Musk, Ramaswamy, Thiel, and other technologists put their fingerprints on the transition process.
As President-elect Donald Trump assembles his second administration, the influence of Silicon Valley is clearer than ever.
There’s the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a time-limited commission on government waste and cost led by entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Like many others in the Trump camp in 2024, Musk got his start in the so-called “PayPal Mafia,” joining the financial technology firm at an early stage of its formation.
Another PayPal cofounder, venture capitalist and political theorist Peter Thiel, mentored venture capitalist and Vice President-elect JD Vance.
David Sacks, also a member of the PayPal Mafia, is the incoming White House czar on cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, a pro-crypto voice, Paul Atkins, is set to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, likely upending the less friendly regulatory environment established under current SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
In the weeks after Trump’s election, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have traveled to Mar-a-Lago to dine with the president-elect.
And many insiders are excited by what they are seeing.
“Tech has, without contest, produced the most value of any sector in the last two decades because it’s attracted the most innovative and capable people in the country, particularly the PayPal Mafia,” Augustus Doricko, founder of the cloud-seeding startup Rainmaker, told The Epoch Times in a message.
“We obviously should want such people in government.”
Mark Andreessen, cofounder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, was a major donor to the pro-Trump Right for America super PAC.
“Big Tech spent a decade doing everything possible to be the best conceivable progressive ally. They got treated with utter contempt, pounded daily, crucified in return. A full rethinking is required,” Andreessen wrote on social media platform X.
There is skepticism too, including from some pro-Trump voices.
Kevin Lynn of U.S. Tech Workers, an activist group for Americans affected by outsourcing, worries that Silicon Valley could pressure the president-elect to soften his policies on immigration.
He drew attention to Trump’s June appearance on Sacks’ “All-In Podcast,” an influential forum for discussion in Silicon Valley.
