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Article fails to mention how almost all of big tech backed Harris (and spent over a billion) and Trump only gets the Thiel and his acolytes. They play both side

Article fails to mention how almost all of big tech backed Harris (and spent over a billion) and Trump only gets the Thiel and his acolytes. They play both sides and will continue to.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
glimshe 2y ago
If Harris had won, we would be hearing about how Big Tech enabled the "Greatest Show on Earth", the "Voice of the People" and things like that. This said, the rich will keep sending money to candidates they believe will represent their agenda,no matter what side they are. That's why Big Tech is changing its tune now.
- fragmede 2y ago
  The rich give money to the side they want to win. The wealthy give to both sides so they have influence, no matter who wins
dralley 2y ago
"Big tech" didn't spend over a billion, that's how much Harris spent total. Elon Musk personally spent $250 million on Trump, not to mention getting far more personally involved in bending Twitter (which he spent $44 billion on) towards that end than any other social media network ever had previously.
stopping 2y ago
There's a difference between a company directly backing a candidate and employees of company backing a candidate. Most of the contributions you're referring to came from employees, which makes sense given that most well-to-do tech employees are socially liberal. It would be a mistake to attribute these donations to "big tech". You wouldn't attribute a donation from a farmer to "big agriculture".
- busterarm 2y ago
  Campaign contributions are tracked and searchable by employer though. Additionally, large contributions from companies are recognized and curry favor from the parties. For example, Morgan and Morgan was the largest corporate campaign donor (by dollars donated by employees) to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. John Morgan was a very vocal Clinton supporter. High level staffers from Hillary's campaign ended up attending some Morgan and Morgan company party events bringing powerful media connections with them as guests (I was there). Also in tech companies which are socially liberal, you will have coworkers who will search for right-wing donators within the company and out them publicly (in a negative context) in Slack, etc. I've seen such messages.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > Campaign contributions are tracked and searchable by employer though. Which is mostly misleading – corporations represent the shared interests of their stockholders not their employees, who often have adversarial material and political interests to their employers. Corporations political participation is through corporate PACs and independent expenditures, not primarily through the direct campaign contributions of people who happen to work with them. Interesting, while contributions are reported blindly by employer, federal election law on corporate PACs recognizes this distinction in the “restricted class” of decision–making employees from whom corporate PACs may solicit donations. It would be interesting if direct contributions by employees were divided between this “restricted class” and other employees. (Though, again, stockholders are still more indicative of corporate interest than any class of employees.)
    - busterarm 2y ago
      You're completely missing the point though. Companies get political favor by the donation activity of their employees and also the employees work to discourage contributions by the unfavored party. Companies/shareholders exercise their interests by _controlling who they hire_. We even cover over this with how we recruit and demographically. When you're talking about industries that skew towards highly paid employees (tech, legal, etc), you're actually determining winners and losers in society by political affiliation. "Skip houses with Trump signs."
MagnumOpus 2y ago
Trump also got Musk who - among other things - bought a social network for $50-odd billion to bend it into a right wing mouthpiece. One billion donated by Californian and Washington state tech workers is nothing in comparison… And Zucks who used to play both sides but did a face-heel turn to MAGA before this November. And speaking of it, the Winkelvosses, too. (And of course many tech-adjacent finance billionaires, and all the „old money“ heirs who own and vote the shares of the Mag 7.)
- busterarm 2y ago
  > nothing in comparison Harris's campaign spent more than 2:1 what Trump's did and also had public endorsements from just about every celebrity you could imagine. That's not nothing. What's remarkable here is that the value of the celebrity endorsement took a massive nosedive this election without the Democrats realizing it.

Article fails to mention how almost all of big tech backed Harris (and spent over a billion) and Trump only gets the Thiel and his acolytes. They play both sides and will continue to.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

glimshe 2y ago

If Harris had won, we would be hearing about how Big Tech enabled the "Greatest Show on Earth", the "Voice of the People" and things like that. This said, the rich will keep sending money to candidates they believe will represent their agenda,no matter what side they are. That's why Big Tech is changing its tune now.

fragmede 2y ago
The rich give money to the side they want to win. The wealthy give to both sides so they have influence, no matter who wins

dralley 2y ago

"Big tech" didn't spend over a billion, that's how much Harris spent total. Elon Musk personally spent $250 million on Trump, not to mention getting far more personally involved in bending Twitter (which he spent $44 billion on) towards that end than any other social media network ever had previously.

stopping 2y ago

There's a difference between a company directly backing a candidate and employees of company backing a candidate. Most of the contributions you're referring to came from employees, which makes sense given that most well-to-do tech employees are socially liberal. It would be a mistake to attribute these donations to "big tech". You wouldn't attribute a donation from a farmer to "big agriculture".

busterarm 2y ago
Campaign contributions are tracked and searchable by employer though. Additionally, large contributions from companies are recognized and curry favor from the parties. For example, Morgan and Morgan was the largest corporate campaign donor (by dollars donated by employees) to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. John Morgan was a very vocal Clinton supporter. High level staffers from Hillary's campaign ended up attending some Morgan and Morgan company party events bringing powerful media connections with them as guests (I was there). Also in tech companies which are socially liberal, you will have coworkers who will search for right-wing donators within the company and out them publicly (in a negative context) in Slack, etc. I've seen such messages.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > Campaign contributions are tracked and searchable by employer though. Which is mostly misleading – corporations represent the shared interests of their stockholders not their employees, who often have adversarial material and political interests to their employers. Corporations political participation is through corporate PACs and independent expenditures, not primarily through the direct campaign contributions of people who happen to work with them. Interesting, while contributions are reported blindly by employer, federal election law on corporate PACs recognizes this distinction in the “restricted class” of decision–making employees from whom corporate PACs may solicit donations. It would be interesting if direct contributions by employees were divided between this “restricted class” and other employees. (Though, again, stockholders are still more indicative of corporate interest than any class of employees.)
  - busterarm 2y ago
    You're completely missing the point though. Companies get political favor by the donation activity of their employees and also the employees work to discourage contributions by the unfavored party. Companies/shareholders exercise their interests by _controlling who they hire_. We even cover over this with how we recruit and demographically. When you're talking about industries that skew towards highly paid employees (tech, legal, etc), you're actually determining winners and losers in society by political affiliation. "Skip houses with Trump signs."

MagnumOpus 2y ago

Trump also got Musk who - among other things - bought a social network for $50-odd billion to bend it into a right wing mouthpiece. One billion donated by Californian and Washington state tech workers is nothing in comparison… And Zucks who used to play both sides but did a face-heel turn to MAGA before this November. And speaking of it, the Winkelvosses, too. (And of course many tech-adjacent finance billionaires, and all the „old money“ heirs who own and vote the shares of the Mag 7.)

busterarm 2y ago
> nothing in comparison Harris's campaign spent more than 2:1 what Trump's did and also had public endorsements from just about every celebrity you could imagine. That's not nothing. What's remarkable here is that the value of the celebrity endorsement took a massive nosedive this election without the Democrats realizing it.