Why Silicon Valley billionaires like Peter Thiel turned against Trump - The Washington Post [View all]

[usonian]

Paywalled but archived. https://archive.is/7BefO

The ambivalence among tech leaders goes well beyond a distaste for the former president, who was scorned by several high-profile tech-world supporters in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Although the tech elite often have criticized the left and “wokeness,” some now say the GOP has overemphasized divisive social issues such as transgender rights and abortion at the expense of the tech titans’ primary political goal: radical deregulation.

Once enticed by the prospect that Trump would usher in a new, ultra-capitalist era in Republican politics, members of the right-leaning tech elite are now looking for allies to protect the industry from bruising attacks by both parties and champion its worth as the country’s most dynamic economic engine. These views have been calcified by government efforts to regulate artificial intelligence, which the Silicon Valley figures see as a transformative technology that would suffer from government meddling.

That disappointment mirrors the sentiment among Republican donors across the country. They are deflated by the prospect of another roller-coaster Trump presidency, citing the president’s erratic behavior and his many legal entanglements. But the ambivalence of right-wing Silicon Valley donors, along with a spate of GOP losses in Tuesday’s elections, deepens the unhappiness over Trump’s all but certain nomination.

“There’s such a massive disconnect right now between caucus-goers and primary voters and the people who write the big super PAC checks,” said a political adviser to major Silicon Valley donors on the right. “We don’t care about [transgender] kids going to bathrooms. We care about dismantling the regulatory state.”

Some are sitting this election out.

I believe that even with increased regulation, business thrives in Democratic presidencies due to broad based wealth increases instead of "empty calorie" handouts by the "welfare for the rich" GOP that end up mostly in stock buybacks and upgraded yachts.