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By now, it's clear the Harris Walls campaign has been inescapable on social media. To the point where Donald Trump, the O. G. Internet ubiquitous candidate, has turned to some throwback methods to earn the media spotlight, like holding a televised news conference and calling on the owner of his once favorite social media network. Donald, great to speak. Back then, it wasn't in Trump's financial interest to come back. Kamala wouldn't have this conversation. She can't because she's not smart. She's not a smart person, by the way. She can't have this conversation. Needless to say, things have changed.

But the beauty is that we can have a conversation, and I'm able to get it out without because I get teeter.

This is That's a really big point.

You can actually have a conversation with you.

Yeah, it's nice, isn't it?

And you can have a conversation with Biden or Kamala.

It's not possible.

It's like talking to an NPC, so it's just impossible. Mpc stands for non-playable character. It's gamers' to speak for the scripted extras in video game scenes. On the pro-Trump internet, it's become a way of mocking liberals as mindless sheep, loyal to groupthink and identity politics. We have a phrase, make America great again. It's pretty simple, but it really says that we want to make America great again, and we can do it. Anyway, Musk is not the only wealthy tech titan who's gone over to Trump in the last few years.

This has been a brutal assault in a nation industry that I've never experienced before. It's been It's possible to make progress in this with the White House.

We're not experts on all things that the government does, but on startups and technology, we are certainly among the best experts in the world. We think Donald Trump is actually the right choice.

And sorry, Mom.

These Trump-friendly podcasters Ben and Mark, are better known as Ben Horowitz and Mark Andreessen. They run one of the biggest venture capital firms in the world. My fellow Americans, we need strength and savviness in the White House Situation Room. This is David Sacks. He got a plumb spot on stage at the Republican National Convention to rail against the Biden administration's foreign policy. His daytime job? Billionaire venture capitalist. And yes, also podcaster. What?

Yeah, we're hosting an event for the once in future president. We're hosting a fundraiser for him.

That one's called All In. So how did Trump win over some of the loudest voices in Silicon Valley? And how is Kamala Harris using her California roots to counterpunch with tech industry donors? Kara Swisher is our guest for The Assignment. I'm Audi Cornish. Now, Kara Swisher is a journalist and techno-optimist. She also knows a lot of these people personally, including Musk. Fair warning, she's not impressed.

Because there's so many horses' asses running these companies. Elon, for example, he thinks he's ready Player One, and he's the center figure of everything.

Personal No feelings aside, she gave me good context for what we're seeing. I wanted to talk about anti-woke tech bros clashing with liberal Hollywood politics, but Cara pointed me to the rise of Silicon Valley executives in the political donor class and how they bring a new set of interests. The mega companies that worry about antitrust laws, the cryptocurrency types who want to avoid government oversight, the AI gold rushers who want to get ahead of it, and the polarizing effect of tough Biden-Harris era regulators, people like Lena Khan of the Federal Trade Commission and Gary Gensler at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

I never thought technology was liberal. I never did, as you know. I thought they had very few values. That was always my issue. They had none. What it is, is a tolerant culture, and it's, Leave me alone. I used to call them libertarian light. This new crop is very different than the old conservatives in Silicon Valley. They were vaguely liberal, which essentially not very. When Elon shifted, I think the problem is we've got... The problem is Elon. He's had a life change in some fashion.

But he's an outsized voice, and I think when he seized control of what I call ex-Twitter. He did it with ideology at the forefront of how he talked about it. And, Cara, it's interesting. It actually reminds me a lot of how There is the movement led by Barry Weiss in the media with the free press, which takes all of the sentiment, the writers, the editors who feel like, Our newsrooms are too woke, blah, blah, blah. They found a home, and they found a new flag bearer. It feels like the tech industry also has had that same conversation.

But I'm thinking they're louder than they're powerful. It just happens to be the one who's at the top of it is the world's richest or one of them. He owns something that the media loved, which was Twitter. That's the confluence of this money, his obvious toxicity that has increased over time. It's all combined to make it seem bigger than it is. If you look at that red team, Elon and all those people who signed that one thing, they're all losers.

