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Tech elite: Billionaires of Silicon Valley enjoy a Victory for libertarians
The Guardian
|November 08, 2024
While Elon Musk spent election night alongside Donald Trump, celebrating their decisive victory at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Silicon Valley figures who were invested - quite literally - in the outcome of Tuesday night's election shared in the Tesla chief executive's joy.
Some also claimed wins for their political causes in San Francisco.
Venture capitalists such as Marc Andreessen and Joe Lonsdale, and executives at Peter Thiel's venture fund celebrated Trump's victory, which they predicted would usher in a new anti-woke, light-on-regulation regime that would be a boon for the tech industry.
David Sacks, a startup investor and podcaster, was there at Mar-a-Lago. Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril and Oculus, celebrated by tweeting a screenshot from the animated Pokémon TV show.
For some of them, the victory was personal: among those who have Trump's ear are their contemporaries, connections, friends and others they describe as "some of the most effective people on the planet". It was a sentiment previously echoed by Lonsdale, who launched America Pac, a political action committee, along with Musk, in an interview with the tech news site the Information.
The government could possibly be run "by, like, all my smartest tech friends", said Lonsdale. In addition to his close relationship to Musk, the Palantir co-founder counts Silicon Valley darling and vice-president-elect JD Vance among his longtime friends.
This story is from the November 08, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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