#sacks — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #sacks, aggregated by home.social.
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The “California Billionaire Tax Act”,
often referred to simply as the #billionaire #tax,
is a proposalthat would require any California resident worth more than $1bn to pay a
one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state.It’s sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West,
and if it receives enough signatures from California voters, it will go to the ballot in November.When the proposal was put forward at the end of last year,
many among tech’s billionaire elite threw a #tantrum.Some opened offices or bought mansions in Florida or Texas,
vowing to leave California for good.
The fleeing rich included Palantir co-founder Peter #Thiel,
whose current net worth is $25bn;
Google co-founders Larry #Page and Sergey #Brin,
worth around $255bn and $240bn respectively;
and Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, David #Sacks,
whose net worth is not publicly known.Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta CEO
Mark #Zuckerberg,
worth $229bn, has also bought a property in south Florida valued between $150 and $200m.Thiel has additionally led the charge in donating to a lobbying group, the "California Business Roundtable",
which has pledged to fight the wealth tax.The Palantir co-founder handed over $3m to the political action committee in late December.
Other major donors include realtors, entrepreneurs and private equity firms.
James #Siminoff, who founded the camera-embedded Ring doorbell company, also donated $100,000, according to public records.“The most powerful money in politics is to be on the no-side of a ballot measure,” said #McCuan.
“You can even pre-empt something getting to the ballot, like a billionaire’s tax,
by explaining to everyone out there that this is a bad idea for economic growth.”Tech investors and venture capitalists have been extremely vocal in their opposition to the tax,
saying that the state will lose revenue as billionaires flee and it will hurt the state’s ability to be economically competitive.Just this week, Chamath #Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and current venture capital investor, wrote
“the loss of this tax revenue was totally avoidable but is now forever”.
#Balaji #Srinivasan, an investor and former chief technology officer of Coinbase, wrote,
“the most successful tech founders of all time have now exited the failed state of California”.Adding on, Paul #Graham, the co-founder of seed capital firm Y Combinator, wrote:
“It’s important that people like Zuck and Larry Page are willing to move in response to the proposed wealth tax.
It shows politicians what will happen if they try things like this.”Joining the billionaires, #Newsom has pledged to fight the tax, saying it will “drive a race to the bottom” and stifle innovation as the ultra-wealthy leave.
“This will be defeated – there’s no question in my mind,” Newsom told the New York Times in January.
“I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/15/california-billionaires-state-elections -
The “California Billionaire Tax Act”,
often referred to simply as the #billionaire #tax,
is a proposalthat would require any California resident worth more than $1bn to pay a
one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state.It’s sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West,
and if it receives enough signatures from California voters, it will go to the ballot in November.When the proposal was put forward at the end of last year,
many among tech’s billionaire elite threw a #tantrum.Some opened offices or bought mansions in Florida or Texas,
vowing to leave California for good.
The fleeing rich included Palantir co-founder Peter #Thiel,
whose current net worth is $25bn;
Google co-founders Larry #Page and Sergey #Brin,
worth around $255bn and $240bn respectively;
and Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, David #Sacks,
whose net worth is not publicly known.Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta CEO
Mark #Zuckerberg,
worth $229bn, has also bought a property in south Florida valued between $150 and $200m.Thiel has additionally led the charge in donating to a lobbying group, the "California Business Roundtable",
which has pledged to fight the wealth tax.The Palantir co-founder handed over $3m to the political action committee in late December.
Other major donors include realtors, entrepreneurs and private equity firms.
James #Siminoff, who founded the camera-embedded Ring doorbell company, also donated $100,000, according to public records.“The most powerful money in politics is to be on the no-side of a ballot measure,” said #McCuan.
“You can even pre-empt something getting to the ballot, like a billionaire’s tax,
by explaining to everyone out there that this is a bad idea for economic growth.”Tech investors and venture capitalists have been extremely vocal in their opposition to the tax,
saying that the state will lose revenue as billionaires flee and it will hurt the state’s ability to be economically competitive.Just this week, Chamath #Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and current venture capital investor, wrote
“the loss of this tax revenue was totally avoidable but is now forever”.
#Balaji #Srinivasan, an investor and former chief technology officer of Coinbase, wrote,
“the most successful tech founders of all time have now exited the failed state of California”.Adding on, Paul #Graham, the co-founder of seed capital firm Y Combinator, wrote:
“It’s important that people like Zuck and Larry Page are willing to move in response to the proposed wealth tax.
It shows politicians what will happen if they try things like this.”Joining the billionaires, #Newsom has pledged to fight the tax, saying it will “drive a race to the bottom” and stifle innovation as the ultra-wealthy leave.
“This will be defeated – there’s no question in my mind,” Newsom told the New York Times in January.
“I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/15/california-billionaires-state-elections -
The “California Billionaire Tax Act”,
often referred to simply as the #billionaire #tax,
is a proposalthat would require any California resident worth more than $1bn to pay a
one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state.It’s sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West,
and if it receives enough signatures from California voters, it will go to the ballot in November.When the proposal was put forward at the end of last year,
many among tech’s billionaire elite threw a #tantrum.Some opened offices or bought mansions in Florida or Texas,
vowing to leave California for good.
The fleeing rich included Palantir co-founder Peter #Thiel,
whose current net worth is $25bn;
Google co-founders Larry #Page and Sergey #Brin,
worth around $255bn and $240bn respectively;
and Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, David #Sacks,
whose net worth is not publicly known.Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta CEO
Mark #Zuckerberg,
worth $229bn, has also bought a property in south Florida valued between $150 and $200m.Thiel has additionally led the charge in donating to a lobbying group, the "California Business Roundtable",
which has pledged to fight the wealth tax.The Palantir co-founder handed over $3m to the political action committee in late December.
