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The fight for the political soul<\/a>\u2014and donations\u2014of Silicon Valley is back on in full force after President Joe Biden announced<\/a> he would be dropping out of the 2024 presidential race Sunday. It didn\u2019t take long for the world\u2019s richest<\/a> man, Elon Musk, to restate his case for Republican nominee Donald Trump\u2014and get into a social media squabble with prominent venture capitalist and Democratic donor Vinod Khosla.<\/p>\n Shortly after Biden officially backed out of the race, Khosla expressed his preference for an open convention to select the Democratic nominee in a post on X<\/a>, the platform Musk owns.<\/p>\n \u201cCome on Vinod,\u201d the Tesla<\/a> and SpaceX<\/a> cofounder replied, reiterating his support for former president Trump and his newly selected running mate, J.D. Vance.<\/p>\n Come on, Vinod. Trump\/Vance LFG!!<\/p>\n \u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Khosla, an investor<\/a> in OpenAI worth about $8 billion, was ready to engage.<\/p>\n \u201cHard for me to support someone with no values, lies, cheats, rapes, demeans women, hates immigrants like me,\u201d wrote<\/a> Khosla, who grew up in India before earning graduate degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Stanford. \u201cHe may cut taxes or reduce some regulation but that is no reason to accept depravity in his personal values.\u201d<\/p>\n In the exchanges that followed, Khosla and Musk agreed<\/a> about distrusting media organizations and the need to promote individual freedoms. They clashed<\/a>, however, about what a Trump presidency would mean for the fight against climate change and America\u2019s leadership in NATO.<\/p>\n Khosla finished by asking Musk if he was willing to forgive Trump for the former president\u2019s role in the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Musk did not respond.<\/p>\n And @elonmusk<\/a> are you willing forgive him for trying to subvert democracy on Jan 6 and push for insurrection just to win? He was doing everything, illegal or not, to try and win while his own deeply partisan cabinet tried to control him and get him to stop https:\/\/t.co\/mPH4X5Ug7E<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) July 21, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The social media sparring highlighted a flashpoint in traditionally liberal Silicon Valley. Some of the biggest (and richest) names in tech, including Musk, Peter Thiel, and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, have publicly backed<\/a> Trump.<\/p>\n By selecting Vance<\/a>\u2014the freshman Ohio senator and author of bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy<\/em>\u2014as his vice-presidential nominee, Trump strengthened his ticket\u2019s ties to the VC world, where Vance made his career after graduating from Yale Law School. Thiel, Vance\u2019s biggest VC backer, helped introduce Vance to Trump at Mar-A-Lago in 2021, with Vance earning Trump\u2019s blessing for his Senate run despite his past criticism of the former president.<\/p>\n But Vance, the first millennial on a major party ticket, is far from<\/a> an ally of Big Tech and those who see increased regulation as an existential threat to investment and innovation. Vance has praised<\/a> Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan for leading the agency\u2019s antitrust enforcement charge. He\u2019s also reached across the aisle to progressive colleagues like Elizabeth Warren to introduce bills like the \u201cStop Subsidizing Giant Mergers Act<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n To run against Trump and Vance, Khosla initially tagged Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro as lawmakers he wanted to see compete for the Democratic nomination, later adding Kentucky governor Andy Beshear and Harris, who Biden endorsed shortly after dropping out, to the list. All three governors quickly got behind Harris, however, who looks set to be the nominee after her campaign said<\/a> it raised nearly $50 million Sunday. \u00a0<\/p>\n LinkedIn<\/a> cofounder Reid Hoffman<\/a> was among the first Silicon Valley executives to publicly support Harris, who hails from the Bay Area and has been a past ally<\/a> to California\u2019s big tech companies. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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