The Silicon Valley Would-Be Vice President
They pushed JD Vance to serve their own interests. They’re wrong.
JD Vance is an obvious, bald-faced opportunist. It makes sense that Trump would pick him as his Vice Presidential candidate; they probably understand each other quite well.
It can’t have hurt that a bevy of tech billionaires told Trump to pick him, and it’s not unreasonable to assume they gated funding on that choice. Elon Musk has pledged to give $45 million a month to a PAC newly formed to back Trump; Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, former Yammer founder David Sacks, and VC Chamath Palihapitiya have also raised money for the group. Eponymous Andreessen-Horowitz founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz pledged donations and Keith Rabois has also reportedly pledged a comparatively paltry $1 million. (The Winkelvoss twins are also donors, but I wouldn’t exactly call them Silicon Valley insiders.)
Andreessen explained why, saying that the future of America is at stake:
Biden’s proposal to tax unrealized capital gains is what Andreessen called “the final straw” that forced him to switch from supporting the current president to voting for Trump. If the unrealized capital gains tax goes into effect, startups may have to pay taxes on valuation increases. (Private companies’ appreciation is…
