For Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13 was a turning point.
Just months before the 2024 elections, both referenced the clip of Trump pumping his fist in the air after being grazed on the ear by a bullet. Zuckerberg thought it was “badass.” Musk tweeted his endorsement for Trump soon after.
Zuckerberg’s and Musk’s varying degrees of support for Trump may seem shocking to some. Coming from Silicon Valley, one would expect that Big Tech would have liberal values and vote accordingly. This is partly true: Silicon Valley’s residents are socially and fiscally liberal on most issues. However, when it comes to the government’s attempts at regulating tech companies, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs feel directly affected — leading them to be more conservative in that regard.
Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, represents a more vocal and extreme version of Silicon Valley’s shift towards conservatism. In May of this year, Musk kickstarted America PAC, a political action committee whose goal is to introduce a “red wave” in the country. After winning the presidency, partially with the help of Musk and his generous donations, President-elect Donald Trump chose Musk to head his unofficial “Department of Government Efficiency.” In the role, Trump hopes Musk will optimize the federal bureaucracy.
As a reaction to the Biden administration’s consumer protection initiatives on media platforms, Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and Meta, has also expressed frustration towards the Democratic Party. While he vowed to remain neutral in the election, Zuckerberg has alleged that the Biden administration intimidated Facebook to censor content during the COVID-19 pandemic. Zuckerberg has since responded by warning the Republican-led House Committee on the Judiciary of the administration’s over-censoring of content online.
What does this mean in the context of Stanford? With large swaths of students receiving job offers from Silicon Valley companies like Meta and Tesla, one has to wonder how the political principles of these companies’ founders might shape their employees’ or prospective employees’ political values.
However, Stanford students have stood out in contrast to these conservative shifts — increasing their activist commitments on campus and global issues. Last year, a historic encampment called for Stanford trustees to divest from companies contributing to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. This year, graduate student workers’ unionization efforts fought for safeguards around campus abuse and unfair compensation.
I think there are multiple reasons why this political contrast between the Stanford student and the larger Silicon Valley has emerged.
Stanford itself has had a rich history of student activism. From expanding Stanford admission spots to women in the ’20s to demanding the freedoms of gay individuals in the ’60s, our student body has always had a strong desire to be at the forefront of fighting discrimination and achieving institutional change. With students’ activist culture long predating much of Silicon Valley itself, executives’ right-wing divergence is responsible for this political gap.
Silicon Valley leaders, like Musk, believe that Trump and the larger Republican Party hold promise for private sector freedoms and job growth. In short, the Silicon Valley executives supporting Trump are similar to him in one defining way — using a political campaign to self-serving ends.
Besides, this polarization within the Silicon Valley is only a micro-example of larger political fractures occurring on a national level. Both presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, regularly flung ugly accusations towards each other in their election campaigns. Both verbally attacked their opponents at rallies and urged their respective supporters to see their opponents as their dialectical opposites.
Trump’s recent victory as president-elect highlights a critical turning point in our politics. Anger, disappointment and uncertainty are emotions that I’ve battled with and continue to experience as I wonder what the next four years will look like. The rights and freedoms under threat by a second Trump term stand out the most in that regard. But under all of those disconcerting emotions, I also feel a sense of wonder as to how our nation will recover from our aching divides.
When I look for hope, I think about what Harris mentioned in her concession speech, “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. But here’s the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars.”
During times of political darkness like these, I like to think back to the past. I imagine that our Stanford elders who fought for suffrage, civil rights and gay liberation also experienced despair and turmoil. So, as the landscape around us in Silicon Valley changes and our once-revered tech leaders become unrecognizable in their red MAGA hats, Stanford will stay the same, remaining grounded in our heritage of political defiance and resilience.