Silicon Valley aghast at the Musk-Trump divorce | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley aghast at the Musk-Trump divorce

ft.com

46 pointsgitgudflea68 comments

Cheap take: no matter where you fall on the entire political spectrum, this implosion is incredibly entertaining, even if predicted for a long time now. Musk has managed to unite bitter political divisions against him. It's impressive really.

The most amusing summary I read -now Teslas may be getting keyed by both political parties.

"Entertaining" in a "ha ha these morons are going to kill us all" way, yes.

Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.

this implosion is incredibly entertaining,

Two type-a jackholes bickering on the internet. Shocking.

People like them are just uranium. Put enough of them in close enough proximity, and things go boom.

Almost 20 years ago now, Prof. Robert I. Sutton suggested that the maximum allowable a-holes should be close to zero.

In the absence of substantive accomplishment, dramatic reality show soma has replaced leadership with a staged performance art that caters to social hierarchy and in-group approval rather than real, stable, effective, efficient benefit and happiness for the protection and thriving of most individuals' needs.

The best line from Justified, so apt here:

"Seeds of Distrust in a Garden of Assholes" https://youtu.be/ifJwLOon6g4

It would be more entertaining if one party didn't have its hands on levers that could make our lives significantly worse on a whim.

It feels 100% manufactured. Would bet on anything ar this point other than volatility itself.

Do you have any evidence for this or is it just speculation? Their drama seem real enough given an elderly con artist and a neurto-atypical weirdo doing lots of drugs, where both seem rather megalomaniacal and used to getting their ways. They're competing for attention, approval, and power.

Perfect take: Our modern version of bread and circuses is popcorn and tweets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

Aghast at the event that has been widely predicted since the beginning of the presidency.

He made it about 14 mooches, not bad.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/861881/anthony-scaramucci-mea...

Based on the article they are aghast at how much influence they've lost

I thought it would only take 3 months after January 20, only off by a few weeks!

Part of being a political pundit is getting. blindsided. every. time. You’ve got to be Nate Silver to just be wrong only half the time!

If I drank on Sunday mornings I could have gotten hammered having a drink every time Cokie Roberts said something was ‘unprecedented’ that Nixon did back when Cokie was getting started in her career.

The good old days when everyone belived the pundits were somewhat balanced and unbiased. I enjoyed those Sunday mornings. Russert was always good.

The speed of the implosion is still surprising, as is the fact that Elon mentioned Epstein. It is a much bigger deal to say that Trump is a pedophile (under blackmail by Mossad/CIA)

Well, he has labelled other people as pedophile before.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50641397

Tbf he’s being called nazi now, which is just used as a slur. Imo same with pedo.

I think if Trump was getting blackmailed by the CIA, they would have made him pick someone other than Tulsi Gabbard to lead them.

> It is a much bigger deal to say that Trump is a pedophile (under blackmail by Mossad/CIA)

Did Elon mention Mossad or the CIA at all? I didn't see that, he only mentioned that Trump is in the Epstien files as far as I know. Which I thought we already knew from the released address book and flight logs.

They still have JD Vance as a proxy for Thiel.

It seems like Elon also still is a fan of JD (he suggested that Trump be impeached and JD become president).

The Palantir infiltration of govt and surveillance will continue.

JD who?

JD Vance has exactly as much decision making power as Mike Pence did - none. He is a useful idiot who will be thrown away in another few Mooches.

I put forth the idea that getting rid of Trump so Vance can be president has been the plan all along.

I caught a bit of BBC news this morning saying "nobody expected just how badly this would end". Surely they meant "everybody".

I am sorry but why do Thiel and Musk represent the Valley? They are outsiders who by all account are mentally ill and have more skeletons in their closets than a European monarch. I feel the Valley preceded these charlatans. Neither of them contribute much (SpaceX is unregulated nasa, thiel makes with palantir surveillance to target and maim children through drones). They are less technically savvy than an undergrad at CMU or Berkeley. Those who idolize them need a reality check

I seriously hope they're not; no one that clueless should be allowed to have that much money.

This was the obvious outcome of the rich tech crowd trying to play politics. No, you were never "one of the good ones" in the American right wing's eyes. They hate you and everything you stand for. They are not interested in building an efficient government. They are not interested in fiscal conservatism. They are not interested in freedom of speech or any other kind of freedom. Libertarianism is just a fantasy in your own head. They, like all other political blocs, want power, and will use you however they need to get it. All they needed to do was stroke your ego a little bit ("yeah, you tech people are smart and can totally fix the government in a week") and here we are.

FT is probably referring to VCs. Most rational people in Silicon Valley are not the least bit surprised by this easily predicted outcome.

People get the impression that the All-In podcast is "Silicon Valley"

It's weird to me how "Silicon Valley" now means "people invested in tech", not "people making tech".

Even weirder that this definition holds even here on HN, a site literally dedicated (originally) to Building Something People Want.

The whole demographic of the "tech" scene has shifted from products to finance, up and down the stack. And that's absolutely being reflected in the political cynicism we're seeing. Tech bros couldn't get what they wanted from a Democratic administration so they figured they'd just grease a few orange palms and get it from republicans.

What no one predicted, though, was the abject buffoonery of the whole process. Watching billionaire after billionaire get played, laughed at and discarded by a Trump administration that never cared a bit about any of the issues the VC set wants is just amazing. These are the people we're supposed to trust to guide us into the future?

> Even weirder that this definition holds even here on HN,

I think that a discussion forum sponsored by a startup accelerator in a particular industry being biased to the interests of capital investors in that industry is a very good contender for the least surprising fact in the world.

That might sound mercenary and spineless, but usually that's how politics works. You shop around for your best shot for getting your policy chosen. This isn't Political Simulator where you play the Political Compass game to figure out your ideology and then join a movement.

