Bulwark Takes - Leaked Billionaire Group Chats Show The Real Power Behind Trump

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Sam Stein speaks with Semafor’s Ben Smith and Max Tani about Ben’s new piece: “The Group Chats That Changed America.” They discuss how a handful of private Signal threads populated by powerful Silicon Valley elites with direct lines to Trump became underground hubs for shaping media narratives, policy agendas, and the new right-wing power structure.

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark. I am joined by Ben Smith and Max Tani, both of Semaphore, and we are here to talk about group chats and how they've become the epicenters of power. Before we do that, subscribe to the feed. We appreciate the subscriptions. It's helpful. Watch the video too. Could be informative.

Ben, Max, thanks so much. We're talking about this piece that Ben has up, the group chats that changed America. Before we get into it, it's great writing, but really, it's great editing. Who was the editor? You know, you may have been in this kind of situation where you're like a scrappy startup and it's kind of like you just try to wrangle somebody. And so I just dropped the Google Doc into a chat and maxed it a little bit of editing. Oh my God, it was maxed. I could tell.

Liz Hoffman did most of the editing. The joke was going to be that Max was the editor. I want you to be clear. Max told me privately that he edited it. I added some stuff. I did add a few little tweaks. I added a few little tweaks. I added a few little tweaks.

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I added a few little tweaks. I added a few little tweaks. I added a few little tweaks. I added a few little tweaks. I added a few little tweaks. I added a few little tweaks. conceptual stuff, you know, top editing. Yeah. I'm not in the weeds there. He was at the 30,000 foot level. Yeah, exactly. All right. So let's, the thrust of this and Ben, I want you to just kind of lay out, um, both your reporting process and also what you think the central takeaway here

is. But for me, it was that, uh, everyone is just shooting the shit on signal, including like the masters of the universe and they have these crazy conversations. But in this case, they're happening among people who have like direct lines to Trump and his minions. And they're actually, as you say, navigating or orchestrating or whatever the verb is, the policies of this country. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, basically what happened

was that in 2020, when social media was sort of very progressive, very heated, a lot of these folks who were kind of, I would say, ranging from really quite pro-Trump and on the right, but mostly kind of center-right tech entrepreneurs who typically supported Democrats, supported Republicans, kind of retreated from social media into these group chats. Mark Andreessen, the creator of the Netscape browser and kind of iconic VC, venture capitalist, orchestrated a lot of these. He arranged them first for his tech industry peers who spent a lot of time talking about how woke and annoying

their own employees were. This was a main feature of the chats. Just to be clear, every boss does this. But a lot of it was like, my employees want me to put a Black Lives Matter logo up. I don't want to. I'm afraid. That's sort of where they started. It's probably like, do we need to do pronouns in the email signatures? Literally, that's what this was about. And then they moved to Signal where they were talking about more explicitly political stuff. And at first

they had a bunch of the authors of the Harper's Letter in one of the Signals with Andreessen who were sort of free speech liberals. And at some point Andreessen and Christopher Ruffo, a conservative activist who was in those, they just got sick of them and were like, we're tired of talking about free speech. We want to crush our enemies. And we don't care if that crushes their speech and so which is what you're seeing now and so mark just kind of blew up that group chat and then they went over to the scan of richard hennania and found like a more conservative group but then mark basically got too far right for hennania and and and and he left

that group chat it sounds like mark's just searching for soulmates and going from single chat to single chat. Yeah, I mean, he's a really interesting consequential figure. And he's a little bit – it feels like he's quiet. But actually, he's spending 10 plus hours a day influencing very powerful people. Well, also, occasionally he picks his head up and he does a podcast or something like that and i i feel like of all the silicon valley titans um his power and influence is sort of the least appreciated it's and and you're i was gonna ask you this later but it does seem like this is sort of the undertone of this piece which is you know there's there's epicenters of power obviously elon's one and trump is one of course

and steve bannon's one and so on and so forth. And the all-in guys have their own little thing, and Tucker's one. But Mark seems to be a real mover and shaker. Yeah, I think to some degree he's patient zero for the sort of Silicon Valley-moved alliance with Trump. And Elon comes later, and Zuckerberg comes hopping along a little too late. Why did he get there first? Well, A, he's always been a Republican. He's of the right in some general way.