You have to give people more detail than that. So there was a formal letter.

Yes, there's a formal letter that a bunch of people who were in that group, in that gang, the Red Gang, The Red Team, whatever you want to call them, mid-level VCs, a couple of marginally successful people who are more lucky to me than good. They all sign a letter talking about whatever. It's their woke mind virus or we're for Trump or this and that. It's people who have no expertise, by the way, FYI. To me, I call them the lucky crew. They were lucky to be at Facebook at the right time. But nobody... If you look at the blue team, those are really accomplished people. Reid Hastings, Reid Hoffman. If I had to put them toe to toe, the group of the blue team are a lot of stars, and the red team is Elon and a bunch of his stands.

That was my next question. It's fundamentally, are people drawn to Trump? Are people disappointed in certain policies from Democrats? What do you think are some of the things that do draw people to be more Trump curious at this point? How did techno libertarianism start to become more Trump curious?

Well, you got to separate them. Some of them are just crypto people. There's a lot of crypto people who don't like Gary Gensler, right? They don't like some of the normal things for the Biden administration to say, Let's make sure this doesn't end in tears for the consumer, which is their job.

Right. So these are regulators like Gensler, you mentioned. Also Lena Khan, who's made a name for herself in the antitrust space.

Yes. And John Cantor, who's the head of the antitrust division of the Justice Department, who just had this victory with Google around search for the first time. This is the first action that's been taken. It's going to go on for a while. This is not a Democratic-Republican thing. These shifting sands, it depends on where you are. If you're in the crypto space, a lot of the crypto bros think that the Biden administration is hostile to them because they want no rules whatsoever. That's not happening. That's the problem they have. They've moved over there. I think very few of them are doing it out of political values. I think they're doing it out of financial self-interest.

You're saying even when it comes to personal ideology, you have doubts?

I think they're empty inside these people. They really don't have any values to speak of except get out of my way. I think some of them like the attention. Elon is in desperate need of attention, and so this is what he's doing, is making a spectacle of himself 24 hours a day in a very sad decline of someone who is quite brilliant. One of the things that I think people get wrong about Elon is that he has a lot of fans, but he has a lot of detractors. He had a success in one area that people really liked, which was rockets and cars, essentially. Then he's moved over into media, which he's not quite as good at, but he was rich, so he gets to buy it, and therefore, he gets to pontificate on whatever he wants to pontificate on. I think that one of the things that it's doing is it's actually bad for his businesses, his real businesses. Twitter is not a real business. It's dying.

But people also look at the fact that they have power over information networks. There wouldn't be congressional hearings if people didn't think they had a power in the culture or influence. They literally are the platforms for our discourse in so many ways, whether it's the fact that people will be listening and watching this podcast on YouTube or Apple or Spotify. They are in control of those spaces. Correct. As much as I might feel in control, it's their platform. Absolutely. And there's something about that that is cultural power, that is intimidating.

You have to really focus on the distribution and the money. And one of the things that these tech people are doing, the ones that are especially affiliated with Trump, is that they're exerting it through money, which is an age old. This is not a new, fresh thing of rich people trying to influence politics. That's what these guys are doing because they happen to be ascended financially right now. Not forever, but for right now, I would question how much actual impact Twitter has on anything except for a small body of political reporters in Washington. In the case of You know, Eamonn and his bros, I think he realized, as do many of these people, how cheap these politicians are to buy.

After the break, candidates at the top of the Republican and Democratic tickets have close ties to Silicon Valley. And we're not talking about Trump. We'll be back in a minute.

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So let's talk a little about the ticket, the Democratic ticket and the Republican ticket. Jd Vance has this back ground for a few years anyway, months, years as a venture capitalist.

He was a player in no way of any consequence.

He was a failed expert. Yeah, but it's on the resume. One of the many things they're talking about on the resume. Then there is this connection to Peter Thiel, who was one of the original founders of PayPal, which those guys became so influential. People call them the PayPal Mafia.

Mafia, I know. They call themselves that.