Other major donors include realtors, entrepreneurs and private equity firms.
James #Siminoff, who founded the camera-embedded Ring doorbell company, also donated $100,000, according to public records.“The most powerful money in politics is to be on the no-side of a ballot measure,” said #McCuan.
“You can even pre-empt something getting to the ballot, like a billionaire’s tax,
by explaining to everyone out there that this is a bad idea for economic growth.”Tech investors and venture capitalists have been extremely vocal in their opposition to the tax,
saying that the state will lose revenue as billionaires flee and it will hurt the state’s ability to be economically competitive.Just this week, Chamath #Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and current venture capital investor, wrote
“the loss of this tax revenue was totally avoidable but is now forever”.
#Balaji #Srinivasan, an investor and former chief technology officer of Coinbase, wrote,
“the most successful tech founders of all time have now exited the failed state of California”.Adding on, Paul #Graham, the co-founder of seed capital firm Y Combinator, wrote:
“It’s important that people like Zuck and Larry Page are willing to move in response to the proposed wealth tax.
It shows politicians what will happen if they try things like this.”Joining the billionaires, #Newsom has pledged to fight the tax, saying it will “drive a race to the bottom” and stifle innovation as the ultra-wealthy leave.
“This will be defeated – there’s no question in my mind,” Newsom told the New York Times in January.
“I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/15/california-billionaires-state-elections -
The “California Billionaire Tax Act”,
often referred to simply as the #billionaire #tax,
is a proposalthat would require any California resident worth more than $1bn to pay a
one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state.It’s sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West,
and if it receives enough signatures from California voters, it will go to the ballot in November.When the proposal was put forward at the end of last year,
many among tech’s billionaire elite threw a #tantrum.Some opened offices or bought mansions in Florida or Texas,
vowing to leave California for good.
The fleeing rich included Palantir co-founder Peter #Thiel,
whose current net worth is $25bn;
Google co-founders Larry #Page and Sergey #Brin,
worth around $255bn and $240bn respectively;
and Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, David #Sacks,
whose net worth is not publicly known.Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta CEO
Mark #Zuckerberg,
worth $229bn, has also bought a property in south Florida valued between $150 and $200m.Thiel has additionally led the charge in donating to a lobbying group, the "California Business Roundtable",
which has pledged to fight the wealth tax.The Palantir co-founder handed over $3m to the political action committee in late December.
Other major donors include realtors, entrepreneurs and private equity firms.
James #Siminoff, who founded the camera-embedded Ring doorbell company, also donated $100,000, according to public records.“The most powerful money in politics is to be on the no-side of a ballot measure,” said #McCuan.
“You can even pre-empt something getting to the ballot, like a billionaire’s tax,
by explaining to everyone out there that this is a bad idea for economic growth.”Tech investors and venture capitalists have been extremely vocal in their opposition to the tax,
saying that the state will lose revenue as billionaires flee and it will hurt the state’s ability to be economically competitive.Just this week, Chamath #Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and current venture capital investor, wrote
“the loss of this tax revenue was totally avoidable but is now forever”.
#Balaji #Srinivasan, an investor and former chief technology officer of Coinbase, wrote,
“the most successful tech founders of all time have now exited the failed state of California”.Adding on, Paul #Graham, the co-founder of seed capital firm Y Combinator, wrote:
“It’s important that people like Zuck and Larry Page are willing to move in response to the proposed wealth tax.
It shows politicians what will happen if they try things like this.”Joining the billionaires, #Newsom has pledged to fight the tax, saying it will “drive a race to the bottom” and stifle innovation as the ultra-wealthy leave.
“This will be defeated – there’s no question in my mind,” Newsom told the New York Times in January.
“I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/15/california-billionaires-state-elections -
The “California Billionaire Tax Act”,
often referred to simply as the #billionaire #tax,
is a proposalthat would require any California resident worth more than $1bn to pay a
one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state.It’s sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West,
and if it receives enough signatures from California voters, it will go to the ballot in November.When the proposal was put forward at the end of last year,
many among tech’s billionaire elite threw a #tantrum.Some opened offices or bought mansions in Florida or Texas,
vowing to leave California for good.
The fleeing rich included Palantir co-founder Peter #Thiel,
whose current net worth is $25bn;
Google co-founders Larry #Page and Sergey #Brin,
worth around $255bn and $240bn respectively;
and Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, David #Sacks,
whose net worth is not publicly known.Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta CEO
Mark #Zuckerberg,
worth $229bn, has also bought a property in south Florida valued between $150 and $200m.Thiel has additionally led the charge in donating to a lobbying group, the "California Business Roundtable",
which has pledged to fight the wealth tax.The Palantir co-founder handed over $3m to the political action committee in late December.
Other major donors include realtors, entrepreneurs and private equity firms.
James #Siminoff, who founded the camera-embedded Ring doorbell company, also donated $100,000, according to public records.“The most powerful money in politics is to be on the no-side of a ballot measure,” said #McCuan.
“You can even pre-empt something getting to the ballot, like a billionaire’s tax,
by explaining to everyone out there that this is a bad idea for economic growth.”Tech investors and venture capitalists have been extremely vocal in their opposition to the tax,
saying that the state will lose revenue as billionaires flee and it will hurt the state’s ability to be economically competitive.Just this week, Chamath #Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and current venture capital investor, wrote
“the loss of this tax revenue was totally avoidable but is now forever”.
