Brooke Harrington writes:

Eight years ago, the PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel was an outlier in liberal Silicon Valley for publicly supporting Donald Trump. But now a number of prominent male tech plutocrats who previously opposed the former president have done an about-face: These broligarchs are publicly endorsing and donating to the Republican candidate—and revealing a lot about their own priorities.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who according to his biographer once waited in line for six hours to shake Barack Obama’s hand, was planning to donate $45 million a month to a super PAC supporting Trump’s campaign. Musk later denied making the offer, but he reiterated his support for Trump, despite the former president’s effort to overturn the 2020 election and his criticism of electric vehicles. After backing Joe Biden in 2020, Musk has grown sharply critical of Democrats on a range of issues.

Meanwhile, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who once blasted Trump’s anti-immigration politics, recently endorsed Trump on his podcast, arguing that the Republican nominee’s policies are better for tech start-ups. Another prominent venture capitalist, David Sacks, who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and said after the January 6 riot that Trump had “disqualified himself,” hosted a fundraiser for Trump in June, circulated a list of Silicon Valley luminaries supporting the ex-president, and urged others: “Come on in, the water’s warm.” Sacks maintained in an open letter that the Republican ex-president would be better on the economy, foreign policy, and border security.

Trump’s consistent lead in the polls, at least until President Joe Biden dropped out, might also help explain the broligarchs’ change of heart; many business leaders cozy up to politicians who seem likely to win. But another motivation seems obvious: a desire for power without accountability. Noblesse without the oblige. [Continue reading…]