The battle for Silicon Valley’s political soul — and donations — is back in full swing after President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. It didn’t take long for the world to hear about his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. Richer Entrepreneur Elon Musk will reiterate his case for Republican nominee Donald Trump, getting into a social media spat with prominent venture capitalist and Democratic donor Vinod Khosla.
Shortly after Biden officially dropped out of the race, Khosla expressed his preference for an open convention to select the Democratic nominee in a post on X, the platform owned by Musk.
“Come on Vinod,” the Tesla and SpaceX co-founder replied, affirming his support for former President Trump and his new running mate, J.D. Vance.
Come on Vinod, Trump/Vance LFG!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2024
Khosla, an OpenAI investor worth about $8 billion, was willing to participate.
“It’s hard for me to support someone who has no values, who lies, who cheats, who rapes, who despises women, who hates immigrants like me.” books “He may cut taxes or reduce some regulations, but that’s no reason to accept corruption as part of his personal values,” says Khosla, who grew up in India before earning graduate degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Stanford.
In the exchanges that followed, Khosla and Musk spoke. Agreed On the lack of trust in media institutions and the need to strengthen individual freedoms. clashBut there are many questions about what a Trump presidency might mean for the fight against climate change and America’s leadership of NATO.
Khosla concluded by asking Musk if he would be willing to forgive Trump for the former president’s role in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021. Musk did not respond.
And @elonmusk Are you willing to forgive him for trying to undermine democracy on January 6 and incite rebellion just to win? He was doing everything, illegal or otherwise, to try to win while his deeply partisan government tried to control him and force him to stop. https://t.co/mPH4X5Ug7E
— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) July 21, 2024
The social media skirmish has highlighted a flashpoint in traditionally liberal Silicon Valley. Some of the biggest (and richest) names in tech, including Musk, Peter Thiel, and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, have publicly endorsed Trump.
By choosing Vance – Ohio’s new senator and best-selling memoir author rural elegyAs a vice presidential candidate, Trump has cemented his ties to the venture capital world, where Vance began his career after graduating from Yale Law School. Thiel, Vance’s biggest venture capital backer, helped introduce Vance to Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2021, where Vance received Trump’s blessing to run for Senate despite his past criticism of the former president.
But Vance, the first millennial on a major party ticket, is far from an ally of Big Tech and those who see increased regulation as an existential threat to investment and innovation. Vance has praised Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan for leading the agency’s antitrust enforcement mission. He has also reached out across the aisle to fellow progressives like Elizabeth Warren to advance bills like “Mega Mergers Stop Support Act“.”
To run against Trump and Vance, Khosla initially pointed to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as lawmakers he wanted to see vie for the Democratic nomination, and later added Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Harris, whom Biden endorsed shortly after she dropped out, to the list. But all three governors quickly endorsed Harris, who appears to be a front-runner after her campaign. He said It raised nearly $50 million on Sunday.
Co-Founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman He was among the first Silicon Valley executives to publicly back Harris, a Bay Area native and former ally of California’s big tech companies.
