In the previous blog, I wrote how Elon Must is part of a conservative reactionary group of Tech titans who consider themselves to be libertarians, free market capitalists, proponents of startup companies’ that want growth and innovation not to be stymied by government regulations or taxation.  Elon Musk, David Sachs and others have set up the Pro Trump America PAC, backed by tech entrepreneurs like Shaun Maguire, the brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

I shared that it was David Sacks and Elon Musk who along with the former FOX News host, Tucker Carlson, lobbied the GOP MAGA ex-president to choose Ohio’s GOP MAGA US Senator JD Vance, a former venture capitalist, to be his vice-president. Recently, the WSJ broke the news that Elon Musk has pledged to donate to the pro-Trump America PAC, $45 million dollars per month.

Here’s some background info on JD Vance, Peter Thiel, David Sacks and Elon Musk’s Russian connections…

J D Vance’s ties with tech industry…

After graduating from Yale Law School in 2016, J D Vance did a short stint as a principal at Mithril Capital Management, a venture firm backed by Peter Thiel, an early Facebook investor and PayPal founder who has a history of making substantial donations to right wing causes. In 2017, JD Vance signed up with the former AOL CEO Steve Case backed firm, Revolution LLC in Washington DC, as a partner focusing on startups. In 2019, he moved back to his home state of Ohio where he formed Narya Capital which was backed by Peter Theil, Eric Schmidt and Marc Andreesen.

Peter Thiel…

Peter Thiel has been a supporter and mentor to J D Vance. Peter Thiel’s economic and political philosophy has been described as bordering on fascism, and he has expressed skepticism about democracy.

“And in the years since (he contributed to the GOP MAGA ex-president’s campaign), Thiel has continued to refine his political worldview, a mishmash of libertarianism and nationalism that has led to his interest in cryptocurrency, funding of immigration hardliners, support for sea Steading—floating autonomous ocean communities that are not subject to government regulations or taxes—and some of his more controversial statements. In 2009, for instance, Thiel wrote that the extension of the vote to women in the 1920s “rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ an oxymoron.”

Mr. Thiel seems to be an exemplar of some right-wing tech industry power players like David Sacks. While the MAGA ex-president may not be a true believer but one prone to a transactional nature, J D Vance acts like a true believer even though he has espoused very different views in the past.

According to Open Secrets, when JD Vance ran for Ohio’s US Senate seat in 2022, Peter Thiel contributed $15 million dollars and David Sacks donated $900,000 towards his campaign coffers.

David O. Sacks…

As per the New Republic report by the October 18, 2022 by Jacob Silverman, “The Quiet Political Rise of David Sacks, Silicon Valley’s Prophet of Urban Doom:”

Excerpts:

(Like his pals Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Sacks is using his wealth and online clout to unite conservatives and former leftists in a reactionary movement against liberalism.)”

“After serving as PayPal’s founding chief operating officer, followed by stints as chief executive of Yammer and Zenefits, Sacks, 50, now leads a venture capital firm called Craft Ventures. While not yet a household name like his pal Elon Musk, he’s a regular across conservative media and on Twitter, where he has more than 400,000 followers, and exerts a growing influence in the political battles playing out in the tech industry.” He’s a co-host of the popular podcast, All-In, along with fellow tech investors Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya, and David Friedberg.”

“Sacks is part of the Tesla CEO’s “shadow crew” of friends and consiglieri, according to The Wall Street Journal. Text messages that were recently disclosed as part of Musk’s legal battle with Twitter showed that Musk sent his friend Sacks a tweet by conservative huckster Dinesh D’Souza expressing support for Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Sacks said he retweeted it. In other messages, the two discussed a potential monetary contribution from Sacks for the Twitter acquisition. In early October, Musk proposed a negotiated settlement to Russia’s war in Ukraine that mirrored arguments Sacks had made in a piece a week earlier for The American Conservative. Political consultant Ian Bremmer later wrote that Musk said he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had influenced Musk’s peace offer. Musk denied Bremmer’s report. On Twitter, Sacks backed Musk’s proposal and argued that the backlash generated—for example, against Musk’s suggestion that Russia should be given the Ukrainian region of Crimea—was the product of a “woke mob” that, Sacks later wrote in Newsweek, would cause the next world war. In a tweet, Musk praised the Sacks piece as “exceptionally well-said.”

Sacks is quietly becoming the leading practitioner of a new right-wing sensibility that has emerged in the political realignments provoked by Trumpism and the pandemic. On foreign policy, it offers a blend of isolationism, Trumpist nationalism, suspicion of the deep state, and the anti-empire realism of John Mearsheimer. Domestically, the vision is more muddled, a series of angry poses, a politics of pique, much of it playing out on Twitter, Callin, YouTube, Rumble, Substack, and other online media, especially among people who may have once counted themselves on the left but now can’t countenance the sight of homeless encampments. It’s The Young Turks host Ana Kasparian dedicating an episode to “violent criminals being let off easy” in California; Jacobin columnist Ben Burgis calling critics of Kasparian’s reactionary takes on bail reform and other criminal legal system issues the “silliest scolds of the online left”; and Nando Vila, a Jacobin contributor and onetime host of The Jacobin Show, arguing that fighting false perceptions about crime is “definitely a losing battle, because all you have to do is see that it is real” in the form of homelessness, which has been increasingly criminalized.”

Elon Musk…

It was reported by the New Yorker that Elon Musk had admitted in a call with Pentagon officials around August 2023 that he’d been in contact with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. The call was regarding the satellite-based internet that SpaceX supplies to Ukraine’s military. He later denied that he made these statements.

As per the August 21, 2023 Bloomberg article by Craig Trudell, “Musk Told Pentagon He Spoke to Putin Directly, New Yorker Says:”

Excerpts:

Musk volunteered the information during an October conversation with Colin Kahl, then the Pentagon’s top policy official, about Ukrainian forces losing connection to Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s Starlink service as they entered territory contested by Russia, the magazine said.

“My inference was that he was getting nervous that Starlink’s involvement was increasingly seen in Russia as enabling the Ukrainian war effort and was looking for a way to placate Russian concerns,” Kahl told the New Yorker.”

“The magazine report revives the controversy that erupted after Musk posted what he described as peace plans that the Kremlin praised and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy criticized. Soon thereafter, Ukrainian troops reported Starlink outages and Musk threatened to stop funding Ukraine’s access to the service.”

“SpaceX briefly requested that the US and its allies foot more of the bill for Starlink in Ukraine, only for Musk to reverse his position and pledge to continue funding the initiative. In June, the Defense Department announced a contract with the closely held company.”