#Balaji #Srinivasan, an investor and former chief technology officer of Coinbase, wrote,
“the most successful tech founders of all time have now exited the failed state of California”.Adding on, Paul #Graham, the co-founder of seed capital firm Y Combinator, wrote:
“It’s important that people like Zuck and Larry Page are willing to move in response to the proposed wealth tax.
It shows politicians what will happen if they try things like this.”Joining the billionaires, #Newsom has pledged to fight the tax, saying it will “drive a race to the bottom” and stifle innovation as the ultra-wealthy leave.
“This will be defeated – there’s no question in my mind,” Newsom told the New York Times in January.
“I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/15/california-billionaires-state-elections -
'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
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'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
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'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
-
'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
-
'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
-
Who Got Duped?
-- MAGA Activists Worry That Nativism And Tech Oligarchy May Not Go Hand In HandOver the past few days, a fight has erupted within the MAGA right over legal immigration, specifically about ➡️whether the country should admit more high-skilled immigrants.
On the one side, you have opportunistic tech oligarchs like Elon #Musk and David #Sacks.
These are incredibly wealthy figures who are open about using their newfound influence in government to serve both their ideological and their private business interests.
On the other are figures like Laura #Loomer, Nick #Fuentes, and other nativist
(and often openly racist) online personalities who had been vocal Trump supporters long before the Silicon Valley right joined the coalition.The two sides began to argue on Sunday, after Donald Trump appointed #Sriram #Krishan,
a partner at Andreesen Horowitz,
👉White House policy adviser on Artificial Intelligence
to work with Sacks, the Trump administration’s #crypto and #AI #czar.
This may seem like a relatively minor White House appointment.
However, Krishan has also been a proponent of 💥removing country caps on green cards and H1-B visas,
-- which allow American companies to hire foreign workers for certain specializations.To the far-right, nativist influencers that have from the start glommed onto Trumpian scapegoating of immigrants,
Krishan’s position crossed a line.Loomer, an anti-immigrant provocateur who traveled with Trump during his campaign, called it
“deeply disturbing.”Sacks replied, perhaps not fully understanding his audience,
by noting that Indian immigrants face an 11-year wait for green cards.This was catnip for Loomer,
who replied by suggesting that Sacks was in on a new version of the great replacement theory,
and spent the next several days making vile statements about immigrants,
accusing those who disagree with her on H1-B visas of hating Americans,
and demanding that senior Trump officials denounce their Silicon Valley allies.Sacks, whose recent political positions have included strident opposition to American support for Ukraine, denounced the “crude” attacks.
Soon, other Trump-involved tech oligarchs,
like Elon #Musk and Vivek #Ramaswamy, jumped into the fray.Musk wrote that “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.
Think of this like a pro sports team:
if you want your TEAM to win the championship,
you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be.
That enables the whole TEAM to win.”Ramaswamy swooped in on Thursday to explain his view that American companies were forced to hire foreign skilled labor due to a deficit in homegrown American culture itself.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ,
or the jock over the valedictorian,
will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote,
adding later:
“More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers.”As you might imagine, MAGA nativists of various stripes regard this Silicon Valley defense of skilled immigration with a paranoid and often racist eye.
#Fuentes, the groyper leader, described Ramaswamy’s position as an attempt to get
“500 million indians to move here.”Others reacted to Ramaswamy’s premise that there may be something wrong with America.
Jeremy #Carl, a senior fellow at the nativist Claremont Institute,
pushed back in a gentler fashion while still suggesting that Ramaswamy’s vision would “destroy the things that actually make America great.”In a very obvious and over-the-top way,
this imbroglio illuminates a real divide among the most vocal members of Trump’s coalition:
-- tech oligarchs who want foreign labor for their businesses,
-- and nativists who take Trump’s rhetoric on immigration very seriously and who in many cases want to apply it to nonwhite immigrants.But there’s another thing that’s taking place here on a deeper level.
Ramaswamy explicitly (and Musk implicitly) laid their supposed inability to find engineering talent at the feet of American culture.
Ramaswamy was very blunt about this,
calling for “fewer Saturday morning cartoons.”Musk complained that the number of
“super talented” and “super motivated” engineers in the U.S. is “far too low.” -
Scientific racism today must be seen and rejected for what it truly is
—a hollow attempt to dress discrimination in the garb of science and reasonAcross Europe and the U.S., racist and anti-immigrant groups have embraced
long-discredited ideas that races constitute biologically separate groups
differing in everything from intelligence to birthrate.With immigration a defining topic in fractious debates on both sides of the Atlantic,
#scientific #racism is now explicit in right-wing discourse.In October an exposé in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper revealed a network dedicated to proliferating race science worldwide had received years of funding from Silicon Valley.
That same month came Donald Trump’s comment decrying immigration as
“a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”In June it was revealed that a U.K. Reform Party candidate had previously insisted that sub-Saharan Africans were lowering IQ in the country.
But while its modern advocates rebrand scientific racism as “human biodiversity,”
such insidious euphemisms are just attempts to give a veneer of respectability to hateful, pseudoscientific beliefs.These beliefs have a dark history tied to the racial pseudoscience of #eugenics,
and its popularity sadly continues unabated.On social media, avowed racists misrepresent genetic research to bolster the narrative that white people are intrinsically superior.
In the rarefied world of Silicon Valley, race science has made a dark renaissance,
elevated by Google and other search engines.(In response to a request for comment from Scientific American, a representative of Google cited a statement from the company that had been included in a Wired article on this subject:
“Our goal is for AI Overviews to provide links to high quality content so that people can click through to learn more,
but for some queries there may not be a lot of high quality web content available.”)Last year a then forthcoming book,
"The Origins of Woke", by right-wing author #Richard #Hanania was lauded by tech industry figures
#David #Sacks and #Peter #Thiel.That same year the Huffington Post reported that Hanania had previously written under a pseudonym for white supremacist websites.
