Big Tech’s biggest names are throwing their weight behind Donald J. Trump in the biggest possible way, first as candidate and now as president-elect.Erin Griffith, who covers tech companies and Silicon Valley for The Times, charts the tech billionaire Marc Andreessen’s journey from top-tier democratic donor to Trump adviser, and explains what it reveals about the growing MAGA-fication of Silicon Valley.Guests: Erin Griffith, who covers tech companies and Silicon Valley for The New York Times.Background reading: Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s sprint to remake Meta for the Trump era.The executives of tech’s biggest companies largely ignored Mr. Trump before the 2016 election. This time around, they were far more friendly.Wealthy donors to the president-elect’s campaign anticipate a more business-friendly atmosphere, including the firing of Biden-era regulators.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Full Episode
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Big tech's biggest names are throwing their weight behind Donald Trump in the biggest possible way, first as candidate and now as president-elect. Today, business reporter Aaron Griffith on what one tech billionaire's journey from top-tier Democratic donor to Trump advisor reveals about the growing MAGAfication of Silicon Valley.
It's Monday, January 13th. Erin, welcome back.
Thanks for having me.
You have been covering startups and Silicon Valley for a long time. And you know as well as anyone that by reputation, Silicon Valley is seen as a liberal bastion, a place where progressive thinking is nursed and promoted. But over the past decade, year, especially during the presidential campaign, it really did feel like Silicon Valley's conservative self began to emerge.
Absolutely. And it's true that Silicon Valley has historically been very liberal. And there were plenty of very well-known investors and founders who backed President Biden's campaign and then Vice President Harris. But the thing that was different this time around was that some of the most prominent and influential people in the tech industry came out in support of Donald Trump.
And this includes big name venture capitalists like David Sachs. This includes Elon Musk. And this includes a lot of other people that are very famous in the tech industry, but maybe not household names across the country. And that has a little bit of a trickle down effect where in the past it may have been taboo or absolutely unpopular.
impossible to say that you supported Trump or even that you are a Republican now. It's kind of a lot more common. You encounter it a lot more frequently, and that's a huge change. And so once Trump won the election, we've seen the industry go even further than merely expressing support for him. They're making changes to their policies and their personnel.
Over the past week, Meta, which is Facebook's parent company, said it is pulling back on fact-checking and policing disinformation on its platforms. The company's also changing its board of directors. They added Dana White, who is the CEO of USC and a big ally of Trump's, to its board. We did a whole episode about him. Yeah.
So these are all moves that align with the incoming president and his base of support. And Mark Zuckerberg even came out and said directly that he was doing this in response to what he saw as a cultural tipping point that the election represented.
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