Silicon Valley Trump Supporters “Deluding Themselves,” Says Michael Moritz

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, for their part, Donald Trump and his running mate, J. D. Vance, are campaigning in swing states this week. They are also eyeing Silicon Valley, where some of the wealthiest and most powerful tech titans are lining up behind Trump. Once a stronghold of liberal ideas, the center of U.S. innovation is drifting to the right. But our next guest is urging his peers to rethink. Michael Moritz, senior adviser at Sequoia Heritage, joins Walter Isaacson to explain why.

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WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And Michael Moritz, welcome to the show.

MICHAEL MORITZ, SENIOR ADVISER, SEQUOIA HERITAGE: Nice to see you, Walter.

ISAACSON: For the past 40 years, you’ve been a titan in the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial tech world. And like most people there, you’ve been a Democrat. You still are, support the Democrats. But this year, a surprising number of people, I think, in your world, in Silicon Valley, in the entrepreneurial world, are backing Donald Trump, you know, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, David Sacks, Joe Lonsdale. Is this a major change? And if so, why?

MORITZ: You’ve counted six people, Walter, in Silicon Valley. And Silicon Valley being this stretch of land that stretches from San Francisco to San Jose, and the people who are supporting Trump, supporting the Republicans, the surprising thing about it is how small a number it is, but how large the volume of that they’ve been able to generate because of their varying and clever commands of different communication channels, in particular Twitter and all the rest of it. So, I think they’ve been able to amplify their voice and their sentiments far beyond the reality of the particulars in Silicon Valley, which is heavily anti-Trump, as it has been for the last two elections in Silicon Valley, in both 2016 and 2020. Trump barely mustered 20 percent of the vote, and it’ll be the same result this time.

ISAACSON: But you took up arms, in a way, in a Financial Times piece, in which you wrote, Trump supporters in Silicon Valley are making the same mistake. All powerful people who back authoritarians. What did you mean by that?

MORITZ: Well, it’s perplexing to me why these very smart, absurdly wealthy, incredibly accomplished individuals have backed Trump in the first place. And I’m also perplexed by the fact that I know — I don’t know all of them well, but I know them well enough to imagine that each of them would have trouble imagining having Trump as part of any investment syndicate that they might arrange and organize. And I can only think that they feel that somehow or other they’re deluding themselves into thinking that they will have influence over Trump, they’ll be able to control his activities, they’ll be able to channel him into the particular areas in which they have an interest. And I think that’s the mistake that other people who have backed authoritarians, you know, in different circumstances in different countries over the year have also made, and I think they’re deluding themselves.

ISAACSON: But a lot of them make the point that the Democratic Party has become more and more anti-entrepreneurial. Even you have written about crippling regulatory regimes. It’s hard for people in your field who are doing startups and, you know, trying to take risks. Are you worried that the Democratic Party has moved that way and thus caused this bit of a revolt against them in Silicon Valley?

MORITZ: I think it’s clear that the Democrats and, to a large extent, the Republicans also, for different reasons, have lost touch with the realities of things that concern a whole slew of voters. And both parties, I think bear blame for not managing for the common good. And look, I live in California. And I sort of — I describe myself as a Schwarzenegger Democrat, you know, pretty liberal on social issues, reasonably centrist or conservative on economic issues. And if you live in California, and you see what the Democratic Party has done in California, there are plenty of reasons to complained. And I can sympathize with a lot of the arguments that people, like the individuals that you mentioned at the beginning, Walter, who are backing Trump have about the tilt of politics, particularly in California, which has become increasing — a state where it has become increasingly difficult to do business. So, I think that there is reason — that these people have good reasons for some of their complaints, but unfortunately, they’re channeling their frustration towards the wrong individual.

ISAACSON: Well, you’ve just talked about the problems in California being over regulatory and moving to the progressive left. Well, Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, she’s a product of Silicon Valley California politics or D.A. of San Francisco, attorney general of California. You’ve watched her over the years. Why do you think she could push back against these tendencies that you find problematic?

MORITZ: I think one certainly would hope so. I don’t think she’s really a product of Silicon Valley. She’s much more a product of San Francisco. And —

ISAACSON: That may make the question even stronger.

MORITZ: I — well, I think on the progressive front, I completely agree. I think one would hope that both parties understand that the disenfranchisement that tens of millions of people living in this country feel, whether it’s these ultra-wealthy people that are backing Trump or the tens of millions of people who feel forgotten and left behind, they are sending a very strong message to both parties, to the Democrats and Republicans that you’ve forgotten this. And you’ve forgotten the touchstones, you’ve forgotten the things that people care about when it comes to economic mobility and being left behind and all the sorts of things that has caused this wellspring of support for Trump. And then, with lots of people in California now protesting at the state level and at the city level about the fact that progressive left has moved both in California, the state, and in San Francisco, the city, into a ditch that politicians are going to get the message, including the Democratic presidential nominee, and that’s certainly happening in San Francisco, where the opposition to one party rule is as strong as it’s been in 50 years.