He then wrote an essay in which he claimed to give “an explanation for why I wrote such things,
and why I no longer hold such views.”But critics suggest those views are reflected in his book and in racist comments he has continued to make,
including his suggestions that people of color need aggressive policing and more incarceration.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/silicon-valley-is-reviving-the-discredited-and-discriminatory-idea-of-race/ -
Scientific racism today must be seen and rejected for what it truly is
—a hollow attempt to dress discrimination in the garb of science and reasonAcross Europe and the U.S., racist and anti-immigrant groups have embraced
long-discredited ideas that races constitute biologically separate groups
differing in everything from intelligence to birthrate.With immigration a defining topic in fractious debates on both sides of the Atlantic,
#scientific #racism is now explicit in right-wing discourse.In October an exposé in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper revealed a network dedicated to proliferating race science worldwide had received years of funding from Silicon Valley.
That same month came Donald Trump’s comment decrying immigration as
“a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”In June it was revealed that a U.K. Reform Party candidate had previously insisted that sub-Saharan Africans were lowering IQ in the country.
But while its modern advocates rebrand scientific racism as “human biodiversity,”
such insidious euphemisms are just attempts to give a veneer of respectability to hateful, pseudoscientific beliefs.These beliefs have a dark history tied to the racial pseudoscience of #eugenics,
and its popularity sadly continues unabated.On social media, avowed racists misrepresent genetic research to bolster the narrative that white people are intrinsically superior.
In the rarefied world of Silicon Valley, race science has made a dark renaissance,
elevated by Google and other search engines.(In response to a request for comment from Scientific American, a representative of Google cited a statement from the company that had been included in a Wired article on this subject:
“Our goal is for AI Overviews to provide links to high quality content so that people can click through to learn more,
but for some queries there may not be a lot of high quality web content available.”)Last year a then forthcoming book,
"The Origins of Woke", by right-wing author #Richard #Hanania was lauded by tech industry figures
#David #Sacks and #Peter #Thiel.That same year the Huffington Post reported that Hanania had previously written under a pseudonym for white supremacist websites.
He then wrote an essay in which he claimed to give “an explanation for why I wrote such things,
and why I no longer hold such views.”But critics suggest those views are reflected in his book and in racist comments he has continued to make,
including his suggestions that people of color need aggressive policing and more incarceration.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/silicon-valley-is-reviving-the-discredited-and-discriminatory-idea-of-race/ -
Scientific racism today must be seen and rejected for what it truly is
—a hollow attempt to dress discrimination in the garb of science and reasonAcross Europe and the U.S., racist and anti-immigrant groups have embraced
long-discredited ideas that races constitute biologically separate groups
differing in everything from intelligence to birthrate.With immigration a defining topic in fractious debates on both sides of the Atlantic,
#scientific #racism is now explicit in right-wing discourse.In October an exposé in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper revealed a network dedicated to proliferating race science worldwide had received years of funding from Silicon Valley.
That same month came Donald Trump’s comment decrying immigration as
“a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”In June it was revealed that a U.K. Reform Party candidate had previously insisted that sub-Saharan Africans were lowering IQ in the country.
But while its modern advocates rebrand scientific racism as “human biodiversity,”
such insidious euphemisms are just attempts to give a veneer of respectability to hateful, pseudoscientific beliefs.These beliefs have a dark history tied to the racial pseudoscience of #eugenics,
and its popularity sadly continues unabated.On social media, avowed racists misrepresent genetic research to bolster the narrative that white people are intrinsically superior.
In the rarefied world of Silicon Valley, race science has made a dark renaissance,
elevated by Google and other search engines.(In response to a request for comment from Scientific American, a representative of Google cited a statement from the company that had been included in a Wired article on this subject:
“Our goal is for AI Overviews to provide links to high quality content so that people can click through to learn more,
but for some queries there may not be a lot of high quality web content available.”)Last year a then forthcoming book,
"The Origins of Woke", by right-wing author #Richard #Hanania was lauded by tech industry figures
#David #Sacks and #Peter #Thiel.That same year the Huffington Post reported that Hanania had previously written under a pseudonym for white supremacist websites.
He then wrote an essay in which he claimed to give “an explanation for why I wrote such things,
and why I no longer hold such views.”But critics suggest those views are reflected in his book and in racist comments he has continued to make,
including his suggestions that people of color need aggressive policing and more incarceration.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/silicon-valley-is-reviving-the-discredited-and-discriminatory-idea-of-race/ -
Scientific racism today must be seen and rejected for what it truly is
—a hollow attempt to dress discrimination in the garb of science and reasonAcross Europe and the U.S., racist and anti-immigrant groups have embraced
long-discredited ideas that races constitute biologically separate groups
differing in everything from intelligence to birthrate.With immigration a defining topic in fractious debates on both sides of the Atlantic,
#scientific #racism is now explicit in right-wing discourse.In October an exposé in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper revealed a network dedicated to proliferating race science worldwide had received years of funding from Silicon Valley.
That same month came Donald Trump’s comment decrying immigration as
“a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”In June it was revealed that a U.K. Reform Party candidate had previously insisted that sub-Saharan Africans were lowering IQ in the country.
But while its modern advocates rebrand scientific racism as “human biodiversity,”
such insidious euphemisms are just attempts to give a veneer of respectability to hateful, pseudoscientific beliefs.These beliefs have a dark history tied to the racial pseudoscience of #eugenics,
and its popularity sadly continues unabated.On social media, avowed racists misrepresent genetic research to bolster the narrative that white people are intrinsically superior.
