A new book by Jacob Silverman, Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, painstakingly chronicles the rightward move of Silicon Valley’s tech titans, culminating in their embrace of President Donald Trump. Once considered reliably liberal, Musk and his peers have taken up authoritarianism with a relish few could have predicted. Recently, the Phoenix Project sat down with Silverman to discuss the source of Silicon Valley’s migration to the right and the role San Francisco played as its incubator.

Phoenix Project: What is the primary motivation for Silicon Valley’s move to the right: Ideology, self-interest or self-preservation?

Silverman: I think it’s a blend. Some of these folks seem to have been more ideological from the start. Someone like Peter Thiel has been a died-in-the-wool political animal his whole adult life. There’s also a way in which their sense of ideology and self-interest became wrapped up with right-wing thought and being against the state. 

They see the state and any restraints on their power as being intolerable. They believe it has been holding them back. There’s an impatience that the promised future has been withheld from them. The way that translates into politics is that they don’t want to be governed any more.

Phoenix Project: Are they so insulated that they aren’t aware of how badly this plays with the average American? They’re coming across as spoiled and petulant and unhappy — and for no particular reason — especially given their level of success and wealth.

Silverman: I do think that’s a notable and surprising part of this. They’re so fabulously wealthy, but seem, at times, to be very greedy and petulant and unhappy. They expect the rules to be bent to them. 

Also, Silicon Valley is a self-mythologizing industry. There are many articles in which they talk about themselves as a new aristocracy that’s practically designated to rule. They’ve taken all the egoism of being a founder or a venture capitalist, and expanded that to present themselves as visionaries on a societal level. When every day folks start to understand who these guys are — when they see their social media posts or hear them speak — they’re not very appealing. They’re not presenting a positive political program and they don’t have a lot of charisma. That’s a bright spot politically. Any kind of populist message they’re trying to push is a false one and will not work in the long term with most people. 

Phoenix Project: Getting to the central premise of your book, Gilded Rage, where does their sense of grievance come from? As you’ve noted, these people are fabulously successful and wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams. 

Silverman: Some of it comes from that impatience that the promised future is not arriving. There’s also been a real shift toward antagonism toward the state and any regulatory bodies that attempt to place checks on their way of doing business. These people were always very rich, but one thing that changed in the years I write about — the zero interest rate years — is that they became even more fabulously wealthy. The amounts of money being talked about in various deals increased dramatically; million dollar rounds became billion dollar fundraising rounds for startups. For that reason, they’ve inflated their own roles and geo-historical sense of purpose.

Phoenix Project: Do you think Silicon Valley’s relationship with President Donald Trump will be a lasting one?

Silverman: I was intrigued to watch what happened when Elon Musk and Trump had their breakup last summer. It was very predictable, but what was surprising was that nothing much happened in terms of revenge against Musk. There was a lot Trump could have done to Musk from withholding government contracts to deporting him. 

At the same time, all the other tech people, from David Sacks on down, remained in place. And, even with the decline of DOGE, a lot of the people who were working on it have been distributed around different government agencies.

Phoenix Project: What has been the influence of the Palantir Mafia, and its role in launching the new generation of tech extremism? 

Silverman: Palantir helped launch the defense tech boom that we’re currently seeing. It represents an ideological change for Silicon Valley in that it’s now OK to build military companies to do intelligence work for the U.S. government, the Israeli government, or other entities around the world. A whole new way of doing startups that saw them going after government contracts from the earliest days was created. Palantir was cofounded by Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale and Trey Stevens, and was built on insider connections to Trump World. It spawned a generation of surveillance companies like this and has drawn a new generation of tech workers who don’t view the War on Terror as a cautionary tale, but as a business opportunity. 

Phoenix Project: What role has San Francisco played in this new Gilded Age? 

Silverman: Garry Tan has been a very important figure who has dragged San Francisco to the right. Like many of his ilk, he pretends to be a moderate when, by most standards, his goals and methods of operation are very right-wing. San Francisco was a test bed for the sort of politics that we’ve in recent years, the giving up on Democratic-run urban centers and calling them failed cities, and really magnifying the social problems from a classist and almost xenophobic, anti-social perspective. These problems were distorted by billionaire-run social media platforms.

Finally, there was this embrace of recall elections. After [District Attorney] Chesa Boudin was recalled, David Sacks said he wanted to take [this tactic] nationally. It dovetailed nicely with the MAGA idea of contesting elections everywhere.

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.