ’s immature people . ”
Throughout the nighttime , I also heard Campbell offering slightly different political advice to fellow partygoers . Despite K of attendees holler , “ Drill , baby , drill ! ” as they watched speakers during the sidereal day , a call for increased U.S. oil production , she softly castigate Pennsylvania conservative candidates for chase after the vegetable oil and gas donors of Pittsburgh ’s past . She want them to embrace tech as the new GOP kingpins .
“ The only new money that I can see is like Elon Musk , veracious ? Or you have the Thiel money , ” Campbell say . “ If you ’re look for oil and gas money from people who used to be big Republican bestower in the 1980s , you ’re looking at the wrong type of people . Because the new money is all in technology . ”
To me , these conversation catch the tenuous thread between Silicon Valley and Trump — an fallible yet remunerative peer , one that necessitate each side to tuck away moral misgivings .
