Silicon Valley's Embrace of Maga Populism

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The connection

You asked about Silicon Valley writing checks to right-wing populists, and two recent dispatches from The Atlantic approach the alliance from different angles. Writing in June, Vivian Salama starts with an unexpected object—a sword belonging to the Marquis de Lafayette—to explain how J. D. Vance pitches investors on an artificial intelligence policy that wraps tech-industry wishlists in conservative talking points. But cracks are already showing. A month later, Gilad Edelman profiles Richard Hanania, a writer once beloved by tech billionaires who now warns that the populist movement rots the minds of its followers. Read together, these essays show a wealthy industry trying to steer a massive political wave, and why the project might easily fracture.

Salama leaves J. D. Vance standing in Paris, clutching a Revolutionary War sword and trying to force two very different political worlds into a single doctrine. He wants to keep his Silicon Valley donors happy with light regulation, while promising his working-class base that he will protect their jobs from the exact technology those donors are building. Notice how hard Vance is working to hold that contradiction together. Turn the page to Gilad Edelman, and you get a sharp look at what happens when that specific alliance actually hits reality. Edelman focuses on Richard Hanania, a writer who spent years as a favorite intellectual of the exact same tech barons backing Vance. Hanania even helped write the populist playbook for the new administration. The interesting thing is where he ended up. He recently jumped off the Trump train, arguing that the core feature of populism—rejecting elite expertise—inevitably leads to putting incompetent people in charge of the government. Read alongside Salama, Edelman’s profile acts as a flashing warning sign. Vance is trying to build a new American future by fusing Silicon Valley innovation with MAGA populism. Hanania’s sudden defection suggests that those two forces might just tear each other apart.

What lingers here is the sheer fragility of this new alliance. A tech executive might look at an angry crowd and see a useful tool for stripping away government regulations. But political resentment is notoriously hard to steer. The people writing the campaign checks usually assume they are the ones holding the leash. The question left sitting in the room is simple: When the billionaires and the populist base finally clash over what the country should look like, who will actually be giving the orders?