In the rarefied world of Silicon Valley, race science has made a dark renaissance,
elevated by Google and other search engines.(In response to a request for comment from Scientific American, a representative of Google cited a statement from the company that had been included in a Wired article on this subject:
“Our goal is for AI Overviews to provide links to high quality content so that people can click through to learn more,
but for some queries there may not be a lot of high quality web content available.”)Last year a then forthcoming book,
"The Origins of Woke", by right-wing author #Richard #Hanania was lauded by tech industry figures
#David #Sacks and #Peter #Thiel.That same year the Huffington Post reported that Hanania had previously written under a pseudonym for white supremacist websites.
He then wrote an essay in which he claimed to give “an explanation for why I wrote such things,
and why I no longer hold such views.”But critics suggest those views are reflected in his book and in racist comments he has continued to make,
including his suggestions that people of color need aggressive policing and more incarceration.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/silicon-valley-is-reviving-the-discredited-and-discriminatory-idea-of-race/ -
Scientific racism today must be seen and rejected for what it truly is
—a hollow attempt to dress discrimination in the garb of science and reasonAcross Europe and the U.S., racist and anti-immigrant groups have embraced
long-discredited ideas that races constitute biologically separate groups
differing in everything from intelligence to birthrate.With immigration a defining topic in fractious debates on both sides of the Atlantic,
#scientific #racism is now explicit in right-wing discourse.In October an exposé in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper revealed a network dedicated to proliferating race science worldwide had received years of funding from Silicon Valley.
That same month came Donald Trump’s comment decrying immigration as
“a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”In June it was revealed that a U.K. Reform Party candidate had previously insisted that sub-Saharan Africans were lowering IQ in the country.
But while its modern advocates rebrand scientific racism as “human biodiversity,”
such insidious euphemisms are just attempts to give a veneer of respectability to hateful, pseudoscientific beliefs.These beliefs have a dark history tied to the racial pseudoscience of #eugenics,
and its popularity sadly continues unabated.On social media, avowed racists misrepresent genetic research to bolster the narrative that white people are intrinsically superior.
In the rarefied world of Silicon Valley, race science has made a dark renaissance,
elevated by Google and other search engines.(In response to a request for comment from Scientific American, a representative of Google cited a statement from the company that had been included in a Wired article on this subject:
“Our goal is for AI Overviews to provide links to high quality content so that people can click through to learn more,
but for some queries there may not be a lot of high quality web content available.”)Last year a then forthcoming book,
"The Origins of Woke", by right-wing author #Richard #Hanania was lauded by tech industry figures
#David #Sacks and #Peter #Thiel.That same year the Huffington Post reported that Hanania had previously written under a pseudonym for white supremacist websites.
He then wrote an essay in which he claimed to give “an explanation for why I wrote such things,
and why I no longer hold such views.”But critics suggest those views are reflected in his book and in racist comments he has continued to make,
including his suggestions that people of color need aggressive policing and more incarceration.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/silicon-valley-is-reviving-the-discredited-and-discriminatory-idea-of-race/ -
Trump was fund-raising off his conviction with small-dollar donors as well;
His campaign, which portrayed him as the victim of a politicized justice system, brought in nearly $53 million in the twenty-four hours after the verdict.
Several megadonors who had held back from endorsing Trump announced that they were now supporting him,
including
🔸#Miriam #Adelson, the widow of the late casino mogul #Sheldon Adelson;
🔸the Silicon Valley investor #David #Sacks, who said that the case against Trump was a sign of America turning into a “Banana Republic”;
🔸and the venture capitalist #Shaun #Maguire, who, less than an hour after the verdict, posted on X that he was donating $300,000 to Trump, 👉calling the prosecution a “radicalizing experience.” 👈A day later, #Timothy #Mellon, the banking-family scion, wrote a $50-million check to the Make America Great Again super pac.
#Ed #Rogers, a longtime G.O.P. lobbyist, had never publicly endorsed Trump or raised money for his campaigns.
On May 31st, the day after Trump’s conviction, he sent his first contribution to the ex-President. “There was no case to make that that was not targeted prosecution,” he told me.
He predicted that other Republicans who, like him, had been “allergic” to Trump would now get on board as well.
“I tell people I am a Bill Barr, Chris Sununu, Nikki Haley Republican,” he said, listing the names of Republican officials who had criticized Trump in blistering terms only to support him again in 2024;
Haley, despite having called Trump “unhinged” and a threat to the Republic, had announced the week before his conviction that she would vote for him.
“The choices are 🔹Biden or Trump🔹, and I’m at peace with that,” Rogers said in June.
“I wish it was a different equation, but it’s not.”❗️Many donors I spoke with at the time described
🧨Trump’s trial as an impetus,
but they tended to cite a litany of other reasons, too, including questions about
🔸Biden’s age and fitness to serve another term, concerns about his
🔸economic policies, and gripes about some of his
🔸appointees, such as the head of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, who has launched high-profile antitrust investigations.Trump, despite his populist rhetoric, deficit spending, and support for market-distorting tariffs,
has sold himself as a pro-business candidate.He has promised extensive deregulation,
nearly unfettered drilling for oil and gas,
and tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals.“A lot of the donors have just come to the conclusion that, when you add it all up,
the risks with Trump are behavioral
—personal behavior and what he says
—versus the policies,” the attendee at the Fifth Avenue fund-raiser told me.It was a “rationalization” adopted by “even those who were initially very put off, very alienated, by his behavior at the end of his Presidency.”
🆘 By late May, Trump’s campaign had more money in the bank than Biden’s.
The incumbent President’s disastrous performance in a June 27th debate against Trump only accelerated the trend.