They call themselves that. But the point is, Thiel was very influential and ended up backing the lawsuit that Hulk Hogan did against Gawker Media, which ended up shutting down that Otz blogging empire. I say that because when both Hulk Hogan and JD Vance were on stage at the Republican National Convention, lots of people wondered, does this mean that Peter Thiel would be pulled onto the field, so to speak, to support Trump? And what, if anything, that meant? Can you talk about this triangle of players, right? Teale, Vance, and Trump?

The only one who's the most important is Peter Thiel. He doesn't think democracy works. That's his basic stance if you read his books. So he's always been this suspect about any government. Just tearing it down is one of his favorite as he talks about tearing down the system. Very much like Steve Banon, I think, is much more influential than you realize, or a Roy Cohen or someone like that, behind the scenes. He's very important. Jd Vance met him when he was a student at Yale, I think, law school. He has been helping JD Vance ever since rise up. Through none of JD Vance's talent, as far as I can tell, he was in nothing in tech investing. It was very hard to fail during those days, and he managed to fail. You know what I mean? You could put a colleague in there, and they'd make as much money as he did. He had no resonance. Then he quickly moved to politics, where he also had no resonance. But through money and influence of Peter, But he got to become a senator.

We should say for background, when JD Vance moved off from his hillbilly, L. A. G, liberal, elite appeal and moved towards Trumpism and ran for that senate seat, he was struggling. He was really struggling until both, Teel began to support him financially, and then Trump began to support him culturally.

Via Teel, introduced them, right?

But it means that Trump agreed with Teel or respected him or wanted access to his money. There's something about that relationship that was meaningful. Does it mean anything that Vance is on the ticket to Silicon Valley?

Because he has- I think they should be worried about him.

First of all, he's a lightweight. This is something that I think people need to understand because it's actually a wee bit confusing with Vance's position as a so-called economic populist, that he actually supports antitrust efforts, et cetera. He does.

I think his nature is antitrust. I think his nature and his... Who knows what's real with this guy? He keeps changing, right? He was so hostile to Trump many years ago. It was remarkable how hostile he was to Trump. It was noticeable, and a lot of people were hostile to Trump. I think he's quite the tech is too big, tech is too powerful, tech is ruining our lives, tech has ruined Kentucky.

He has praised Lena Khan, who we talked about, this regulator going after Facebook, Google, et cetera.

Yeah, except for Elon. He doesn't want to go after him. One of the most anti-union companies in Silicon Valley is Tesla. But who knows with this guy? He's like a suit people fill up. But my instinct is he's quite anti-tech.

Does this mean anything for Trump, or are the acolytes to Trump in Silicon Valley, they're satisfied as long as they have Donald Trump.

Trump is somewhat hostile to tech, too. You I don't know where he was. He was anti-Tiktok, then he was anti he was going to cut Section 230. I don't think he has any policy that he understands in any way. I mean, whatever people tell him, he does. He just likes Elon because Elon likes him. That's what he said. The Biden administration has been somewhat tough for on tech, but none of them have been, Audi. None of the Obama people been over backwards for tech. The Biden people have been marginally more hostile, but not really.

Now, with Kamala Harris on the ticket, this obviously has lit a fire under Democrats of all kinds. Sure. Lots of California is excited because they're going to have potentially a President, which they have not had since Ronald Reagan. Talk about her relationship to tech in particular. In terms of this person who we're being told fought transnational criminals and banks and fought big business, what is her relationship actually to Silicon Valley?

I think she's quite cozy with tech. She's very corporate friendly, I would say. I would not say she's like a barn burner to take down tech. She had some issues, privacy, I think she tried to... All of them fall on the shoulders of Section 230.

This is the portion of federal law that allows tech companies to proceed with their work without being sued.

