Cashing In

Buying a presidency, it turns out, pays off. Tech billionaires who invested in President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign are anticipating a windfall in crypto deregulation, more big defense and surveillance contracts, and an open line to the White House. It’s the culmination of an effort that has spanned political activism, media reinvention and a right-wing radicalization that has only accelerated over the past five years. 

The world’s richest man (on paper) Elon Musk is, for now, at Trump’s right hand and helping to guide the direction of the nascent administration. Musk, with his over-acting laughter, love of cringeworthy memes and general immaturity, will inevitably overstay his welcome. If the stories coming out of Mar-a-Lago are true — about how annoying everyone in Trump’s orbit finds the Tesla CEO — it’s likely only a matter of time until he’s on the outside looking in. But for now, he’s on the inside and working hard to promote his vision as co-president, or, as one fan called him last week, the “first buddy.”

It’s hard to argue that his strategic debasement hasn’t worked out as Trump announces a number of ideologically tech-friendly hires. Musk’s preference for Treasury, industry favorite Howard Lutnick, was instead named to lead the Commerce Department on Tuesday. Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman whose political journey recently delivered her back to the social conservatism she leaned into during her time in the Hawaiian state legislature in the early 2000s, is Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence. Despite declaring herself a Republican in October — probably a hedge in advance of a potential Cabinet spot — Gabbard would be an unorthodox pick given her antipathy to aspects of the U.S. security state, though her overall record and belief system is not that outside the conservative foreign policy mainstream, attempts to launder her ideology aside.

Notably, Gabbard has been collecting a paycheck from Rumble, the right-wing YouTube clone backed by Peter Thiel and incoming Vice President JD Vance. A creature of the Silicon Valley-funded conservative movement, Vance’s selection was a coup for the tech sector, their own man on the inside whose indebtedness to the movement conservatism of Thiel and the right-wing thinkers in his orbit makes him an invaluable resource in the White House, a heartbeat away from the presidency behind a 78-year-old lame duck. 

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump’s pick for health and human services secretary, may be an opponent of the pharmaceutical industry (and that may ultimately tank his nomination) but he’s a favorite of Silicon Valley. Right-wing billionaires like David Sacks and Jack Dorsey expressed support for his third-party candidacy early in the election cycle, and his message of COVID skepticism has a willing audience in a cohort whose right-wing turn was in many ways defined by the profit-slowing lockdowns during the pandemic. 

Trump will appoint right-wing internet deregulation advocate and Federal Communications Commission member Brendan Carr as the commission’s chair, a win for Musk and other tech titans. Carr, as Ars Technica warned on Nov. 7, presents himself as an opponent of censorship, but this opposition is, unsurprisingly, pointed in only one direction. “A Carr-led FCC could also try to punish news organizations that are perceived to be anti-Trump,” the magazine’s Jon Brodkin wrote, also raising the possibility that Carr would funnel money to Musk’s Starlink satellite internet company. 

But it’s Matt Gaetz, the controversial Florida Republican who Trump has tapped for attorney general, who is the under-the-radar tech ally to watch. Best known for his leadership of a minority of House Republicans to overthrow Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023 and his alleged predilection for parties involving drugs and underage girls, Gaetz has a close connection to the defense tech sector. He’s the brother-in-law of Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril, an up-and-coming defense company that projects to have annual revenue of $1 billion in the next few years. Luckey has styled himself as something of a proud sociopath for God and country. 

“Societies have always needed a warrior class that is enthused and excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims,” Luckey told Pepperdine University president Jim Gash in September. “You need people like me who are sick in that way and who don’t lose any sleep making tools of violence in order to preserve freedom.”  

Luckey has reportedly consulted with Trump on how to revamp the U.S. military. Someone with this belief system unrestrained by the threat of institutional restrictions — such as the legal system — presents a major threat to peace and order. But that’s the point; Gaetz’s nomination is part of an overall thrust on the part of the incoming administration to weaken and control those parts of the government that might act as a check on the impulses and desires of the super wealthy. For Silicon Valley billionaires, that’s just the outcome they were betting on.