According to US media reports, last weekend, Musk, the head of the US government efficiency department and the world's richest person, directly urged President Trump to revoke the new tariff, but failed. On April 7th, Trump stated that he would not suspend the so-called "reciprocal tariff" policy. Days earlier, as Trump imposed the so-called "reciprocal tariffs" on global trade partners, causing a plunge in Wall Street stocks, Musk began to clash with Navarro, a senior advisor in Trump's inner circle. Musk publicly mocked Navarro on social platform X, saying his arrogance outweighed his wisdom. A day later, Navarro rebutted during an interview, calling Musk just a car salesman who talks about establishing a zero-tariff zone with Europe, saying "he doesn't understand these things." Earlier, it was rumored that Musk would resign from his current position in the government efficiency department in the coming weeks. However, Musk himself claimed on social platforms that this was "fake news" on February 2nd.
On February 11, 2025, local time, in Washington DC, Musk listened to President Trump's speech at the Oval Office in the White House. Visual China Group Photo by.
Recently, various disagreements and even frictions between Musk and Trump, as well as Trump's core advisors, reflect the extent to which Musk represents the influence of the tech right wing on American politics.
In general, the emergence of the tech right wing is mainly due to the attraction of Trump's relaxed technology regulatory policies to tech elites. Later, the tech right wing actively intervened in election politics and implemented social public opinion supervision policies favorable to "America First for whites". To some extent, the alliance between tech elites and right-wing politics is more reflected in economic interests and has certain fragility. Additionally, the contradictions between the tech right wing and other right-wing political forces will also affect how far they can go in the White House.
Why did the tech right wing rise?
Traditionally, Silicon Valley tech elites have maintained a certain distance from Washington politics, and on party identification issues, tech elites tend to identify with the Democratic Party, such as supporting cultural diversity and free immigration policies. However, since 2016, with the rise of right-wing political forces represented by Trump in American politics, some tech elites in Silicon Valley gradually turned to support Trump, forming a tech right-wing force, with Musk as the main representative.
Why did the tech right wing shift from previously supporting the Democratic Party to embracing the right wing? The main reason is that the Democratic Party's strengthening of tech regulation policies has caused strong dissatisfaction among some tech elites. For example, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) founder Andreessen, who advocates free-market economic ideas, supports Friedrich Hayek, Ray Kurzweil, and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, was attracted to Trump due to the Democratic Party's regulatory policies on cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence. However, during Biden's administration, his company's cryptocurrency and AI businesses faced strict regulation. When he communicated with representatives of Biden, he learned that if Biden continued to govern, he would stop AI development and research under the pretext of national security. Therefore, Andreessen did not support Biden in the 2024 election.
Additionally, during Biden's administration, Silicon Valley tech companies faced strict scrutiny from the Democratic Party in areas like antitrust enforcement, wealth tax, and labor rights. The Biden administration not only filed antitrust lawsuits against large tech companies like Amazon and Google but also proposed new taxes on unrealized gains for the super-rich (such as leaders of large tech companies). In contrast, Trump prioritized relaxing regulations on tech companies and cutting taxes for the rich, which undoubtedly benefited the development of Silicon Valley tech companies. Against this backdrop, some tech elites in Silicon Valley supported Trump, becoming part of the tech right wing.
Technology giants in line with right-wing ideology
On October 5, 2024, local time, Butler City, Pennsylvania, Trump returned to Butler City, Pennsylvania, to hold a campaign rally. Musk took the stage to support and embrace Trump. Visual China Group Photo by.
On the one hand, the tech right wing actively intervenes in election politics. In the 2024 election, the tech right wing strongly supported Trump. For instance, Apple donated $1 million to Trump; Google donated $1 million and live-streamed Trump's inauguration ceremony on YouTube; Amazon donated $1 million in cash and another $1 million worth of goods, and live-streamed the inauguration ceremony on Amazon Video. Among them, Elon Musk's donation was the largest. He donated nearly $243 million through the American Political Action Committee to Trump; he donated another $20 million through his trust fund, bringing the total donations to around $300 million. After the 2024 election, Musk actively intervened in the Wisconsin Supreme Court judge election. Musk provided approximately $20 million in campaign funds to conservative judge candidates. Additionally, Musk offered $100 to each signer of the petition opposing "radical judges."
On the other hand, to cooperate with the right-wing political restriction of multiculturalism, the tech right wing took many measures to restrict the promotion of multiculturalism. After Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, he restored the accounts of extreme-right figures like Nick Fuentes (extreme-right white nationalist anti-Semite) and Andrew Anglin, the editor of neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer. Similarly, large tech companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon reduced or stopped their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (referred to as DEI programs), including halting or reducing recruitment for diverse plans, leadership diversity plans, internal training for diversity, etc. Moreover, Google ended its minority recruitment project at the beginning of 2025; Meta dissolved its key team focusing on DEI, laid off a large number of employees, and cut its annual DEI budget; Amazon also withdrew its DEI commitment, stating the need to phase out "outdated plans and materials."
How far can the tech right wing influence American politics?
Although the current tech right wing is a newly emerging force in America's right-wing political factions, the alliance between the tech right wing and Trump is somewhat fragile. To some extent, the alliance between the tech right wing and Trump is mainly formed due to economic interests. In short, Trump's technology development policies meet the needs of tech companies. To gain support from the Trump administration, the tech right wing used its social public opinion and technological capital influence to cooperate with the right-wing political ideology propaganda. If Trump continues to relax technology regulatory policies, it may foster the possibility of an American tech oligarchy. Biden once warned in his farewell speech not to allow "American oligarchy" dominated by a few powerful tech giants.
Additionally, there are contradictions between the tech right wing and other factions within Trump's right-wing politics. In the Trump 2.0 government, there are traditional right-wing, Republican establishment, and tech right-wing. On immigration issues, both the traditional right-wing and Republican establishment support restricting legal immigration and advocate reserving more job opportunities for native Americans. However, for the tech right wing, legal immigrants are the main source of their company employees. Reducing legal immigration and H1B visas would make it difficult for their enterprises to meet their development needs.
For Trump, anti-immigration is one of the main contents of his right-wing governance. Therefore, how to achieve his right-wing governance concept on immigration issues while coordinating the contradictions among different factions is one of the important challenges in the Trump 2.0 era. From Trump's governing style, loyalty is the main principle for appointing officials. The main feature of the tech right wing is more characterized by personality. If Trump believes in the future that the loyalty of the tech right wing is problematic, he might exclude the tech right wing from the White House.
For Musk, his work in the government efficiency department is temporary. According to federal law, his term theoretically should end in late May or early June. By then, as the most active representative of the tech right wing in political participation, what impact Musk will have on American politics in the future remains to be seen.
(Tang Huiyun, associate researcher at the Institute of International Studies, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences)
Special contribution by Tang Huiyun, The Paper
(This article comes from The Paper. For more original content, download the "The Paper" app.)
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