The Journal. - Elon Musk and Silicon Valley Turn Towards Trump

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Elon Musk has said he is committing around $45 million a month to a pro-Trump super PAC, according to people familiar with the matter. He is the biggest name in tech now turning Donald Trump’s way. WSJ’s Emily Glazer reports on how Musk and others in Silicon Valley are throwing their support and money behind Trump’s campaign for president.  Further Listening: - Tesla’s Multibillion-Dollar Pay Package for Elon Musk  - Money, Drugs, Elon Musk and Tesla’s Board  - Trump Courts the Union Vote  Further Reading: - Musk Turbocharges Silicon Valley Support for Trump  - Elon Musk Has Said He Is Committing Around $45 Million a Month to a New - Pro-Trump Super PAC  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Saturday, the richest man in the world officially picked a side in the U.S. presidential race. Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump. And according to Wall Street Journal reporting, he's told people that he will donate a lot of money to Trump's cause, like $45 million a month. This is an extraordinary amount of money. That's our colleague, Emily Glazer.

Before we reported on Elon Musk and his support for Donald Trump, the largest known donation of the 2024 election is $50 million. We're talking about roughly that much a month from Elon. Musk's public embrace of Trump is new. Ten years ago, Musk described himself as socially liberal and fiscally conservative, half Democrat, half Republican. Historically, he's supported Democratic presidential candidates. And he's also been critical of Trump.

I want to take us back to 2022. Musk tweeted, I don't hate the man, but it's time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail into the sunset. Musk also said of Trump, too much drama. Do we really want a bull in a china shop situation every single day? So that's just a flavor of some of the commentary. So it's incredible how much things can change. And Musk's shift to the right is part of something bigger. Money from Silicon Valley turning toward Trump.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Thursday, July 18th. Coming up on the show, how Elon Musk is turbocharging Silicon Valley's support for Trump. You could pause or rewind. Well, life doesn't always give you time to change the outcome, but prediabetes does. Take the one-minute risk test today at doihaveprediabetes.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and its prediabetes awareness partners.

In every presidential election, candidates are raising money from as many people as they can. And usually you've got your Wall Street donors, you've got your Hollywood donors, and the Silicon Valley donors are also a big, big faction. And those are people that work in tech. Deep, deep pockets. And traditionally, you know, a certain party tends to dominate these types of folks. Silicon Valley for decades has been a liberal bastion. It has been a very left-leaning locale, socially liberal. There have absolutely been big-time Republicans that are Silicon Valley people. One notable one is Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist. But he has often been out on his own.

That now has changed remarkably. Many power players in Silicon Valley have started to sour on the Biden administration. In April, Musk and another tech leader held a secret dinner in Los Angeles. In this home overlooking the ocean, huge glass windows for what they dubbed an anti-Biden dinner. And it was a secret convening, by the way. This got out, but it was about a dozen business leaders in LA, former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin,

former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Wall Street Journal. So they've got a bunch of heavy hitters at this secretive anti-Biden dinner. Why were they anti-Biden? Well, that was how they framed the dinner as opposed to pro-Trump.

So that's where I'm saying there's all this kind of wink, wink, nod, nod. For a lot of people in Silicon Valley, there are several key issues that have turned them toward Donald Trump. And that oftentimes is in regards to Biden administration policies. Things like the Biden administration going after big tech, the very aggressive stance of the Federal Trade Commission suing companies like Amazon. Also, there's been a crackdown on the cryptocurrency market. So everyone has their own reason. I would just add that some people in Silicon Valley, and in some cases, Elon Musk,

are also motivated by issues that are personally important to them. So Elon Musk is famously very anti-woke. He does not like the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement. There are people in Silicon Valley that feel the same way. Other people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are one-issue voters when it comes to their support for Israel. And Donald Trump has really been out front on that, whereas the Democratic Party, you know, has a slightly different stance.

So there's a whole bunch of reasons why Elon Musk is not a fan of Joe Biden and a whole bunch of reasons why others in Silicon Valley feel the same way. Then last month, in June, there was a shift from anti-Biden to specifically pro-Trump. A big invite-only fundraiser for Trump was held at a palatial San Francisco mansion. I'm going to say an early sign was a fundraiser that a guy named David Sachs,

who used to work at PayPal with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, David Sachs co-hosted a fundraiser for Donald Trump. So this fundraiser in June, you know, they snacked on crab. There was a total of about $12 million that was donated then, which is a, that's good for a fundraiser. And there to speak to the attendees was Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, who used to work as a venture capitalist.

For months, we'd been hearing that the Silicon Valley folks, including Elon, want J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance is kind of like one of them. He had worked for Peter Thiel for a couple of years in venture capital. They felt like he understood them. And that is the person that we heard was like the Silicon Valley ideal VP pick. So to go back to this fundraiser, J.D. Vance, he's talking without a script and he's

talking about advancing artificial intelligence, loosening cryptocurrency regulations, and other issues that, as you can imagine, some of these attendees are like, this is what they want to hear. He is preaching to the choir. After this event, Emily says that things in San Francisco started to feel different. This is one of the most liberal cities in this country. And when that fundraiser took place, it was almost like it opened the doors for Trump supporters, many of whom maybe had been quiet or kept their support more secretive in recent years. And it was like the doors flung open for some of these people to be more active in their support. Okay, but like, this is San Francisco, a bastion of liberalism. How widespread is this?

Yes. So Silicon Valley is still an incredibly liberal, pro-democratic and anti-Republican place. That's according to people that I've talked to. And that for some people, it could be what folks have described to me, a career ender to say that they're supporting Donald Trump. For Musk, who doesn't shy away from controversy, his turn toward Trump may have been influenced by some perceived snubs.