I don't think she likes that as a lawyer, but lots of people on all sides don't know what to do about Section 230, actually. I think she has a lot of friends in tech. I see her with tech people all the time. You couldn't operate in California as a senator without having a good relationship with the tech industry. I think she's on familiar terms with them. I think she knows them well. I think she's friends with some of them. Lorraine Powell jobs comes to mind. They're very good friends. I think she's moved in their circles for years. I don't think they're threatened by her. She tends to take the middle ground on most things. Like with TikTok, she's like, It shouldn't be banned, but it should be owned by someone else. That's the most middle ground thing you can say. I suspect on everything, she'll go right down the middle with a lot of stuff. She's also not embraced them that much either. Again, I wouldn't say there's a lot of politicians who are creatures of tech. She's not that either. But she's certainly not their enemy. That's for sure.

What are you going to be listening for in the next couple of weeks? I don't know if it'll come up, but certainly, I feel like AI and the talk about AI hovers over everything, certainly with elections and concerns. I mean, as we speak, the Trump campaign is wrestling with what they think may have been a hack, right?

I think she's done a beautiful job handling the social media stuff. I think I think everyone was complaining about TikTok being anti-Biden. Well, it's pro-Harris, and it's anti-Trump, that's for sure. She's very adept at communicating in the new terms. I think I've been very impressed by her social media, I have to say. I'm like, This is well done. She's really speaking to the moment in that regard. I think Donald Trump is still caught in 2016, where he screams on a Twitter-like platform. It just doesn't have the resonance that it did before. Things change in tech so quickly and how people communicate. She's very adept at that. What I'm watching for is actual policy from any of them. I think she's very cognizant in the need for safety. I'd like to know what she thinks that means specifically. I think she's fully capable of understanding it, unlike Donald Trump, who is not. In the tech area, I wonder where she's going to go on AI and the safety and regulation. I think she's just going to stay out of the way around these lawsuits around tech, for example. I think people are waiting to hear policy from her.

She can't just be the Biden administration. She needs to be what does Kamala Harris think of a variety of topics, including AI? Specifically, what does she think?

I want to pause here because Kamala Harris will be rolling out some new policy soon, so we may get some answers. In the meantime, Harris kicked off the week raising more than $12 million from tech community donors in San Francisco, and knocked Trump and Elon Musk as a couple of self-obsessed rich guys. I think we're at a fork in the road of destiny of civilization, and I think we need to take the right path, and I think you're the right path.

I think that's what it comes down to.

Thank you very much, Elon. It's a great honor. I asked Kara if there's another way we can look at that relationship.

I think in Trump's case, he wants to stay out of jail. I think this is his main driver of everything he's doing. Honestly, he needs the money to do so. Any help he can get, he'll take, essentially. Elon's a powerful alley in that regard. In Elon's case, if Kamala Harris wins or Biden had won or whatever, he's in a world of hurt going forward because there's lawsuits galore all over the place around, SEC is looking at Tesla for fraud. There's all these questions about national security clearance that I've been hearing over and over again from a lot of very pertinent people about SpaceX and his links to the government and whether he should have a security clearance. He's going to be subject to a world of hurt under a Harris administration compared to a Trump one, where Trump will let these things go. He has got to grasp very hard onto Donald Trump and make sure he wins, because from a financial point of view, his companies are going to have a lot more trouble. That he embraces Donald Trump makes perfect sense to me because no matter what you think of Elon Musk, it's all about his business interests, and he knows where his bread is buttered in this particular administration.

Which would be Trump would help him much more so than Harris, who would hurt him, I think.

And not to be Pauleana about it, but also the political divisiveness that so many of us normies are struggling with, right, is affecting everyone. The so-called PayPal Mafia, they're not buddies anymore, right? That handful of founders, they bicker with each other about politics. But it's the idea that nowhere is safe, even if you're a multibillionaire who thinks he's going to take rockets to the moon when things go wrong at the Earth or people at your Thanksgiving table. These divides, they make these cracks show in everything.

I agree. I think, again, look at the money. Who's going to benefit from what? To me, the ones on the Trump side are going to benefit financially. There's certain people who have a vision of Silicon Valley in tech that's a little more tolerant in that old San Francisco way, right? Let's live and let live thing. Then there's this group that really believes that we are hurtling towards darkness, and the only thing that will work is a strong man to save us. Because they have some money, like someone who's gotten a lot of problems, David Sacks, he was a middling entrepreneur, I would say. A middling? Not impressive, but he's got money. And so now he can swan around and give a speech, a very bad speech, by the way.