ISAACSON: Given what you just said about San Francisco, doesn’t that explain some of the rebellion of people in the entrepreneurial and tech industry against the Democratic Party?

MORITZ: I think it does. I think there are plenty of reasons to — in California, which, you know, is largely a Democratic state, obviously, to have lots of complaints about the way in which the state has been government — and governed, and that reflects obviously on the Democratic Party writ large. But I think the sort of Democratic Party leadership that’s been demonstrate — all that has occurred in San Francisco over the last 20 years is far to the left of what’s happened in state politics and in the state capital in Sacramento.

ISAACSON: You made some big news about a month ago when Joe Biden was still in the race and you sent an e-mail to The New York Times and says, President Biden has a choice, vanity or virtue. He can either condemn the country to dark and cruel times, or heed the voice of Father Time. The clock has run out. How important do you think people like yourself were in getting Joe Biden to reconsider running, and why were you so strong about that?

MORITZ: I suspect my note or my e-mail had about as much effect as a drop of rain and a thunderstorm. But I think there were — look, there were — as both of us know, and everybody knows, there was the fact that you — he woke up to the fact that he was going to embark on a war without an army behind him. And he had found that his generals had gradually left him and lost confidence in him, and the rank and file of Democratic voters had, and he’d been hearing this message loud and clear from a variety of constituents, including, you know, influential members of Congress, obviously, the former speaker of the House, and then there were a whole number of people in the sort of donor community who had spoken out and registered their dismay at the prospect of him, despite all the respect that so many people have for him leading the country into this — or leading the Democratic Party into this election this year after the fiasco of the debate.

ISAACSON: Where are you directing your financial support in this election and what type of donations are you going to make?

MORITZ: It’s in two areas, one in San Francisco, which is my prime activity, actually, and it’s the — we have big races at a local level in San Francisco this fall, we got a mayor’s race, we got races for the supervisor’s positions, which is the equivalent of the city council. And then, there are some charter reform initiatives that I’m heavily involved with. So, I’m involved in San Francisco heavily in those particular areas. And then, in the presidential area, Harriet, my wife and I, we’ve been donating through an organization that is run by Jim Messina and James Carville called American Bridge that is sort of ancillary to the main presidential campaign. But that has been massively effective, particularly in 2020 and 2022. And we’ve been deeply impressed by the manner in which they can execute very nimbly and effectively as an adjunct to the presidential campaigns.

ISAACSON: Are you personally a strong supporter of Kamala Harris?

MORITZ: Yes.

ISAACSON: Well, how do you think that Kamala Harris should campaign? And are you worried about her being perceived as part of that progressivism that took place — and took people into a ditch?

MORITZ: She will undoubtedly — the Trump-Vance campaign will undoubtedly try and tie her to San Francisco, much as if Governor Newsom had been the presidential candidate, they would have tied him as the former mayor to San Francisco. But I’m — she needs to be able to do convince people that she has gained a lot of experience both in her role in the state in Sacramento and then as in the senatorial seat for the country where she is and has, I assume, been learning to govern for the common good, which means moving much to a much more centrist line of — centrist set of policies and method of government.

ISAACSON: You are a long-time board member of Google. I think you’re one of the early investors, for which congratulations. But the Justice Department just won a major ruling against Google as anti-trust. Do you think that’s right for the Justice Department to be pushing these things? And would you hope that Kamala Harris and others would be a little bit less aggressive and antitrust enforcement?

MORITZ: Politicians — I think this goes back to the divine right of kings, I think, and when you have overmighty citizens, whether they’re dukes and massive landowners in ancient England or powerful corporations in America today, whether it’s Amazon or Microsoft or Facebook or Google, politicians get unhappy when they have with any entity that they don’t feel that they can control. You can see it in the E.U. as well, targeting the same companies. You see it in China with Xi Jinping moving against the largest companies. Politicians around the world are universal in their skepticism about companies that they can’t control. And we’ve seen it before here, we’ve seen it with IBM, we’ve seen it with AT&T. I think the Google battle will be — this isn’t — you know, there was a court ruling, obviously, but the remedies are going to take several years to work out. And I would hope that Kamala Harris and others come to recognize also that these companies have led the world into the future and given us billions of people around the world, services that we couldn’t imagine would have existed 40 or 50 years ago.

ISAACSON: Michael Morris, thank you so much for joining us.

MORITZ: Thanks, Walter.