The great entrepreneurs are acquiring more and more the status of celebrities, with their fans, their detractors, their actions scrutinized and commented on, their commitments outside their companies relayed. Over the summer, after Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his desire to create a competitor to X (ex-Twitter) and Elon Musk challenged him to a duel on social media, the idea of a media fight between the two billionaires at the Coliseum, under the patronage of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, is spreading. The episode is comical, but the growing influence of this caste should raise questions about the political vision it carries.
Technopopulism
With a net worth estimated at more than a billion dollars, Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the Netscape browser and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, is the emblem of a profound change. In 2016, when asked about his preference for Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump, he asked the journalist if he was serious. Today, his harsh criticism of the oligarchic structure of the current regime has made him one of the surprising figureheads of the populist movement.
Following Elon Musk, he is worried about the “woke” virus which would have contaminated artificial intelligence (AI) as soon as it was trained by OpenAI. The two friends also criticized the hypocrisy of environmental, social and governance (ESG) rules, like some fund managers who have been calling for defense companies to be included in this perimeter since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In front of them, Reid Hoffman and Pierre Omidyar, respectively founders of LinkedIn and eBay, pledged $27 million to help AI “defend the social values of equity… and justice”. As for Salesforce, the company of Marc Benioff, it has announced that it will now link the remuneration of its leaders to ESG criteria.
Democratic Champions…
This opposition does not follow the traditional contours of the right-left divide, between conservatives and liberals. As the race for the 2024 US presidential election accelerates, Robert Kennedy Jr, the descendant of the Democratic dynasty, intends to contest the nomination with Joe Biden by assuming to be populist, with flashy declarations on the usefulness of cryptos, the dangerousness of vaccines or American support for Ukraine.
He became the champion of finance and tech moguls, including Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Magnates who gave him money and visibility, for example in the All-in podcast of venture capitalists Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Sacks, or in that of Joe Rogan. Elon Musk even invited him to a two-hour live discussion on X. In another genre, investor Garry Tan, now CEO of the famous incubator Y Combinator, mocks the politics of left-wing elected officials in Silicon Valley in terms of positive discrimination or the teaching of mathematics, while defining himself as a democrat.
… and republican heralds
On the Republican side, tech bros, pejorative term designating this community of wealthy technology entrepreneurs who invite themselves into the public debate, found their herald in the person of Vivek Ramaswamy, 38 years old. Harvard graduate, associate of a hedge fundhe befriended current U.S. Senator JD Vance and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel before founding Roivant Sciences, buying and reselling drug patents that made him a multi-millionaire.
In 2021, he writes Woke, Inc.., a book that criticizes the secret war waged according to him against work, capitalism, religious faith and patriotism. Billionaire Peter Thiel, an early supporter of former President Donald Trump who later broke up with him, however, said he does not plan to back any candidate in 2024. Openly gay, he believes the Party republican is mistaken in prioritizing the cultural fight rather than the stimulation of innovation.
Here we discover the main reason for the intrusion of tech champions into the political sphere. They do not seek to defend a better distribution of wealth. For them, the real issues are elsewhere: in the restrictions on freedom of expression, the end of meritocracy or the inconsiderate use of the precautionary principle. These are all principles underlying the dazzling success of the technology industry.
* Robin Rivaton is Managing Director of Stonal and member of the Scientific Council of the Foundation for Political Innovation (Fondapol).