Why Silicon Valley's Richest Men Traded Liberalism for MAGA
Finn's Take· TL;DR- Tech billionaires shifted from progressive to Trump-aligned politics through long-held convictions or pure opportunism, with figures like Thiel and Sacks leveraging decades-old right-wing beliefs into power.
- Zuckerberg exemplifies ideological flexibility rather than conviction, pivoting from liberal positioning to Trump supporter as social winds changed, now styled as "MAGA Mark" by Meta staff.
- San Francisco's political ecosystem reveals broader national tensions around AI, wealth, and power, serving as a laboratory for understanding how elite interests reshape political alignments.
From Fringe to Power: The Tech Right's Rise
Something remarkable has happened in Silicon Valley over the past few years. The same tech titans who once championed progressive causes and donated to Democratic campaigns are now dining at the White House, attending MAGA inaugurations, and cozying up to a president they once kept at arm's length. A new analysis from journalist Jonathan Weber offers one of the most compelling explanations yet for how this transformation happened — and why it matters.
Weber, an author and Silicon Valley reporter, recently explained why so many tech oligarchs are drawn to President Trump, arguing that it all comes down to ideas and ambitions that have become mainstream under his leadership. Drawing from his new book, *City on the Edge*, Weber traces the rise of the tech billionaires who transformed San Francisco and why so many Silicon Valley power players ultimately embraced Donald Trump.
True Believers vs. Opportunists
Not every tech billionaire in Trump's orbit got there the same way. Weber draws a sharp distinction between those with long-held right-wing convictions and those who simply followed the political winds. Weber argues that the "rise of Trump" turned right-wing "fringe figures," such as investor David Sacks and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel, into "assets," with certain longstanding right-wing figures suddenly vaulted to the top echelons of power.
Weber notes that Sacks is "a longtime right-winger" who was once co-editor of *The Stanford Review*, a conservative-libertarian campus newspaper, and that after Stanford, Sacks co-authored a book with Thiel — both of whom later became part of the so-called "PayPal Mafia" — criticizing political correctness, speech codes, and declining academic standards in higher education. Their alignment with Trump, in other words, isn't a pivot. It's a culmination. Sacks has since served as President Trump's Special Advisor on AI and Crypto before moving on to co-chair the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
"MAGA Mark" and the Shifting Wind
Then there's Mark Zuckerberg — and Weber's assessment of the Meta CEO is blunt. "Zuckerberg in particular is a guy who lacks a real moral center of his own, so he kind of shifts with the wind," Weber said, adding that "he was a big liberal when it was fashionable to be that, and now he's a sort of chain-wearing martial arts dude and Trump supporter." It's a striking portrait of a man whose politics appear to be driven more by social positioning than genuine conviction.
Zuckerberg has been cozying up to Trump since the start of his second term, attending his inauguration alongside other big-name billionaires with a combined net worth of $1.35 trillion, and according to a Financial Times investigation, has since undergone a major shift in style, with Meta staff reportedly calling him "MAGA Mark." Meanwhile, the ideological godfather of much of this movement has taken a surprising exit: Thiel, whose net worth is estimated at $27.6 billion, has reportedly left the U.S. for Argentina this year to live in a $12 million mansion, citing concerns about the country's direction — specifically, fears of nuclear war and an artificial-intelligence takeover.
San Francisco as a Crystal Ball
Weber's broader argument is that San Francisco itself is the key to understanding all of this. He traces how figures like Elon Musk, Zuckerberg, Thiel, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi all emerged from the same political and economic ecosystem, and reveals what San Francisco's battles over AI, housing, wealth, and political power tell us about the future of the country. The city, in Weber's view, is less a liberal utopia than a laboratory for the tensions now playing out on a national scale.
What Weber's analysis ultimately reveals is a power realignment that goes deeper than party affiliation. Whether driven by ideology, ambition, or pure opportunism, Silicon Valley's wealthiest men have concluded that proximity to Trump is good for business — and possibly for reshaping the world in their image. For the rest of us, understanding *why* they made that bet may be just as important as understanding what they plan to do with the power they've gained.