This all feels like a political merry-go-round we've been on for too long, but as the post-election analyses continue to roll in, the New York Times podcast The Daily is looking into why so many Silicon Valley bigwigs, and in particular longtime self-described "normie Democrat" Marc Andreessen, rolled over and got in bed with Trump this time around.
Many who work in the tech industry, particularly those in executive-level positions, are likely pretty familiar by now with the ideological trajectory that founders, investors, and CEOs like Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, David Sacks, and Elon Musk have taken in the last year or so as they've fully embraced Donald Trump and his plans for America writ large.
And, many of us long ago surmised that the wealthy men of Silicon Valley are first and foremost concerned with protecting their companies and their wealth — even though some, like Andreessen and Zuckerberg, have pledged to give away much of their wealth in their lifetimes to causes they care about. This extends to those, also like Andreessen and Zuckerberg and to some extent Musk, who have previously held pretty liberal social views that are anathema to much of Trumpworld. (Though we know that Musk has, for at least a couple of years, become an anti-woke crusader who's particularly enraged about trans issues, because he a trans child who won't talk to him and whom he doesn't seem to accept.)
Zuckerberg has solved for this by hedging, as he did during the last Trump administration, and trying to say things he thought Trump wanted to hear about Facebook, while still maintaining a status quo in a company largely staffed by liberal-leaning folk.
But now, Meta is throwing fact-checking, content moderation, and even diversity and equity priorities out the window in a full-scale embrace of the conservative agenda, and an assault on the liberal worldview that has guided most of social media up to this point. And Andreessen has made it plain why he, too, embraces Trump's vision of things, and it has a lot to do with wanting the government to leave Silicon Valley alone, regulation-wise.
The Daily podcast tries to explain, today, why Andreessen and others have become such turncoats, politically, and why, despite everything that disqualifies him from the presidency, they think Donald Trump will be good for them and the country. And it seems to have everything to do with Joe Biden and the ambitious young aides who spoke to tech industry CEOs during the last few years about their plans to regulate AI and other things. Andreessen specificlly points to a couple of meetings that took place with the administration in May of last year.
"The meetings were absolutely horrifying," Andreessen said in another podcast interview, characterizing the administration's position as "AI is going to be controlled by the government" and "don't invest in AI," saying that it was a technology that would need significant regulation.
Andreessen called it "an incredibly radicalized set of policies" being pushed by Biden's "young staff" who were "out for blood."
That sent him and others running scared — though OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly called Andreessen's summation an exaggeration of who the discussion went. And, according to Andreessen's telling, it sent him and others into the arms of Trump, endorsing Trump and throwing money at his campaign last summer and fall.
Now, AI probably will need serious regulation, but to Andreessen and others' minds, that's not the road to innovation, or job creation, and they think Trump is going to keep the government off their backs so they can change the world for the better.
This view is, of course, ignoring the fact that there is hostility to tech companies, and AI, from both sides of the aisle, and the Senate in particular isn't exactly full of open-minded Republicans who embrace tech and everything it has to offer — also, the average age of members of Congress is now 58.9, and the average age in the Senate is 64.
Case in point, when Meta made its big announcement last week that it's dropping its stringent content-moderation rules and foregoing thrid-party fact-checking, in a huge win for the right wing, right-wing Senator Marcia Blackburn, who serves on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and has been a frequent critic of tech companies, put out a statement saying the move by Meta was just "a ploy to avoid being regulated."
Top image: Marc Andreessen and Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen attend the 10th Annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on April 13, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by JC Olivera/WireImage)
