Tech's billionaires warm to Trump

[Elderberry]

AXIOS by Scott Rosenberg, Dan Primack 07/17/2024

A significant chunk of Silicon Valley money and power is lining up behind Donald Trump just as he has chosen a former venture capitalist as his running mate.

Why it matters: The tech investor class was once solidly Democratic, with just a handful of Republican outliers — but now its red camp is growing, and throwing around its weight.

Driving the news: Venture capital billionaires Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz each will make donations to former President Trump's election effort, Axios has learned.

•   The "techno-optimists" Andreessen and Horowitz are following hot on the heels of Elon Musk's announcement that he would endorse Trump and form a PAC to aid his campaign.
Between the lines: Andreessen Horowitz, the VC firm the pair co-founded in 2009, said late last year that its partners would begin making donations to political candidates they saw as "advancing technology."

•   In a podcast released Tuesday, the two men said the Biden administration's moves in areas like AI and crypto have benefited incumbents at the expense of startups.

•   "For little tech, we think Donald Trump is actually the right choice," Horowitz said.

•   In their "Little Tech Agenda," Andreessen and Horowitz criticize a Biden proposal to tax a portion of billionaires' unrealized capital gains, saying it "would absolutely kill both startups and the venture capital industry that funds them."

Yes, but: Andreessen sits on the board of Facebook, and Andreessen Horowitz has invested in Microsoft-affiliated OpenAI — whose leaders have pressed the federal government to regulate AI more aggressively.

The big picture: Silicon Valley first emerged thanks to tons of Pentagon funding and proximity to the conservative bastion of Stanford University.

More: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/17/trump-andreessen-horowitz-tech-billionaires

[Smokin Joe]

If you have money, the Communists want to take it from you and give it to someone else. WHile I get that the tech folks think that being in bed with the Communists will gain them market or whatever, selling their soul to that devil will not work out well in the long run. Those in power will want CONTROL, and with that, the power of the billionaires will cease, perhaps abruptly and permanently.
The writing is on the wall, and they are finally reading it.
Their only chance to keep what they have, ultimately, is in a Capitalistic environment.
The "Socialists" will bleed them white to keep funding their purchase of the masses.

It's this or 'Galt's Gulch'.