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Paul Graham, a well-known Silicon Valley investor and founder of Y Combinator, was asked on Twitter this week why he didn't follow Marc Andreessen, founder of a16z, who is also a well-known VC. Graham said he was blocked and speculated that this might be related to the Trump shooting and Graham's donations to the Democratic Party. Andreessen has not publicly supported Trump, but has criticized Biden.

Silicon Valley has long been regarded as a liberal stronghold and has maintained close ties with the Democratic Party. Well-known investors Reid Hoffman and Vinod Khosla are representatives of support for the Democratic Party. Khosla held a campaign fundraising event for Biden in May this year, and Hoffman has also been donating to the Democratic Party for a long time.

After Trump was shot, OpenAI CEO Altman, Apple CEO Cook and Amazon founder Bezos also expressed their regards after Trump was attacked. Although they were more out of opposition to terrorist attacks, reflecting the bottom line of entrepreneurs rather than political stances.

However, due to disappointment with Biden, the Democratic Party and its policies, some well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors have begun to turn to the right, and the overall political orientation of Silicon Valley is splitting. The values ​​that determine the code of conduct of the entire Silicon Valley have shifted.

In June, investors David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya held a fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco, and all tickets were sold out, ranging from $50,000 to $300,000. Ryan Selkis, founder of Messari crypto, commented: "The blue wall of technology is collapsing before our eyes."

Eight years ago, there were almost no people in Silicon Valley who openly supported Trump. In 2017, after Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Musk called Trump a "liar" and voted for Biden in 2020.

Hoffman believes that the political composition of Silicon Valley has not changed much, but some people are particularly loud in supporting Trump. Musk may be the most prominent one. After Trump was attacked last week, Musk expressed his full support for Trump. Some media reported that Musk has planned to donate about $45 million per month to political groups supporting Trump.

PayPal founder Peter Thiel is another. He donated $1.25 million to Trump in 2016. Thiel has stated that he will not participate in the 2024 election, but he has a close relationship with Trump's deputy, JD Vance. In 2017, he hired Vance to work for Mithril Capital, which he founded, and donated a total of $15 million to Vance's campaign for the Republican Senate in Ohio in 2022.

In recent years, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors have significantly increased their attention to defense technology, aerospace and other fields, and have taken the initiative to establish cooperation with the government and even the military. At the same time, the US federal government has invested about $22 billion in defense technology start-ups. If Trump is re-elected, Vance will have the opportunity to lead the formulation of science and technology policies, which may involve a large amount of new military spending.

Delian Asparouhov, an investor at Founders Fund, lamented the shift in political winds after attending a venture capital conference where Trump participated online. He wrote on Twitter: "Four years ago, if you said you voted for Trump, you had to apologize. In 2024, major defense technology funds are on the same stage with Trump." (Intern Zhu Yue)