Musk is the CEO of Tesla, which is one of the largest electric vehicle companies. is the CEO of Tesla, which is one of the largest electric vehicle companies. And our understanding is that he has been personally offended that Biden has not included him when Biden has met with other auto CEOs or other kind of meetings around electric vehicles and feels like personally affronted by that. On the other hand, Trump and Musk were both at a breakfast gathering in March with other backers of the former president. Around that time, according to Emily's reporting, Trump and Musk also talked about a potential advisory role for Musk if Trump gets reelected. Musk has denied this. has denied this. So we're starting to see this momentum pick up where Elon Musk is clearly interested in Donald Trump. He's not fully publicly saying he's going to endorse him,

but he's starting to take these steps toward that. And then... We're live from Georgia, a key battleground state in the race for the White House. In just moments, the current U.S. president will debate the former U.S. president as their party's presumptive nominees of first in American history. The debate happens. And as we all now know and have seen, Biden performed disastrously. And a lot of questions emerged around his mental acuity. That gave a lot more momentum and in some cases, permission for people to be more vocal about their support for Donald Trump. And Elon Musk was one of those people. And then just a few weeks later,

there's an assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life. So Elon Musk publicly tweets his formal endorsement of Donald Trump, something that we had been hearing was under discussion for months. And he finally decides in that moment, he is going to put his name, Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world at times, and formally endorse Donald Trump for president. But that wasn't it.

That wasn't it, Kate. There was even more. What more? We didn't know at that time what we know now, which is that he was also going to put his money behind it. That's next. If only life had a remote control, you could pause or rewind.

Well, life doesn't always give you time to change the outcome, but prediabetes does. Take the one-minute risk test today at doihaveprediabetes.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and its prediabetes awareness partners. So we reported on Monday night that Elon Musk has planned to donate $45 million a month. Not one $45 million donation. It's around $45 million a month. And to do the math, that's roughly in the $200 million ballpark, which is just an enormous and staggering amount of money.

which is just an enormous and staggering amount of money. Okay, and he is, this money will be going to a super PAC. Yes. Tell us about that PAC. Yes, so this is called the America PAC. The America PAC is a pretty recent organization that's been spun up, and it's a pro-Trump super political action committee. There's a bunch of Elon Musk pals who have also donated to this super pack because the first filing that shows its donations came out on Monday night. The America Pack is really focused on registering voters

and persuading constituents to vote early and request mail-in ballots in swing states. That's according to our sources. And they feel that Democrats have traditionally had this really robust

get-out-the-vote campaign and wanted to have a better on-the-ground effort in swing states for Donald Trump. And America PAC is hyper-focused on that. According to Emily's reporting, Musk indicated that his donations would start this month. He has not publicly confirmed this reporting and has said contradictory things on the social media platform X. Beyond Musk, other big names in Silicon Valley are also donating to Trump.

People like venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and the Winklevoss brothers. Based on your reporting, why are they supporting Trump? based on your reporting, why are they supporting Trump? What do they hope to get out of a second Trump administration if he gets elected? I think a lot of it comes down to policies and not wanting as much regulation, like pretty much the opposite of what's going on in the Biden administration, because a lot of companies are just choosing to not have more mergers and acquisitions because they think they're going to get struck down through regulation. I think they'd expect less regulation or favorable regulation in cryptocurrency, where it's kind of been this area that the Securities and Exchange Commission under Gary Gensler has been very focused on putting more regulation there. So a

lot of folks don't want that. It'll be interesting to see how that continues on the campaign trail, what kind of messaging we're seeing. And obviously, you know, when you're campaigning, it's different than what someone does if they get elected. So there's a lot of ifs here, but there's also a lot of dollar bills. At the Republican National Convention this week in Milwaukee, after weeks of waiting, Trump announced his running mate. Greetings, Milwaukee, my fellow Americans and my fellow Republicans. My name is J.D. Vance from the great state of Ohio. And the first thing I thought is like, oh my goodness, Elon Musk and the rest of his bros are going to be so freaking happy. It's like, boom, this is all happening for these guys in Silicon Valley.

And that immediately triggers the money. The money was already coming, but then it's almost like the monopoly money. The money was already coming, but then it's almost like the monopoly money. Could you just like picture dollar bills like raining down? I mean, the money, like it's coming.

Do you have a sense that these deep pocketed tech types are backing Trump because they are pro-Trump or because they are anti-Biden? Ooh. Both? You know, it's interesting because I think after the debate, there are a lot of people that really do not feel confident about Joe Biden and his mental acuity. You know, it was literally displayed on stage at the debate.

So while we have this movement of more support going toward Donald Trump, it's coinciding with this movement of support away from Joe Biden. And it's like the momentum is going in two different directions. And that's ultimately helping Donald Trump. And some people are supportive of him. I think many people are more anti-Biden in their views.

Or are they just trying to hitch their ride onto the winning wagon? So they are trying to hitch their ride onto the winning wagon? So they are trying to get in early so they can have influence in what they are predicting would be a Trump administration. I think that's highly likely. Not to sound too cynical, but a lot of people in business and outside, you know, someone told me the other day, they vote with their pocketbooks. So if they think Donald Trump is going to win, and if they think Donald Trump,

a second Trump administration, could have more favorable policies for their business, for their lives, they might just go and vote in that direction. And what we're seeing is that people who really spoke out against Trump, and vote in that direction. And what we're seeing is that people who really spoke out against Trump, you know, literally,

this is just a couple of years ago, there's been this huge sea change where it's almost like that is a distant memory, if even one at all. And it's now, in some circles, no longer taboo to say that they support Donald Trump

and that they're going to put their money behind Donald Trump. That's all for today, Thursday, July 18th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Dana Mattioli, Preetika Rana, and Khadija Safdar. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.