Payout

Trump's Cabinet fills in as tech interests get their pay off

As December begins, President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is coming into focus—and, folks, it’s looking like a bonanza for Silicon Valley’s right-wing.

Tech is cashing in, and right on time. If you’re interested in this story, and how we got to this point, I suggest checking out my forthcoming book, Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left. A history of the current moment, it delves into the right-wing politics of the industry and how they’ve captured their own slice of alternative media.

Trump’s more bombastic, controversial picks have been covered ad nauseam. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Health and Human Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Matt Gaetz for Attorney General (an appointment since rescinded after Gaetz removed himself from consideration) have, rightfully, drawn outrage and dismay.

But a number of the other nominees should also be raising eyebrows, as I wrote for TruthDig last month.

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence,

has been collecting a paycheck from Rumble, the right-wing YouTube clone backed by Peter Thiel and incoming Vice President JD Vance. A creature of the Silicon Valley-funded conservative movement, Vance’s selection was a coup for the tech sector, their own man on the inside whose indebtedness to the movement conservatism of Thiel and the right-wing thinkers in his orbit makes him an invaluable resource in the White House, a heartbeat away from the presidency behind a 78-year-old lame duck.

In addition to Kennedy and Gaetz, the incoming president has looked at other sycophants that will focus on his interests and the interests of his tech supporters.

Trump will appoint right-wing internet deregulation advocate and Federal Communications Commission member Brendan Carr as the commission’s chair, a win for Musk and other tech titans. Carr, as Ars Technica warned on Nov. 7, presents himself as an opponent of censorship, but this opposition is, unsurprisingly, pointed in only one direction. “A Carr-led FCC could also try to punish news organizations that are perceived to be anti-Trump,” the magazine’s Jon Brodkin wrote, also raising the possibility that Carr would funnel money to Musk’s Starlink satellite internet company.

Reading:

• Ireland is “where the British created all their colonial methods.”

• “It’s remarkable to me the number of hacks, analysts, supposed pundits, and other people running around within five minutes of an election saying: ‘What needs to happen is my exact ideological priors.’”

• “Some liberals are descending into pure unfiltered racism.”

• “Distancing of the White House from the carnage in Gaza is achieved through three reporting genres: Helpless Biden, Fuming/Deeply Concerned Biden, and Third-Partying.”