That's exactly how Labor in the US defected to Trump too btw. Politics isn't political science.

This is also my problem with online discussions in the US Left. Politics is more than just policy positions, it also needs to focus on strategies, solutions, and coalitions. But online the only thing that folks seem interested in talking about is why the US can't implement some EU policy.

"How politics works" usually involves people reaching compromise and getting some of what they want, not shrieking off in a tiff and accusing the president of human trafficing or whatever.

I'm not following at all. This seems like the opposite of "how politics works".

HN is about the Austin of tech sites. It sounds like a really awesome place where people are inventing cool things. Then the techbros show up and start techbro-ing and it becomes a bit less cool. Then the VC's show up and start drawing out the engineers and techbros and … well, you get HN.

Lobste.rs is where stuff is actually getting done without much comment.

They’re probably going to come out at some point and say it was all just an act.

market manipulation?

Mark Cuban tried to warn him.

Anyway, I hope Musk did all this for the LOLs. That's horribly on-brand for him.

Open question on who "Doge" answers to now. (It was never the American people.) The risk of them being foreign assets is even greater.

It's pretty much a guarantee that Musk has copies of federal tax, healthcare, social security, immigration and several other databases on his private servers. DOGE illegally got unrestricted and unaudited access to all of it. His underlings might have privately made copies as well. They were (and probably still are) operating outside the US government structure and laws. None of the employees have security clearance. Musk himself was never officially a government employee, yet had unrestricted authority over the department. What do you think he's going to do with it now?

It's not open: DOGE is overseen by Russell Vought, Christian Nationalist and orchestrator of Project 2025. We're on the brink of a fully post-Constitutional government and it's happened in plain sight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Vought

Palantir.

hopefully we all remember just how deeply fucking stupid and selfish the entire upper strata of silicon valley is.

elon is easy, but Sundar and Bezos were just as weak and pathetic when it came to it.

Early in my career I had this naive starry eyed vision of tech industry being “one of the good people.” Google’s “don’t be evil” motto, companies building stuff to actually help people, solving interesting problems, good work/life balance, etc.

Then I grew up. But after post covid boom layoffs and the last election, I realized it’s no different than any other industry including tobacco and oil who actively harm the public for short term gains. I hate that upper strata with a passion.

Then I grew up.

I don't think it's you, or me, or us. Tech changed, not us.

The tech industry ethos of the 1960's and 1970's was exterminated by the same get-rich-quick crowd that ruined real estate, broadcasting, and a dozen other industries.

The fervor and excitement over developing AI to replace their employees, who they view with outright contempt, has been particularly eye opening as well.

This is what happens when you build a capitalist system based on quarterly results

Sundar really shouldn't be grouped in there. He's just an employee, not an owner.

he's in charge of the company until and unless they sack him, and he chose to give money to Trump and to stand around like a supplicant, same as the rest.

> he's in charge of the company until and unless they sack him

No, not exactly, he is given orders how to run it. A CEO cannot go against the owners, he is just there as an administrator/bureaucrat. A CEO that doesn't follow the owners orders will stop being a CEO very quickly, just like any other worker that doesn't follow orders.

> The person lamented the ongoing economic volatility — caused by tariffs and Trump’s unpredictability — during a presidency that they had been promised would be a boon to business. “We’re all experiencing a liquidity crunch,” they said. “We need public markets to open.”

"Promised", boohoo. These people really don't understand what a society is and are operating at the level of toddlers to put it mildly.

If they ever manage to destroy many jobs by building strong AI, we will hear "We're experiencing a lack of demand".

The Silicon Valley "tech-bros" were all supportive of Trump to benefit their own pockets.

When Trump is finally gone, there will be some very awkward questions asked of all those, tech-bros and others, who blindly supported his lies.

What awkward questions? They're pretty open about their thinking. Why are we all still pretending that supporting Trump, who won the popular vote btw, is some fringe position to take in America?

There are a lot of situations and policies which are clearly prone to ‘leopards eating faces’ type situations around Trump, and won’t look good when it comes around like it inevitably will.

the awkward questions are going to be of the form ‘what the fuck did you think was going to happen’?

I don't think anyone is pretending it's a fringe position, but maybe people expect smart people to be smart. Personally I don't think many of the billionaire Silicon Valley set were supporting him ideologically, more that they're cowardly, milquetoast lickspittles who care more about their bank balance than anything else.

What does the awkwardness of question has to do with whether Trump won the popular vote or not? Hitler was popular in Germany and there were plenty of awkward questions later.

Trump "won the popular vote" with the support of less than 30% of the total population, and a little less than 50% of the population who voted. That isn't fringe (although what even is fringe anymore,) but neither is it mainstream.

> Trump "won the popular vote" with the support of less than 30% of the total population

What makes you think that all the people who didn't vote not support him for President? There's polling that shows the opposite, that his margins would increase if the turnout was higher.

What makes you think that all the people who didn't vote not support him for President?

By definition, if they supported him, they would have voted for him. That's what voting is for.

By definition, if they opposed him, they would have voted against him. That's what voting is for.

>What makes you think that all the people who didn't vote not support him for President?

If you're talking about the popular vote, only the people who vote matter. I'm sure there are people who didn't vote for Trump but who support him. Certainly a lot of leftists and erstwhile Democrats stayed home or voted third party because they were disillusioned with Kamala Harris, which implicitly supports whatever the status quo winds up being.

You can find polling that supports just about any narrative you like, but I don't think you can find much objective evidence that a significant majority of the American population supports Trump but most just didn't care enough to show up to the polls. Votes are the only objective data showing intent that we have, and they don't seem to indicate a sweeping mandate on Trump's behalf.

Narcissists rarely work well in teams.

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