But also he wrote an essay called It's Time to Build in – which was sort of the root of the – the first group chat was called Build. I think they talked themselves into that this is who Donald Trump would be about a kind of like, you know, we've spent the last 10 years building ad tech and we need to build like patriotic industry, space and manufacturing. And actually it wasn't AI hadn't blown up yet, but maybe AI kind of fits that. Although their idea was we need to build like physical stuff, nuclear reactors. Right. And there's a sense in which if you don't listen too closely to what Trump is saying, that he's talking about reinventing a high-tech global economy where everything is computer. Sure. But then when you listen more closely, he's like, everything is computer. We got to bring literal computer manufacturing back to the US.

And that's not what these guys want at all. And so, yeah, it's gotten a little messy. And in fact, I think they produced in these groups a kind of a group think, and actually an idea of what the Trump administration would be like. I was going to ask, do they come up with actual, and we'll get Max in here eventually. Although, why are you even on here, Max? I thought we were going to do his performance review. Oh, yeah, right.

Well, you guys can compare notes. You guys have each done them. You both edited Max. Fair enough. Before I get to the media component of this, one thing that kind of I was left wondering is it's obvious that they have an influence on Trump or have or at least paved the way for a reemergence of Trumpism in the Silicon Valley, marriage of Trump. But do we know how directly they are involved currently with White House administrative operations. Obviously, David Sachs, for instance, is a member of the Crypto Council, or whatever you want to call it. But he apparently left the chat in a huff. But are they making policy?

Are they talking to administration officials? Are they staffing the administration? In all of those things. So David Sachs, who's the AI czar and the crypto czar, is in the chats. Although he stormed out of one of the big ones recently because people were criticizing the tariffs. He demanded that one of the chat administrators set up a new one only for smart people to get all the dumb people out who don't like Trump. This keeps being a theme where they just purge the thumbs of people who disagree. But then also Sriram Krishnan, who was actually the sort of organizer of the chats originally,

is now the White House AI advisor. And then what a couple of people have told me is that a way to get a job in the administration is that if you own Mark Cuban in the Chatham House chat, which has Mark Cuban in it, and David Sachs notices how awesome you are, you can get a job that way. So there's a bunch of lawyers and stuff going into the administration who basically were discovered in the chats. Let's talk about the media elements of this, because there are some.

I thought Twitter was supposed to be the public forum where all this stuff happened. Wasn't that the idea, Max, where you just debate out in the open? This seems like they just don't want to do that. They'd much rather have like-minded people. Maybe get into a few arguments here or there,

but as Ben notes, once they get tired of the arguments, they kind of throw them out of the chat. Well, the interesting thing for me, and the one question that I had about the piece, and I think that we should actually continue to follow this as a reporting target, Ben, is where Elon kind of fits into this. Look at this, editor for Hot Minute,

and suddenly he's making assignments. No, that's a great point. But it is true that all of these people are part of the Elon universe. And Elon certainly is involved in some of these group chats, some other group chats, secret, more secret, more high level, more smart people kind of group chats, but is not specifically in some of these ones. But it seems very clearly to me that a lot of the people who were in these group chats, but it's not, you know, specifically in some of these ones. But it seems very clearly to me that, you know, a lot of the people who were in these group chats were also the people who used to be extremely online on Twitter. You know, Marc Andreessen was P. Marka

and was just a prolific, you know, Twitter follower. He followed me at Business Insider when I had like 500 followers. This guy has tapped into all streams of possible information. As Ben writes, as these guys became increasingly alienated by the woke left on Twitter, they moved into these spaces. I think that Elon's buying of Twitter was an attempt, in some ways,

