In Silicon Valley, the heartland of US innovation that has long been considered a bastion of liberal beliefs, Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election provoked despair.
“This feels like the worst thing to happen in my life,” wrote Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, on X. “The horror, the horror”, said venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar, an Uber investor who made a call for California to secede from the US.
Eight years on, the mood has changed. An influential segment of Silicon Valley’s wealth and power is now lining up behind Trump to win the White House in November alongside his vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, a former venture capitalist who lived in San Francisco for almost two years.