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Will there be a Civil War in Silicon Valley?

November 5 could be a landmark date in more ways than one this time. Depending on who wins the US Presidential elections, there could be a big shake-up in Silicon Valley.

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Sunil Rajguru
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Silicon Valley is probably the most powerful lobby in the world. From multiple trillion-dollar companies to billions of users, millions of inhabitants, lakhs of millionaires and thousands of startups. While initially Republicans had a say in the valley, by the late 2010s it was totally taken over by the Democrats. A clutch of billionaires has broken free and have gone to the Republican side. 

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The polarisation that began with Barack Obama’s identity-ridden re-election campaign in 2012 has reached its peak in 2024. No matter who wins, the other side won’t accept the verdict. Many talk of a Civil War in America. If that happens then the Democrats cannot fully bank on Silicon Valley which has got divided and may be forced to pick sides. 

Looking at the original FAANG companies (Facebook Apple Amazon Netflix Google), it’s Democrat all the way: Mark Zuckerburg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Netflix is probably a mistake addition and could be replaced by Nvidia and Jensen Huang is considered neutral. This also leaves out Microsoft (Bill Gates is a Democrat and recently contributed $50 million to the Kamala Harris campaign) and Tesla. Finally, the list of trillion-dollar companies is: Microsoft, Facebook (Meta), Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Google (Alphabet) and Tesla.

Musk versus the World

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The last entry is interesting. Tesla is managed by Elon Musk, who has been a lifelong Democrat but has been an out and out Republican and Donald Trump supporter. His biggest contribution has been turning the rabidly Left-leaning and Democratic supporting Twitter into a relatively centrist X. If the Trump campaign has done well, then a large part of the credit goes to Musk and X.

But Musk has been in a menacing mood this year. Just look at some of his Tweets.

His AI Tweets against Kamala…

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His impending battle with the UK Labour Party…

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His mocking of Kamala’s VP pick Tim Walz…

His battle with the Brazilian authorities where X was suspended for a while…

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His battle with California Governor Gavin Newsom…

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One wonders where all this will end if Trump becomes President and Musk joins his team. Incidentally Musk has left California but he is not the first. HPE and Oracle left before him.

The Paypal Mafia has thrown its lot behind Trump. Paypal Don and billionaire Peter Thiel is the longest running supporter of Trump. He also set up a meeting with ex-VC JD Vance who ended up being Trump’s VP pick. Non-controversial VCs Andreessen Horowitz donated millions to the Trump campaign.

Things sure have changed since Trump was banned from social media networks in the last election cycle. This time he came back with his own product—Truth Social—before being embraced by X. Musk threatened Zuckerburg and the latter also commended Trump’s brave reaction after the assassination attempt on his life.

Someone said that America was headed for a Civil War no matter who won, so polarized had the two political sides become. Well Silicon Valley has also picked sides and is the most divided it’s been in ages.

Post November 5 might be wild times both is American politics and Silicon Valley too.

elon-musk mark-zuckerberg silicon-valley donald-trump paypal-mafia