“After the debate, Biden looks like a loser,
so these people who were never going to give to Biden,
they’re now even more attracted to the idea of giving to former President Trump,”
the attendee at Fanjul’s dinner said.“Because he looks like a winner.”
The following month, as Democratic donors and elected officials frantically pressured Biden to drop out of the race,
Trump and the Republicans again outraised the Democrats.“The Zeitgeist in the business world is that Trump is going to be President again,”
a billionaire C.E.O. who is not a Trump supporter told me at the time.“Therefore, why fall on your sword on principle?”
He added, “Businesspeople
—their main focus in life is to make money,
and you make money by backing winners. . . .They’ve concluded, O.K., he’s going to be President,
let’s hold our nose and do what we have to do.” -
Tech executives and investors said they were invigorated by Harris
“It’s democracy time, people,” Roy #Bahat, an investor at Bloomberg Beta, posted on LinkedIn.
Aaron #Levie, the chief executive of Box, a cloud storage company, wrote on X that Mr. Biden had shown “amazing leadership,” adding, “Now let’s go!”The energy was a far cry from the dismay felt in tech circles recently as some of the industry’s most influential voices declared they were for Mr. Trump.
The rejuvenation could blunt the momentum of pro-Trump conservatives in Silicon Valley and entice more wealthy tech executives to throw their support — and money — behind the Democratic ticket.Just last week, the political winds in Silicon Valley appeared to be blowing to the right.
On Tuesday, Mr. #Andreessen 😨and Mr. #Horowitz😨, founders of the influential investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, argued in a 90-minute podcast that Mr. Trump was the best candidate for start-ups, with plans to donate millions to his campaign. Days earlier, Mr. #Musk 😨had also endorsed Mr. Trump.
They had been preceded by David #Sacks 😨and Chamath #Palihapitiya, 😨two tech investors who had hosteda $12 million fund-raiser for Mr. Trump in June. Doug #Leone 😨and Shaun #Maguire 😨of Sequoia Capital, a top investment firm, had also said that they would vote for Mr. Trump.Yet despite the growing sense of a MAGA takeover, not everyone in tech moved toward Mr. Trump.
“You have people with the loudest voices claiming to speak for the broader community, and the views don’t match,” said Katie Jacobs #Stanton, founder of Moxxie Ventures, a venture capital firm.
“By no means do they line up with the thousands of founders and employees and investors who live and work in Silicon Valley.”
John #Coogan, a start-up founder, wrote in a blog post in June that media coverage of Silicon Valley’s support for Mr. Trump was “at odds with reality.”
Top venture capitalists had given four times more money to Democrats than Republicans in the first part of the year, he argued.“Trump is very unpopular in Silicon Valley in general,” Mr. #Khosla said, adding that those who were pro-Trump were “only a small constituency.”
Now liberals in tech are rejuvenated.
Mr. #Mehta said that some of his WhatsApp chats, particularly those that included Indian people in tech, exploded with excitement for Kamala Harris, whose mother is from India.
To show support for the vice president, some implored people to make small donations, while others discussed potential fund-raisers, he said.
Mr. #Hoffman, a founder of LinkedIn and a prominent Democratic donor, emphasized in essays, videos and social media posts that Mr. Trump was a danger to the rule of law and democracy.
“You can’t use business justification as your cloak, as your rationalization, for being supportive of Trump,” he said.Mr. #Levie of Box said he had spoken to a dozen other tech and business people on Sunday who were now optimistic about the election in November.
He said he was hopeful that Democrats could deliver a positive message on issues that the tech industry cared about, including A.I., entrepreneurship and immigration reform for high-skilled workers.
“We have a chance to get excited and rally around someone,” he said.On Sunday, Mr. #Hoffman endorsed Ms. Harris, while Mr. #Khosla called for an open process at the Democratic convention.
Mr. #Suster said his phone blew up with a collective message of “thank god.”
He estimated that three-quarters of the people he interacted with in tech were happy about Mr. Biden’s withdrawal and would not support Mr. Trump. -
It’s Silicon Valley vs. Silicon Valley as Political Fights Escalate
Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and other tech billionaires,
-- many of whom are part of the “PayPal Mafia,”
-- are openly brawling with one another over politics as tensions rise.Less than an hour after a gunman in Butler, Pa., tried to assassinate Donald Trump this month,
David #Sacks, a venture capitalist based in San Francisco,
directed his anger about the incident toward a former colleague.“The Left normalized this,” Mr. Sacks wrote on X, linking to a post about Reid #Hoffman, a technology investor and major Democratic donor.
Mr. Sacks implied that Mr. Hoffman, a critic of Mr. Trump who had funded a lawsuit accusing the former president of rape and defamation, had helped cause the shooting.
Elon #Musk, who leads SpaceX and Tesla and previously worked with Mr. Sacks and Mr. Hoffman,
then weighed in on X, name-checking Mr. Hoffman and saying people like him “got their dearest wish.”In Silicon Valley, the spectacle of tech billionaire attacking tech billionaire has suddenly exploded,
as pro-Trump executives and their Democratic counterparts have openly turned on each other.The brawling has spilled into public view online, at conferences and on podcasts,
as debates about the country’s future have turned into personal broadsides.The animus has pit those who once worked side by side and attended each other’s weddings against one another,
fraying friendships and alliances that could shift Silicon Valley’s power centers.The fighting has been particularly acute among the 🔸“PayPal Mafia,” 🔸
a wealthy group of tech executives
— including Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Musk, Mr. Sacks and the investor Peter #Thiel
— who worked together at the online payments company in the 1990s
and later founded their own companies or turned into high-profile investors.Other tech leaders have also been pulled into the political spats, including Vinod #Khosla, a prominent investor, and Marc #Andreessen and Ben #Horowitz of the Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Their unabashed vitriol is stark.
