#PaypalMafia2025: From tech influencers to geopolitics

Some time back I had written an article Paypal Mafia: The millennium's most influential techies? Since then, their power only seems to be increasing.

Silicon Valley, like the mainstream media, is extremely Left leaning. That’s why they usually back Leftist causes and parties like Democrats (US), Labour (UK) and Congress (India). There was a time when no Silicon Valley billionaire would profess support for the Republican Party because it was right wing.

Donald Trump was the first US President to take on both Silicon Valley and mainstream media and he suffered greatly, especially in the 2020 elections. However there is a good chance that he may be back in the White House in 2025. That could see a monumental shift when it comes to Tech USA.

For one, Trump’s Vice President pick is JD Vance. Vance received funding from Paypal Mafia Don Thiel for his political run for the Senate and the two also met Trump together at that time. Thiel has been a regular funder of Vance’s previous forays when he was a venture capitalist.

Thiel himself is the most influential conservative billionaire and his support both for Trump and the Republican Party has been increasing by leaps and bounds. Thiel is famous for Y Combinator and Palantir.

But it really began with Elon Musk. X (Twitter) used to be practically Far Left in its approach and Leftist trends would regularly go viral. Conservatives would find themselves shadowbanned. Musk took it over and veered it to the centre. That produced an earthquake in the Democrat-Republican debate. Many Democrats have felt betrayed by Musk and feel that they have lost power. There is talk of Musk being an advisor or even being part of the Trump administration should it so happen. Recently Musk announced a whopping fund of $180 million dollars to get Trump re-elected.

Paypal Mafia member David O. Sacks founded Geni.com and Yammer (an enterprise social networking site). He went ballistic at the recent Republican National Convention. A sample quote: “Every day, there are new calls for escalation, and the world looks on in horror as Joe Biden’s demented policy takes us to the brink of World War 3.”

This time Trump is getting a bit more support from tech than usual. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz (AtoZ) have also announced that they will be making financial donations to the Trump campaign. In the 1990s, Mosaic was the first popular web browser with a GUI while Netscape was the first proper www browser. Both were co-founded by Andreessen.

If Trump wins in a few months, can we expect a political and culture war earthquake in Silicon Valley? Possible!