it seems, to retake control of that conversation and to drive it to be closer to what he saw in his group chats. It's funny. I forget who it was that I was. There's a video of a former Elon friend turned foe, but fuck, I wish I remembered who it was. But basically they're like, Elon had a private disagreement with me. It got really heated back and forth. And I think Elon's response was like, fucking come at me on Twitter, not directly. Like Elon wanted the public engagement on his

own platform, obviously. But he really, he wanted them to do it out in the open. And that's not what's happening here. Well, to a certain degree, it also seems like there is this, there are two kind of competing impulses and feelings that these, that some of these folks have, which is the actual desire, as Ben writes, which is the actual desire for real high-level conversation among the smartest people in the world, and also people who will confirm their views about various different policies and how woke has gone too far. But doesn't this just breed groupthink? I mean, that was what I was, I mean, Chris Lehman in The Nation wrote about it, but he was like, this is just high-level groupthink with a number of people who have immense self-regard.

It does feel a little bit like blue sky for the richest people in the entire world. This is just high-level groupthink with a number of people who have immense self-regard. It does feel a little bit like blue sky for the richest people in the entire world. Ben, what do you think? I mean, everything breeds groupthink. Just think about it, because it is true. A lot of the people on there loved these spaces and did find them incredibly valuable, particularly the tech tech focused one. If you're like an AI CEO and you're in some chat with Sam Altman and others, like it's pretty cool and interesting.

But, and it is also true that like the notion that there was this period of time when the way you had public conversation was you walked into an open air insane asylum and just screamed at the top of your lungs is like pretty weird. I mean, Twitter was pretty weird. It's still weird. And actually like Elon taking Twitter over means that a lot of them have

gone back to Twitter and sub stack and podcasts. And this chat ecosystem is sort of dying. I think because, and, and actually what one of them told me was that whereas it used to be that you went into signal because you were afraid of saying something that the left would go after you for. Now the thing you say in Signal but not on Twitter is criticism of Donald Trump because that's what has career consequences.

Right. And I just want to be clear. There's always been a variation of these types of chats, right? I think you were on it, but I certainly was. Journalist. Journalist. Hell yeah. Journalist, yes.

Journalist. Ezra Klein started it. Yeah. Our mixed signals former guest, Ezra Klein. For the uninformed, well, God, that's so long ago now. But it was an email list of academics and think tankers and journalists. And it was the most benign, often boring stuff. But it got blown up into a legitimate scandal because people thought that the journalists on there were taking instructions on how to cover Barack Obama or something like that.

Or the soft version of it voiced by our friend, Mickey Kaus is like that. It was that it was like kind of a machine for group think. And people were like workshopping their ideas and then all coming out together as sort of a mob and like, you know, like not with, and you know,

all the real disagreement is in private. And then the, and then in public, you just sort of brigade your enemies. And I think that was sort of- Is that not this? That is this, yeah. I think it's sort of a legitimate criticism of both of these things. Well, and this is something that people guard against

to a degree, which is audience capture, right? Like you don't want to, you're almost, you are reluctant to agree, maybe it's subconscious or not, to offend your key and core audience. You don't like going on Twitter and then getting harangued, right? Like you don't want to – sometimes you don't want to report things because you're fearful of the reaction it might induce. You still should report it, and the good ones do. Yeah, I kind of live for that reaction.

See, that's the thing. I like pissing people off on Twitter. People find that weird, but I enjoy stirring the pot. This is why people hate the media, is that the people who are best at it just love pissing off large groups of people, which is not a normal human impulse. It is true. I said this at a wedding toast once, that for most of us, the reason that we're good at journalism is the same reason that we're bad people.

There's a lot of overlap. Yeah, but I think that this actually, this is something clearly that the folks in the group chat are kind of wrestling with, is that they really, these folks are not people who know, people who get delight out of, you know, swerving in a different direction or, you know, finding things out that disagree with, you know, their preconceived notions. And that's why they keep kind of fleeing these spaces into smaller and smaller, smaller and smaller groups. And that's the reason why

so many of them dislike people in the media and spend their time obsessing over how the mainstream media has done them wrong. I think that that's a factor at play. That's my theory of the case, that these people are fine taking critiques if they come from people who they think are their peers. But they're not fine taking criticism from the proletariat. Yeah, I think that there is something to that. I do think there's something about these private spaces in general where you have a sense of like, well, like, we can have an open conversation and disagree among ourselves. And actually, it was funny because I sent just the world's most benign and innocuous email. I loved it. To Balaji Srinivasan and Joe Lonsdale.

