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Tech Bros Are Facing the End of the 'Technipolar Moment' (Bloomberg Opinion)
May 23, 2025 at 12:00 PM UTC
By Adrian Wooldridge
Adrian Wooldridge is the global business columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.
Archived at: https://archive.is/2GzCB#selection-1185.0-1203.191
FAFO to tech bros who supported and funded Trump's return. (Musk included).
IMO: You fell for the dream of complete deregulation (see poster below) when in fact all Trump wanted was the key that opens the door to crypto scams unparalleled in the history of the world.
Now you pay like the rest of us.
https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/trump-qatar-plane-2672031382/
'Second biggest scandal': Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade
Democrats are up in arms over the eye-popping $2 billion cash infusion into the Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin digital currency, from an Abu Dhabi firm.
Just a few years ago, Trump dismissed Bitcoin as a “scam.” Democrats feel they’ve found their foil.
“He and his family are trying to profit on this business that he was skeptical of years ago now that he found a way to make money off it,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), the number three House Democrat, told Raw Story.
Just a few years ago, Trump dismissed Bitcoin as a “scam.” Democrats feel they’ve found their foil.
“He and his family are trying to profit on this business that he was skeptical of years ago now that he found a way to make money off it,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), the number three House Democrat, told Raw Story.
The Trump presidency owes far more to populism than to tech power.
And grift, grift unparalleled in history.
It looks as if Musk has been expelled from Trump’s inner circle despite spending almost $300 million to help re-elect him. His spell in the sun was both brief and unsuccessful. DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) was sound and fury signifying very little. Musk’s promise to cut $2 trillion in government spending has shrunk to $150 billion and will probably shrink still further. This is not just because the courts have largely stymied Musk’s firing blitz but also because the entire project was misconceived: As Musk himself acknowledged, the only way to save serious money is to reform entitlements, which takes years of careful coalition-building. Musk failed to get Trump to rescind his tariffs despite denouncing Trump’s leading trade advisor, Peter Navarro, as “truly a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.” Musk’s sojourn in democratic politics has so far cost him roughly a quarter of his net worth, as Tesla stocks have plummeted and the Tesla-owning classes have turned against him. Little wonder that he himself also just signaled his intention to retrench and retreat.
Musk’s failure over tariffs is a sign of the tech industry’s wider failure to set the economic agenda. A Bernie Sanders’ presidency could not have done more to damage the pillars of the tech industry. Trump’s addiction to tariffs is naturally bad for an industry that depends on global sourcing. Amazon briefly considered listing the cost of tariffs in price breakdowns on items it sold before Trump called CEO Jeff Bezos in a fury. But just as bad is Trump’s addiction to changing tariffs, which has made it impossible to plan ahead. Trump’s anti-immigration policies are making it harder to hire the skilled foreign workers that the tech companies rely on; indeed, recent figures suggest that the US is no longer a net importer of top AI talent.
Trump’s war on the universities, which includes withholding future grants, canceling existing ones and changing the funding formula for research bodies, threatens America’s thriving innovation system. American visitors to the Aspen conference talked of research grants being frozen, departments being cut, visiting professorships being abandoned and star academics hunting for jobs in Europe. The war could well intensify. Trump’s proposed 2026 budget would cut funding for the National Institutes of Health by about 40% and for the National Science Foundation by 57%; moreover, his proposals to tax university endowment income at 14% or 21%, or take away their tax-exempt status, would hamper attempts to use university funds to plug the gap.
...
The tech industry had assumed that Trump’s election would mean the unwinding of Joe Biden’s anti-trust machinery. Far from it: The Federal Trade Commission is continuing its case against Meta for snuffing out nascent competition when it purchased Instagram and WhatsApp, and the Justice Department is determined to force Google to sell its Chrome web browser. Both cases were filed during Trump’s first term and carried over during Biden’s term in a sign of a growing anti-tech consensus.
Musk’s failure over tariffs is a sign of the tech industry’s wider failure to set the economic agenda. A Bernie Sanders’ presidency could not have done more to damage the pillars of the tech industry. Trump’s addiction to tariffs is naturally bad for an industry that depends on global sourcing. Amazon briefly considered listing the cost of tariffs in price breakdowns on items it sold before Trump called CEO Jeff Bezos in a fury. But just as bad is Trump’s addiction to changing tariffs, which has made it impossible to plan ahead. Trump’s anti-immigration policies are making it harder to hire the skilled foreign workers that the tech companies rely on; indeed, recent figures suggest that the US is no longer a net importer of top AI talent.
Trump’s war on the universities, which includes withholding future grants, canceling existing ones and changing the funding formula for research bodies, threatens America’s thriving innovation system. American visitors to the Aspen conference talked of research grants being frozen, departments being cut, visiting professorships being abandoned and star academics hunting for jobs in Europe. The war could well intensify. Trump’s proposed 2026 budget would cut funding for the National Institutes of Health by about 40% and for the National Science Foundation by 57%; moreover, his proposals to tax university endowment income at 14% or 21%, or take away their tax-exempt status, would hamper attempts to use university funds to plug the gap.
...
The tech industry had assumed that Trump’s election would mean the unwinding of Joe Biden’s anti-trust machinery. Far from it: The Federal Trade Commission is continuing its case against Meta for snuffing out nascent competition when it purchased Instagram and WhatsApp, and the Justice Department is determined to force Google to sell its Chrome web browser. Both cases were filed during Trump’s first term and carried over during Biden’s term in a sign of a growing anti-tech consensus.
Tech Bros and Trump have common ground only in grift.
Now you pay like the rest of us.