While tech leaders often criticize one another in private,
they rarely do so publicly for fear of upsetting a potential deal partner or future job prospect.“Until a year or two ago, there was something like an #omertà in Silicon Valley,” said Roger McNamee,
a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, using a word popularized by the Italian mafia for a code of silence.“People had fights all the time and leaders would disagree, but you wouldn’t disagree in public.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/technology/silicon-valley-politics-elon-musk-reid-hoffman.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-00.mbMn.lcxJeRZWmP_6&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare -
How JD Vance’s path to being Trump’s VP pick wound through Silicon Valley
Following a brief period of work in corporate law after he graduated Yale, Vance moved to San Francisco and got a job at #Peter #Thiel’s Mithril Capital venture firm in 2015.
After Hillbilly Elegy became a bestseller in 2016 and brought him to national prominence, Vance joined the venture capital firm Revolution, founded by the former AOL CEO #Steve #Case.
Vance remained a part of the tech VC world after returning to Ohio and leaving Revolution in early 2020.
He received financial backing from Thiel to co-found the venture firm Narya Capital
– which, like Thiel’s enterprises, was named after an object from The Lord of The Rings, this time a ring of power made for elves.Other prominent investors in Narya included #Eric #Schmidt, the former Google CEO,and #Marc #Andreessen, a venture capitalist, who announced his own support for #Trump this past week.
The stated goal of Vance’s firm was to invest in early-stage startups in cities that Silicon Valley tended to overlook.
Narya Capital in 2021 led a group of conservative investors,
including Thiel,
to put money into #Rumble, the video streaming platform that positions itself as
a less-moderated and more rightwing friendly version of YouTube.Vance’s co-founder at Narya, #Colin #Greenspon, touted the investment as a challenge to big tech’s hold on online services
– a frequent conservative talking point during the backlash to content moderation around the pandemic and 2020 presidential election.It was also around this time that Thiel, who heavily backed Trump financially during the 2016 campaign, brought Vance to first talk with Trump during a secretive meeting at Mar-a-Lago in February of 2021, according to the New York Times.
Vance’s long association with Thiel also proved lucrative during his run for senator in 2022.
Thiel put a staggering $15m into Vance’s campaign and, according to the Washington Post, helped court Trump’s endorsement, leading to Vance winning a tightly contested Republican primary race and then the senate election.Although Thiel has pledged in recent years to stay out of donations to the 2024 election,
Vance has since flexed his other Silicon Valley connections to ingratiate himself to Trump.The Ohio senator introduced #David #Sacks, a prominent venture capitalist, to Donald Trump Jr in March, the New York Times reported,
and attended Sacks’ pro-Trump fundraiser in June, co-sponsored by #Chamath #Palihapitiya, Sacks’ co-host on the popular podcast All In.The event, which cost as much as $300,000 to attend, was held at Sacks’s San Francisco mansion and featured the investor thanking Vance for his help making the fundraiser happen.
During an informal conversation at the dinner, Sacks and Palihapitiya told Trump to nominate Vance as his VP choice.
Sacks spoke at the Republican national convention Monday.
In the days prior, he had also called Trump to advocate for Vance as the VP pick,
as had #Elon #Musk and #Tucker #Carlson, the ex-Fox News host, according to Axios.Thiel also expressed his support for Vance in private calls with Trump, the New York Times reported.
When Trump confirmed Vance would be his running mate, Sacks and Musk posted fawning celebrations on Twitter
– with Musk saying the ticket “resounds with victory”.Many of Vance’s wealthy tech elite and venture capitalist supporters now appear to be preparing to offer even more tangible support.
Investors including Musk, Andreessen and Thiel’s co-founder in #Palantir, #Joe #Lonsdale, are all reportedly planning to donate huge sums of money to back the Trump and Vance campaign
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/19/jd-vance-trump-vp-pick-silicon-valley?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other -
Many Republicans don’t align with new messages at GOP convention
Monday’s program was chock full of efforts to reach groups that don’t generally align with Republicans,
from Latino and Black voters to union members.But the messages used to accomplish that task were often discordant —
with Trump’s usual mien,
with one another,
with those of the party’s base.And while the party has become defined much more by “Trump” than any set of policies,
that can’t help but create some tensions.The big one Monday concerned the party’s increasingly #isolationist posture.
After Trump picked as his running mate one of the most prominent skeptics of Ukraine aid, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio,
— Vance once said he didn’t “really care” what happened to Ukraine
— a succession of speakers delivered remarks in that vein. Rep. Marjorie Taylor #Greene (Ga.) 🔸criticized aid to “foreign nations,”while tech investor David #Sacks ♦️blamed the U.S. government for provoking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by pushing NATO expansion.♦️
While much of the GOP base is skeptical of Ukraine aid,
a healthy segment of it remains #hawkish on the war.Recent polling shows more than 4 in 10 Republicans believe that the amount of aid to Ukraine has been not enough or “about right.”
After the most recent Ukraine aid package passed, a poll showed Republicans leaned against it, but not a majority or even by a huge margin.
While 44 percent opposed the aid, 30 percent supported it.
And in contrast to Sacks’s comment, a Chicago Council of Global Affairs poll last year showed 🔹fewer than four in 10 Republicans blamed either NATO (37 percent) or the United States (32 percent) for Russia’s invasion. 🔹
Republicans also still lean in favor of NATO and even Ukraine’s membership in it.