I was going to quote them. There's sort of an illustrative anecdote that I used as the lead about guys having a kind of spirited argument. That was really it. And said in the email that, I don't think there's really anything that interesting here, but just wanted to give you a heads up and would love to talk to you further. And they then both went on Twitter, team against the communists and the journalists. And which is to say like, well, everything you say in public is basically fake and propaganda and only in private can you say real things, which is sort of depressing. It is depressing. But also Max and I were talking about how, I mean, congratulations.

There's nothing better than some source trying to preempt your story. That's great. Please, don't read this story. It's so bad. I agree with some of their criticism of tech journalism that I think misunderstood those guys and their motives because they're basically business people, not political actors.

They did feel very besieged, probably more, I don't know, they could have thicker skins, but also I don't think their grievances are fake. But whatever it is, that has run its course. I thought it was hilarious when they were doing that on Twitter. And as far as I can tell, even their own followers were just like, what are you doing? That's a very polite email.

Yeah, and the anecdote, it was fine, but it wasn't going to change their lives. It wasn't like a Me Too allegation or something. I actually have a question for both of you guys and for Ben. Do you think that what they're saying, because you pointed out they both rushed to Twitter to say this, and especially both of those people who you mentioned are people who spend a lot of time on Twitter and tweeting about various things and, in fact, are prolific tweeters themselves. How much of what they're saying in these group chats is just exactly the same stuff that they're saying on Twitter?

Oh, a lot. It sounds quite similar to me. It's a lot of overlap. For a while, I think they were saying, like, the woke mob is here to get us, how do we save ourselves? They were not saying that on Twitter. Now, most of these chats, probably most of your group chats, are, oh my God, did you see that tweet? And you should tweet that.

But also a large amount of disgust with Taylor Lorenz. I feel like that's unbelievable. Yeah, but that's a classic example. If you ever got a sense of, you can like Taylor Lorenz. I feel like that's unbelievable. Yeah, but that's a classic example. If you ever got a sense of like, you can like Taylor Lorenz's journalism, you can not like it. But if you ever got a sense of like those tech guys were like really, like you did feel like,

wow, they must all be talking about her and obsessing about her in some secret place, given how developed their theories and hatred is, that was the secret place. But to your point, Max, there's been multiple, I mean, it's fairly regularly where I see like a bunch of stuff on Twitter that seems almost coordinated

because they're all harping on the same story or the same tweet or the same viral moment. Now, it's not necessarily from that high level, so maybe it's not from the chats, but there does seem to be a fair bit of sort of like, look at this, and then everyone disperses to the public. It's just the same way in which you sometimes workshop a tweet with your friends, uh, you know, in the chat, some of my best, uh, some of my best posts comes from, uh, dropping something that's, uh, that's good and do a chat. And I'm like, yeah, I guess enough.

I was running on Slack here. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Um, I feel like I've stopped a few, I feel like I've stopped a few good Sam Stein disastrous Sam Stein posts. Oh my god, you have saved me on occasion. Maybe they would have done better. I don't know. I don't do that. I just never think.

I just post first. Just go straight for it. All right, well, thank you guys. I appreciate it. I will just say, if you're watching this and if you're in one of these chats, pull a Jeffrey Goldberg, add me in. Happy to just lurk, offer some opinions on New Haven pizza every now and then.

Maybe talk NBA playoffs, but that's it. Max Tani, Ben Smith, both of them before read the piece. It is the group chats that changed America. And listen to our podcast. I got to plug that. Mixed Signals Podcast hosted by Ben Smith plug that. Mixed Signals Podcast, hosted by Ben Smith and me. Mixed Signals Podcast. I expect an invite on, okay?

This is reciprocal. All right. Take care, guys. Appreciate it.