Free Republic

FOX News reported: Former President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter the day after former first lady Michelle Obama and others demanded the company “permanently” remove him, according to the newest “Twitter Files” installment. On Saturday, CEO Elon Musk and journalist Michael Shellenberger released the fourth batch of Twitter documents that show internal communications by the company’s executives between Jan. 6-8, 2021, including and shortly after the riot at the Capitol Building. Among the files, Shellenberger reported “internal and external pressure,” including from the former first lady, fell onto the company calling for Trump to be banned from using Twitter....

Several prominent political figures in the state conveyed that the Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who has been increasing his public appearances and focus on California public policy, is already deep in discussions about a possible run as a Republican.

The 2024 presidential election is throwing up many firsts. While some, like the bait-and-switch candidacy, are blatantly oblivious, others are a little less pronounced. One such shift is happening in Silicon Valley. Known as a Democrat bastion over the years, there is a notable shift in the tide. Billionaire entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and others with huge clout in the tech domain are throwing their weight behind Donald Trump. Elon Musk and David Sacks are just two prominent names on a list that is growing daily. While the turn of events does not suggest that Silicon Valley is turning all red,...

More than 500 venture capitalists have signed a pledge revealed Wednesday to support Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for president, building a “VCs for Kamala” list that now represents billions of dollars in personal wealth and managed capital. The coalition emerged even as outspoken supporters of Donald Trump like Elon Musk and David Sacks push the narrative that Silicon Valley is behind the former president — and just two weeks after Musk and Sacks rejoiced over the pick of J.D. Vance for Trump’s running mate. “Add your name and firm to be a part of this pledge,” the Google form...

Television personality and investor Mark Cuban said Wednesday that Silicon Valley’s recent wave of support for former President Trump could be a “play” to boost bitcoin. Cuban, the pro-crypto billionaire who has backed President Biden’s bid for reelection, argued that the potential inflationary impacts of lower taxes and higher tariffs under a second Trump presidency could drive up the price of bitcoin. “Here is a contrary opinion on the emergence of Silicon Valley support for former President Trump. Which like all my opinions on here, probably won’t be popular,” Cuban wrote in a post on the social platform X. “It’s...

Donald Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance as his 2024 running mate is seen as a potential windfall for Silicon Valley — and major tech VCs are going public with their support. Vance’s stance aligns with that of Trump, whose FTC and Justice Department launched antitrust probes into Google, Meta, Amazon and Apple during his first term in office. “President Trump and Vice President Vance will be the first crypto administration and will assemble the brightest minds in tech, AI, quantum computing, crypto, defense, transportation and biotech to create a renaissance in American dynamism and innovation,” Shervin Pishevar, a tech...

Allison Huynh bought into Silicon Valley’s woke idealism. The co-creator of Willow Garage, a company that designed robotics and AI systems that were sold to Google, Huynh helped to raise millions of dollars for Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. She and her husband at the time, early Google programmer Scott Hassan, helped organize elaborate fundraisers and dinners for tech bigwigs. “My role was to bring in Silicon Valley people for the $50,000- and $100,000-per-plate dinners,” Huynh said. “[We] brought in [Google co-founders] Sergey [Brin], Larry [Page] and Eric [Schmidt]. Obama was a hopeful candidate who was outside of the system.”...

Lunden Roberts, the mother of Hunter Biden’s daughter, Navy, claimed Friday her phones “crashed” and “just about everything” with Hunter Biden on the device was “gone” after she discovered she was pregnant. Roberts claimed to Sirius XM’s Megyn Kelly that both of her cellphone screens “crashed” at the same time in front of both she and her friends the night she learned she was pregnant with Navy. Yes. It looks like a total meltdown,” Kelly said. Roberts said “a lot of stuff” involving Hunter Biden was missing from her iCloud when she got a new phone the next day. “Just...

If California is the political fundraising powerhouse of the nation, Silicon Valley has grown into one of the increasingly dominant forces of campaign cash. And while Northern California tech entrepreneurs overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates, a small but powerful group of defectors has moved rightward in recent years.A gathering of tech’s conservative cohort enjoyed a visit from former President Trump on Thursday evening at a tony fundraiser held at venture capitalist David Sacks’ San Francisco home. The estate, nestled on Billionaires’ Row in Pacific Heights, welcomed about 80 elites to the sold-out event. Cost of admission: up to $300,000 per person...

