Is it worth it?

It's really hard to figure out what's the story with our tech billionaires.  In an interview with Bloomberg, Zuckerberg called Trump "badass" for raising his fist before being rushed off stage after the assassination attempt last month.  While Mark didn't endorse Trump, he made it clear he enjoyed his bravado.  Something apparently lacking in his own life despite all his jiu jitsu training.

Peter Theil is a big fan of J.D. Vance but seems a bit worried the way the election is going and recently expressed his desire to leave the country.  He compared Californian liberalism to Saudi Arabian Wahabbism in a recent interview on the Joe Rogan Experience.  I typed "don't let the door hit you on the way out, Pete," in the comments section of Yahoo! news feed, but was rejected by their censor bot.  Not sure whether Yahoo's AI is run by liberals or Wahabbists.  Whatever the case, Pete has citizenship in New Zealand after spending a gob of money in the country, which is ironic as the Kiwi State is considered to be a very liberal country. Maybe he plans on changing that in the years to come?

Last I heard, former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey is still endorsing Bobby Jr. despite the independent candidate now shopping his endorsement to both Trump and Harris.  While Trump was willing to listen to him, the Harris camp showed no interest at all, which I assume means he is still trying to get on the ballot in all 50 states.

After his boy Tim Scott dropped out of the race before the first primary, Larry Ellison has been drifting in no man's land.  He tried to get Trump to pick Scott as his VP but that didn't happen. There's no indication he is joining Musk's Super PAC but he has long been conservative in his views and I think when push comes to shove will underwrite Trump's campaign.

Then there's Musk himself, who sat down for a long-winded bull session with Trump on X.  It took a while to get going as there were numerous glitches in the live podcast, but once revved up they traded compliments of each other while insulting others.  Probably the biggest takeaway was Trump alienating union support by complimenting Elon for all the layoffs he did at Twitter and Tesla, resorting in what Teamsters boss Sean O'Brien called "economic terrorism."  Poor guy doesn't know which way to turn these days.

So, what's with these guys?  They really don't represent the Silicon Valley consensus.  Harris has enjoyed a lot of support from tech executives and venture capitalists since being vaulted to the top of the ticket.  Among them Barry Diller, Sheryl Sandberg and Melinda French Gates.  They hosted a big fundraiser for her and netted over $12 million, dwarfing Elon's Super PAC to date.

You get the sense that these oddballs took Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to heart and are trying to create their own Galt's Gulch.  It seems to be hidden in virtual reality for the moment as they all seem to want to flee liberal California but don't know where to go.  For those not familiar with this weighty tome, Galt's Gulch was a hideout in the Rocky Mountains for industrialists who didn't sign onto FDR's New Deal. They were led by John Galt, who would post long-winded editorials convincing industrials to bail out of the US economy and join his new industrial revolution which would remake the world once the US and Europe collapsed.  

It's the kind of book you only read if you have a lot of time on your hands as I did in evenings when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Lesotho.  There were many times I felt like throwing the book across the room but I plodded through it and would discuss it with my fellow volunteer Andy, as we lived in the same compound.  He wasn't anymore convinced of Ayn Rand's Objectivism than I was, but he said you had to admit she kept you going.  Yea, sadly she did.

These tech bros represent the Libertarian wing of American politics.  Basically they want to have their cake and eat it too, which is Objectivism in a nutshell.  I don't know why they just don't call themselves Objectivists, but I guess Libertarian sounds better. It creates the illusion that you support liberty and individual freedom.

So far, Zuckerberg has kept facebook relatively free of politics, but Musk has gone all in on X, as he hopes to lure Trump to his platform.  Trump had been reticent, preferring to stick with his own Truth Social, but has now shifted toward X because this is where the money is.  As a result, his DJT stock took a nosedive last week, leaving investors feeling they got stuck with another one of Donald's Ponzi schemes.  Trump's 6 months were up, he could take his $5 billion or whatever he held in reserve.  Fuck all you guys!

This seems to be pretty much the attitude of Musk so the two are perfect for each other.  X also seems to be running on air these days with Elon lashing out at companies for pulling their advertising but no matter.  He can underwrite X himself, especially with the bonus packages he gets from Tesla.  It seems the money never runs out in this virtual world they live in.  

If worst comes to worst, he can always get Mike Lindell to hawk pillows on X.  I was watching a CNN special last night and Lindell pretty much keeps the entire Trump media cyberverse going with his pillow company, even Steve Bannon's War Room.  Out of curiosity I googled the amount of pillows Americans buy each year, and total revenue was less than $1 billion.  Mike hasn't exactly cornered the market, so you figure he will run out of money soon.

I suppose out of all the chaos these tech billionaires and pillow millionaires are generating, there are profits to be made. Otherwise, what's the point?  I'm sure they are not doing this solely for entertainment value, as if they were a bunch of Randian or lesser gods looking down on this spectacle from their lofty perch in the sky.  They don't even get together, as their endorsements indicate, much less put up a concerted effort to tip the election one way or the other.  Musk has found himself having to settle for lesser partners like the Winklevoss Twins who are only worth a paltry $1.6 billion together.  Zuckerberg was able to outsmart the dapper pair at Harvard and take facebook all for himself.  Now Zuck is worth a cool $185 billion.

Ellison seems the smartest of the lot, the least outspoken anyway.  Although he joined a conference call with the White House in devising ways to contest the 2020 election results.  He seems to believe that his best interests lie with conservative presidential administrations. He had supported Trump over Biden, but like many grew wary when Trump actually tried to overturn the results with shyster lawyers, fake electors and ultimately inspiring an insurrection.  However, these tech masterminds were never able to come up with a suitable Libertarian alternative to Trump, and now find themselves in the same situation they were after January 6, 2021.

I suppose this is why Peter Thiel is openly considering a flight out of the country to New Zealand or Costa Rica.  He can't stand the idea of living four more years under a liberal regime.  Yet, these benevolent countries are both known for their social and political liberalism, leaving one to wonder if some switch flipped the wrong way in his brain.  Isn't it easier just to sock your money away in offshore accounts and leave as minimal footprint as you can in the United States?  That's what other billionaires do.

Musk is the only one willing to stick his neck out and support Trump, even if it costs him billions in lost revenue.  He's like the My Pillow guy on steroids.  Pretty soon he will leave Tesla an empty shell, as Mike Lindell has left his pillow company after pushing the "Big Lie" the past four years.  That would be a bankruptcy for the ages, dwarfing the $200 billion Elon lost when he took over Twitter in 2022.  Is it worth it?