But a speech nonetheless on stage at the Republican National Convention.

I mean, I think they're making their play, just like other industrialists have done for centuries.

Will it work to say this more clearly? There was this little report, I think it was Yahoo! Financer, and they quoted Trevor Trena, who is a Trump backer. He said, Look, Kamala is a dear friend of mine. I like her very much. Then he said, It's just that in today's world, candidates who want to be successful on the left have to tow the on the whole Elizabeth Warren School of thought. This message, writ large, is what is going to be said about Kamal Harris, right? That fundamentally, she is very liberal or very radical. This is the counter attack. I don't know if it will work.

It's just not true. It's just not true. I watched her as attorney general. I pressed her to be more tougher on tech companies, and she wasn't. She just wasn't. She had the opportunity as senator and as AG to do a lot more during those years. I've seen her in action, and I would say I've always seen her as someone who takes the middle road on most things with a proclivity toward, don't discriminate. You know what I mean? But not by no means someone who's any radical leftist from a business point of view. She's business friendly compared to the way a lot of people are in California.

In the end, is California having a moment?

It is. California is always having a moment, let me just say. It's always reinventing itself, and other places can't do that.

But as much as people are using California almost like as a slur politically-Not now.you see both candidates beating a path back there to raise the money.

California is always reinventing itself, meaning you're going to get wild swings and things that go down and crash and things that go up. But there's no place like it in this country in terms of excitement around innovation. Right now, there's There's no better place where businesses can really create. You can take away their taxes if you're in Texas, or you can let Elon build whatever stupid town he wants to build in Texas. But nobody's flocking there. They're just not. California is still the giving and taking states. It's always been a giving state. Now it may give us the first female woman of color as president.

It does appeal to me what you're saying that as Silicon Valley matures and the tech industry matures, its politics will change as well. Because I do hear a lot of things from that tech bro world that really feel like they're just about justifying the things they want to take.

That's correct.

That's always been the movement. They're not actually about building a better society, which is the language they use to sell it to us. Not that I second-guess them as Republicans, but as you said, I second-guess the motivations from a community that believes it's fundamentally better and singularly capable of solving all problems without the rest of us when they have not proven they can do that.

But you know, Audi, when you're rich, you're better than people, in case you're interested. Now, let me go back. I wrote a story. When I went to the Wall Street Journal, I got there in 1997. One of the first stories I wrote was all of these ridiculous tropes they would have, I'm here to save the world. I'm here to build community. I'm here to better man. I'm like, You're selling Twinkies. It's a version of Twinkie selling. I did a whole story in the Wall Street Journal about the canards, these people, these lies, these people told themselves you wouldn't get an investment banker going, What I'm really here to do, Cara, is solve world peace. You'd laugh them out of the room, right? You're here to make money. I think one of the things we have to keep in mind about tech people is they're here to take all your stuff, and they're here to be richer than you are. If you have it on those terms, you can ignore almost everything Elon Musk says or any of them, actually.

Well, unless they spend the most money in your election, and then they're unavoidable.

Yes, except if they lose. It's a little harder.

Kara Swisher, journalist and author of the bestseller Burn Book, a tech love story. You can find her on the Vox Media podcast Pivot, and I will be joining her and her co-host, NYU Professor Scott Galloway, on that show next week in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, where we will also be broadcasting the next episode of The Assignment. Ahead of that trip, I'd love for you to send your questions and assignments for us via our tip line. The number is 202-854-8802. You can call, you can text, you can send us a text of a voice memo, however you feel comfortable. Just know that I definitely listen to them. The assignment It is a production of CNN Audio, and this episode was produced by Greilin Brasheer. Our senior producer is Matt Martinez. Dan DeZula is our technical director, and Steve Liktai is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We had support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasari, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Lenny Steinhard, Jamis Andress, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namarau. Special thanks to Katie Hinman. And thank you all for listening. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and I am delighted to introduce you to my podcast, Super Soul Conversations.

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