Adam Lashinsky, a former executive editor at Fortune and the author of an insider book about Apple, has a warning for Trump supporters who are just waking up to the fact that their movement is facing a hostile takeover from Silicon Valley tycoons.
Writing in the Washington Post, Lashinsky highlights the tensions between MAGA activists such as Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer and the band of Trump-backing billionaires led by X owner Elon Musk.
Lashinsky also argues that the tech tycoons are unlikely to be willing to compromise with the nationalist faction now that they actually have political power.
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"Those who think this is just a passing spat are ignoring a fundamental truth about the Silicon Valley plutocrats: They are a selfish bunch who have shown time and again that what interests them most is themselves," he writes. "It’s important to understand that self-interest is a foundational ethos in Silicon Valley, a place where boys who read science fiction in their bedrooms and then Ayn Rand in their college dorms grew up to be today’s Masters of the Universe."
Given this, he continues, "it was just a matter of time before the anti-immigration crowd lost its lunch," despite the fact that Musk and fellow billionaires such as Peter Thiel and Marc Andreesen purportedly pledged their fealty to the MAGA cause over the last year.
"There is little doubt about which side will win," he writes in analyzing the coming fights between big tech and MAGA. "Strap in, America. A fabulously talented crop of rich guys is now very close to the levers of power. As a result, they stand to enrich themselves even further."