The Washington Post reports:

In the weeks before former president Donald Trump announced his vice-presidential pick, some of tech’s biggest names launched a quiet campaign to push for one of their own: Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

The former president fielded repeated calls from tech entrepreneur David Sacks, Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg, and billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Vance’s former employer and mentor, imploring him to add the one-time Silicon Valley investor to the ticket, according to three people familiar with the entreaties, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private conversations.

Vance’s most forceful Silicon Valley advocates are euphoric about the former never Trumper’s rise in the GOP. They see Vance as their emissary in Washington, spreading a doctrine that government and entrenched corporate giants from Google to Lockheed Martin stifle innovation, while nimble, bold-thinking start-ups — especially their own — can propel the national interest. And while the ascension of Vice President Harris has invigorated many left-leaning tech leaders, some in Thiel’s network would stand to benefit from having Vance in the White House — a new asset for venture capitalists who until recently shunned Washington.

“WE HAVE A FORMER TECH VC IN THE WHITE HOUSE GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH BABY,” Delian Asparouhov, a partner at Thiel’s Founder’s Fund, wrote on X after the announcement of Vance’s nomination.

For Thiel, Vance’s presence on the ticket is the payoff on a prescient bet placed a decade ago, when he embraced the Yale Law School graduate with Rust Belt roots as his protégé — joining a roster that included Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI founder Sam Altman.

Especially after the publication in 2016 of his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance impressed Thiel’s rarefied Silicon Valley set with what they saw as an omnivorous intellect, mild manner and outsider story of growing up working-class in Ohio — a narrative that resonated after the 2016 election, as tech elites sought to understand how their obsession with building the future was leaving so many Americans behind.

Thiel made him wealthy, setting him up to invest in companies that became popular with the MAGA set. He shepherded Vance’s entry into politics, bankrolling, alongside other Silicon Valley donors, his successful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2022.

“For Peter,” said one of the people familiar with his thinking, “Vance is a generational bet.”

But Vance’s connections in the business world — along with his stances on social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage — have also opened him up to criticism. Critics have called him a “shillbilly,” arguing that his relationship to the Thiel network could become a pay-to-play scenario.

“The best way for them to [instate] their elitist scheme and reactionary views is regulatory capture,” investor Del Johnson posted on X, using a term to describe the private sector’s control of the regulatory process. “You haven’t seen anything yet if you let the VC class get into the presidency.” [Continue reading…]