The messages are also somewhat at odds with Trump himself.While he has projected skepticism about Ukraine aid, he didn’t really fight the most recent package, and he has said that Ukraine’s survival is “important to us!”
-
Many Republicans don’t align with new messages at GOP convention
Monday’s program was chock full of efforts to reach groups that don’t generally align with Republicans,
from Latino and Black voters to union members.But the messages used to accomplish that task were often discordant —
with Trump’s usual mien,
with one another,
with those of the party’s base.And while the party has become defined much more by “Trump” than any set of policies,
that can’t help but create some tensions.The big one Monday concerned the party’s increasingly #isolationist posture.
After Trump picked as his running mate one of the most prominent skeptics of Ukraine aid, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio,
— Vance once said he didn’t “really care” what happened to Ukraine
— a succession of speakers delivered remarks in that vein. Rep. Marjorie Taylor #Greene (Ga.) 🔸criticized aid to “foreign nations,”while tech investor David #Sacks ♦️blamed the U.S. government for provoking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by pushing NATO expansion.♦️
While much of the GOP base is skeptical of Ukraine aid,
a healthy segment of it remains #hawkish on the war.Recent polling shows more than 4 in 10 Republicans believe that the amount of aid to Ukraine has been not enough or “about right.”
After the most recent Ukraine aid package passed, a poll showed Republicans leaned against it, but not a majority or even by a huge margin.
While 44 percent opposed the aid, 30 percent supported it.
And in contrast to Sacks’s comment, a Chicago Council of Global Affairs poll last year showed 🔹fewer than four in 10 Republicans blamed either NATO (37 percent) or the United States (32 percent) for Russia’s invasion. 🔹
Republicans also still lean in favor of NATO and even Ukraine’s membership in it.
The messages are also somewhat at odds with Trump himself.While he has projected skepticism about Ukraine aid, he didn’t really fight the most recent package, and he has said that Ukraine’s survival is “important to us!”
-
Many Republicans don’t align with new messages at GOP convention
Monday’s program was chock full of efforts to reach groups that don’t generally align with Republicans,
from Latino and Black voters to union members.But the messages used to accomplish that task were often discordant —
with Trump’s usual mien,
with one another,
with those of the party’s base.And while the party has become defined much more by “Trump” than any set of policies,
that can’t help but create some tensions.The big one Monday concerned the party’s increasingly #isolationist posture.
After Trump picked as his running mate one of the most prominent skeptics of Ukraine aid, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio,
— Vance once said he didn’t “really care” what happened to Ukraine
— a succession of speakers delivered remarks in that vein. Rep. Marjorie Taylor #Greene (Ga.) 🔸criticized aid to “foreign nations,”while tech investor David #Sacks ♦️blamed the U.S. government for provoking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by pushing NATO expansion.♦️
While much of the GOP base is skeptical of Ukraine aid,
a healthy segment of it remains #hawkish on the war.Recent polling shows more than 4 in 10 Republicans believe that the amount of aid to Ukraine has been not enough or “about right.”
After the most recent Ukraine aid package passed, a poll showed Republicans leaned against it, but not a majority or even by a huge margin.
While 44 percent opposed the aid, 30 percent supported it.
And in contrast to Sacks’s comment, a Chicago Council of Global Affairs poll last year showed 🔹fewer than four in 10 Republicans blamed either NATO (37 percent) or the United States (32 percent) for Russia’s invasion. 🔹
Republicans also still lean in favor of NATO and even Ukraine’s membership in it.
The messages are also somewhat at odds with Trump himself.While he has projected skepticism about Ukraine aid, he didn’t really fight the most recent package, and he has said that Ukraine’s survival is “important to us!”
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Many Republicans don’t align with new messages at GOP convention
Monday’s program was chock full of efforts to reach groups that don’t generally align with Republicans,
from Latino and Black voters to union members.But the messages used to accomplish that task were often discordant —
with Trump’s usual mien,
with one another,
with those of the party’s base.And while the party has become defined much more by “Trump” than any set of policies,
that can’t help but create some tensions.The big one Monday concerned the party’s increasingly #isolationist posture.
After Trump picked as his running mate one of the most prominent skeptics of Ukraine aid, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio,
— Vance once said he didn’t “really care” what happened to Ukraine
— a succession of speakers delivered remarks in that vein. Rep. Marjorie Taylor #Greene (Ga.) 🔸criticized aid to “foreign nations,”while tech investor David #Sacks ♦️blamed the U.S. government for provoking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by pushing NATO expansion.♦️
While much of the GOP base is skeptical of Ukraine aid,
a healthy segment of it remains #hawkish on the war.Recent polling shows more than 4 in 10 Republicans believe that the amount of aid to Ukraine has been not enough or “about right.”
After the most recent Ukraine aid package passed, a poll showed Republicans leaned against it, but not a majority or even by a huge margin.
While 44 percent opposed the aid, 30 percent supported it.
And in contrast to Sacks’s comment, a Chicago Council of Global Affairs poll last year showed 🔹fewer than four in 10 Republicans blamed either NATO (37 percent) or the United States (32 percent) for Russia’s invasion. 🔹
Republicans also still lean in favor of NATO and even Ukraine’s membership in it.
The messages are also somewhat at odds with Trump himself.While he has projected skepticism about Ukraine aid, he didn’t really fight the most recent package, and he has said that Ukraine’s survival is “important to us!”
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#Starbucks #store #sacks #trans #worker who #accused #customer of #transphobia after reportedly being repeatedly #misgendered in #viral #footage, because she knocked the phone out of the hands of a self-admitted accomplice.
#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #UK #Business #TERFS #Hate #Bigotry #Violence #Discrimination #Transphobia #TERFIsland