- Some in Silicon Valley's elite are welcoming the new Trump administration.
- Not only do these leading companies want less regulation, they are also investing heavily in AI.
- Billionaire Mark Cuban told BI that having President Trump's ear could also mean guiding legislation regarding AI.
Shortly after Donald Trump became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a felony on Thursday, some in Silicon Valley's elite rebelled.
“Undoubtedly, today has done great damage to the public's faith in the American justice system,” Elon Musk, who has had his own legal battles and clashes with the government, wrote on X.
Some renewed or reaffirmed their support for Trump.
Sean Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, said on The X Show that he would donate $300,000 to the Trump campaign.
“I'd rather have 'convicted criminals' over World War III any day,” venture capitalist David Sachs wrote on X, pointing to a Politico article claiming the Biden administration is furthering US involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war by authorizing the use of US weapons in attacks on Russian soil. Pack reported that Sachs will co-host a fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco next week.
Musk has not formally endorsed Trump, but one reason the Silicon Valley tycoon is drawn to the convicted former president could be his desire to ease restrictions on technology development. In the United States.
They're also some of the biggest players in the rapidly advancing world of artificial intelligence.
For billionaire Mark Cuban, therein lies a key motivation.
Cuban, a vocal opponent of President Trump and supporter of Joe Biden, said in an email to Business Insider that the support for Trump from billionaires in Silicon Valley and Wall Street is “selfish.”
“They want as little regulation as possible, because if they don't make the regulations, they're not going to work,” Cuban told BI.
Cuban's biggest concern was the seeming desire to encourage regulation around AI and legislation around the technology.
“There is concern that regulations will be written in a way that reduces their ability to compete globally and with each other,” he wrote, explaining his theory on why Silicon Valley billionaires support Trump. “So unless they have a very light touch, which seems unlikely at this point, the more influence they have over AI regulation, the more opportunity they have to turn it to their own advantage.”
Developing AI legislation
Musk, Maguire and Sacks did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment, but each has expressed varying degrees of opposition to government regulation.
Speaking on the All In podcast last year, Sacks said he believes people should be able to experiment further with artificial intelligence before governments start imposing regulations.
“It's too early to impose regulations,” Sachs said. “We don't even know what to regulate.”
Some investors, like Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, support a movement called “effective accelerationism” (e/acc), which calls for the development of AI without any guardrails.
Maguire criticized Democrats for imposing regulation on technology, citing open-source AI and cryptocurrency as examples.
“Democrats are trying to regulate technology, especially open source AI and cryptocurrency, in a way that encourages the best developers to develop it outside of the US,” he said in a post on X explaining his reasons for supporting Trump.
Not all Silicon Valley companies investing in AI, or President Trump, want to allow unlimited, lawless AI development.
Chamath Palihapitiya, the billionaire investor and co-host of the “All In” podcast with Sachs, argued that AI needs an “oversight body.”
“Our political leaders need to get ahead of this problem sooner rather than later and put some kind of oversight in place before a big, avoidable mistake ends up happening and the genie comes out of the lamp,” he wrote. About X April 2023.
Palihapitiya will co-host a fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco with Sachs.
Musk has also been known to criticize several regulatory agencies, from the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
But AI is one area where Musk has openly called for regulation.
“When we talk about digital superintelligence posing risks to the public, there is a role for governments to play in protecting the interests of the public,” he told British Chancellor Rishi Sunak in November 2023.
Still, Musk said in the same conversation that regulations “would be a nuisance,” and the billionaire's direct access to Trump could give him great influence over the direction of such legislation if Trump returns to the White House.
A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
