Silicon Valley’s right-wing parties are winning victories across the country and at home

As Elon Musk spent election night with Donald Trump celebrating their decisive victory at Mar-a-Lago, Silicon Valley figures who were literally invested in the outcome of Tuesday night’s election shared in the Tesla CEO’s joy. Some also claimed political victories for their political causes in San Francisco.

Venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen, Joe Lonsdale and executives at Peter Thiel’s venture fund celebrated Trump’s victory Tuesday night, which they predicted would usher in a new anti-woke, light-on-regulation regime that would be a boon to tech industry .

David Sacks, a startup investor and podcaster, attended Mar-a-Lago. Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril and Oculus, celebrated by tweeting a screenshot from the animated Pokemon TV show.

For some of them, the victory was personal: Among those listening to Trump are their contemporaries, connections, friends and people they describe as “some of the most effective people on the planet.”

It was a sentiment previously echoed by Lonsdale, who co-founded the US Political Action Committee with Musk, in an interview with tech news site Information. The government could potentially be run “by all my smartest tech friends,” he said. In addition to Lonsdale’s close relationship with Musk, the Palantir co-founder counts Silicon Valley darling and Vice President-elect JD Vance among his longtime friends.

Many of these men, including Thiel, the co-founder of Paypal and Palantir, and Sacks, the former COO of Paypal and CEO of Zenefits, have been investing together for years, says Rob Lalka, a professor at Tulane University’s Freeman School. of Affairs. This pooling of their time and resources to support Trump is just the latest in their joint ventures, he added.

Related: Tech Billionaires’ Push to Reform San Francisco Politics: ‘A Hostile Takeover’

“With Donald Trump’s candidacy, they have gained enormous leverage to promote libertarian ideals and move the Republican Party away from traditional conservatism that has been in the works for decades,” Lalka said.

Sacks posted a lengthy tweet to Musk called it an “accurate assessment” of the political landscape.

Musk’s loyalty to Trump is expected to be rewarded. Trump plans to tap billionaire Tesla CEO to head a government efficiency commission, which he says he will create once in office. Musk has said that as “minister of cost savings” he will cut government spending and jobs.

“Assuming all goes in the right direction with this election, we will conduct a comprehensive investigation of all government agencies,” Musk said in a virtual X-room he presented as polls closed on Tuesday. One of Musk’s suggestions was that the government should “transfer” some government workers to private sector jobs “where they can make parts and services that are more useful.” They would receive two years’ wages to find another job, he also suggested.

Some prominent tech investors also celebrated what they predicted would be the end of Lina Khan’s tenure as chair of the Federal Trade Commission, during which she launched antitrust investigations and cases against Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple. Musk tweeted that Khan would be fired. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Trump planned to soften the administration’s approach to the antitrust cases of major tech companies, especially Google.

But some tech industry executives aren’t as convinced that Trump’s presidency is the gift to the industry that some make it out to be. In an interview with the Newcomer Newsletter, Parker Conrad, the CEO of payroll software Rippleing, said people are wrongly convinced that the Trump administration will align with their personal agendas.

“My personal opinion is that a lot of smart people are very stupid and believe that Trump is going to do THEIR thing,” Conrad told Eric Newcomer. “Tech people think he will usher in a new, technologically advanced, business-friendly environment. Kooky-fluoride conspiracy theorists think he’s going to take care of that thing, etc.

In addition to the national race, several of these players had their eye on local races closer to Silicon Valley, where they have spent millions to shape local policies and unseat more progressive incumbents.

In recent months, wealthy Silicon Valley executives had expressed support for several moderate candidates for San Francisco mayor and moderate candidates for the Board of Supervisors.

While votes in that contest were still being counted, at least one group, GrowSF, was celebrating what appeared to be a “promising” result for the mayoral candidate that organization had backed: Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.

GrowSF, a dark money group founded by Apple, Google and Amazon alumni Sachin Agarwal and Steven Buss, says it supports “common sense” candidates, contrary to what the group’s board member and YCombinator president and CEO Garry Tan called ‘prog nut’. jobs”.

. Tan reposted a triumphant message from Lurie on Tuesday and tweeted his own message:

“It’s a great result for San Francisco. An almost clean slate of moderate Democrats. Hats off to Marjan Philhour, Danny Sauter, Bilal Mahmood and Michael Lai for regaining the Supervisory Board. Incredible work by @GrowSF @TSFAction @ConnectedSF @PirateWires @StopCrimeSFnews,” Tan wrote.

Other organizations run and funded by wealthy figures from the technology world had less success on Tuesday. Together, SF, another organizing group, had thrown its weight behind mayoral candidate Mark Farell. Proposition D, a ballot proposal from the group (and others including GrowSF) that would have halved San Francisco’s commissions and given the mayor more authority, appeared headed for defeat. Total contributions to boost the ballot measure – the most expensive in San Francisco history – amounted to just under $9.4 million.