RedState has written about former President Donald Trump's sudden fundraising success, which has taken off following his conviction in the Manhattan trial. On Thursday, an MSNBC panel speculated about it, talking in part about it happening in Silicon Valley. Former President Trump is kicking off a series of West Coast fundraising stops after his hush money trial.@VaughnHillyard, @dee_bosa and @BasilSmiklePhD discuss the Trump and Biden campaigns as the road to November heats up. pic.twitter.com/i3I18CnpYW— MSNBC Reports (@MSNBC_reports) June 6, 2024See Related: Silicon Valley Tech Mogul Responds to Trump Verdict With Whopping $300K Donation Trump Post-Conviction Fundraising Shattering RecordsThe panel pointed...

Donald Trump traveled to Silicon Valley Thursday night and raised a reported $12 million from tech executives, a notable foray into a long-time Democratic stronghold. The event, co-hosted by billionaire investor David O. Sacks and venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, capped a wave of new Trump inroads with wealthy donors from the worlds of tech, crypto and Wall Street. "The Blue Wall of Tech has been breached," posted Messari CEO Ryan Selkis after attending the event. Selkis, who co-founded his crypto market intelligence firm, was among those who reportedly paid between $50,000 and $500,000 for tickets to attend the event at...

This summer the Supreme Court will rule on a case involving what a district court called perhaps "the most massive attack against free speech" ever inflicted on the American people. In Murthy v. Missouri, plaintiffs ranging from the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana to epidemiologists from Harvard and Stanford allege that the federal government violated the First Amendment by working with outside groups and social media platforms to surveil, flag, and quash dissenting speech – characterizing it as mis-, dis- and mal-information – on issues ranging from COVID-19 to election integrity. The case has helped shine a light on...

When you think of Silicon Valley’s politics, what do you think? It’s usually left-wing. VERY left wing. The coasts are notoriously liberal, and Silicon Valley is one of the bluest places in the country.

Tech adviser Jacob Helberg, who has donated large sums to Democrats, has joined a wave of big money donors rejecting President Joe Biden and supporting former president Donald Trump in 2024. Helberg has donated $1 million to Trump’s re-election effort, making the tech adviser one of the largest financial backers of Trump’s bid to win back the White House in November. Just four years ago, Helberg was using his money and influence to support Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s doomed campaign for president, according to The Washington Post. Helberg is one of a cadre of high-powered Silicon Valley businessmen who have...

<p>To fully grasp the current situation in San Francisco, where venture capitalists are trying to take control of City Hall, you must listen to Balaji Srinivasan. Before you do, steel yourself for what’s to come: A normal person could easily mistake his rambling train wrecks of thought for a crackpot’s ravings, but influential Silicon Valley billionaires regard him as a genius.</p>

Free speech is on trial at the Supreme Court, but Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson is no fan of the First Amendment. The Constitution, you see, limits the government. But leftists want unlimited government — which is why they hate the Constitution. During Monday’s oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri, formerly known as Biden v. Missouri, Jackson claimed to oppose any ruling in favor of Americans’ constitutional right to free speech if it limited the government’s ability to censor that speech via Big Tech. “My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways...

San Francisco tech tycoons are pour ingmoney into the election campaigns of moderate lawmakers in a bid to make the city safer and more hospitable. The Silicon Valley investors, executives and CEOs are trying to use their influence and money to sway public opinion by hosting fundraisers for local candidates and funding city ballot initiatives. They successfully worked to oust San Francisco’s district attorney Chesa Boudin and three school board members back in 2022.

New York Community Bank on Wednesday promoted its chairman to help stabilize the company’s operations. Late Tuesday Moody’s Investors Service downgraded NYCB’s credit ratings two notches to junk. The regional bank has been in free fall, shedding more than 50% of its market value across a punishing series of trading sessions, since reporting a surprise fourth-quarter loss last week. ... New York Community Bank on Wednesday promoted its chairman to help stabilize the company’s operations, hours after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the bank’s credit ratings two notches to junk. Shares gained nearly 7% Wednesday after initially falling as much as...

SNIP According to its website, Gem’s software allows recruiters to track “gender and race/ethnicity throughout the entire hiring funnel.” Essentially, it appears to include a comprehensive race and gender tracking system designed to help companies fill race- and gender-based quotas with precision. For example, in a 2021 diversity webinar posted on YouTube, a Gem employee seemed to explain how the software could show how many candidates a company would need to reach out to if it had three engineering positions open, but didn’t want to hire men for them (in her words: “wanted to give women a chance”). In the...

Rising interest rates, the remote work trend, and the dominance of e-commerce sellers have combined to hammer the commercial real estate market over the past few years. Sky-high office and retail space vacancies are plaguing owners in this new environment, rents are plummeting, and borrowing costs have soared. As a result, U.S. commercial real estate prices have fallen 11% since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in March 2022, the IMF reported last week, the worst decline in over 50 years. The outlook for the sector is now so bleak that Cantor Fitzgerald’s billionaire chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick...