Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, became the biggest name yet to throw his weight behind the former president this month, endorsing him and getting involved in fundraising efforts.

The move capped weeks of mounting support from the tech world, as influential venture capitalists and tech leaders, including former Democratic donor Allison Huynh, investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and the Winklevoss twins, players in the world of crypto, rallied publicly around Trump.

Support for Trump is hardly universal.

But it marks a sharp turn from just a few years ago, when companies rushed to distance themselves from Trump in the weeks after the 2021 US Capitol riot.

Coming from Silicon Valley, where backing a ban on gay marriage – a Republican cause – once cost an executive his job, the change is especially striking.

At a cryptocurrency event at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Nicholas Longo, 27, of wealth management firm Fortuna Investors, said when he voted for Trump four years ago he felt there was stigma attached.

“In 2020, it would have been inadvisable for me to express support for Donald Trump,” he said. Now, all that has changed.

The shift in the political winds has long been evident on social media, where Mr Musk and investor David Sacks are among those to regularly scorn President Joe Biden.

But their decision to open their wallets to the Trump campaign is poised to significantly expand their influence beyond their traditional circle – with major consequences for the election.

The support from tech leaders has helped Trump close the fundraising gap that he faced against Mr Biden a few months ago.

“He was pretty far behind and struggling at the end of April,” said Sarah Bryner, research director at OpenSecrets. “In the last eight weeks, it’s a completely different campaign.”

She said the pledges sent a strong signal on how the tide is turning, noting that signs of victory at the polls often help push potential donors off the fence.

“Success begets success,” she said.

Data from OpenSecrets shows Democrats claiming the larger share of venture capitalist donations in recent elections – and Mr Biden’s decision to bow out of the race is expected to ignite further interest.

However, Trump’s new friends remain committed.

According to the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, Mr Musk pledged $45m a month to the Trump campaign – which would make him one of the biggest donors this year.

The billionaire has acknowledged his work on fundraising efforts tied to the campaign, but denied the sum, saying his contributions will be at a “much lower level”.

“I believe in an America that maximizes individual freedom and merit. That used to be the Democratic Party, but now the pendulum has swung to the Republican Party,” Mr Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns that was formerly known as Twitter, after Mr Biden dropped out.

Analysts said the backing from key figures in the tech worldsuggested that Trump was widening his appeal.

“He’s convinced Republicans he’s not as bad as they say… and now we’re seeing that’s broadening out,” said Sal Russo, a veteran Republican consultant based in California.

“Do I think he’s going to win Santa Clara County? No, but he’s going to do better,” said Mr Russo.

In Trump’s corner: Elon Musk

Tech leaders have said they areconcerned about the Biden administration’s crackdown on crypto, and cautious approach to artificial intelligence. For example, a recent executive order requires firms to comply with government AI safety standards.

“Bad government policies are now the #1 threat to Little Tech,” Mr Andreessen and Mr Horowitz, whose firm invests in start-ups and is a big player in crypto and AI, wrote in a recent essay. “The time has come to stand up.”

Mr Musk’s decision to back Trump might appear a startling shift for a man who had historically shunned political donations.

He reportedly once waited in line for six hours to shake Barack Obama’s hand, and as recently as 2018 described himself as politically moderate.

In 2017, he was among the first members to quit a White House business council, parting ways with Trump over climate change policies.

His company, Tesla, makes electric cars, which Trump has repeatedly criticised as expensive and impractical.

However, Mr Musk has long bristled at oversight by financial regulators.

His criticism of Mr Biden ramped up two years ago, after he did not get an invite to a White House business meeting, a snub that led him to tell CNBC he felt unfairly “ignored”.

On social media, he has increasingly waded into other debates over Covid lockdowns, the war in Ukraine, China policy and transgender issues.

Mr Musk, whose SpaceX rocket firm does billions of dollars of government business, has a relationship with a possible Trump administration to consider as well.

Self-interest in Silicon Valley

Democrats said the shift in the tech world has been motivated by self-interest, noting that Mr Biden has proposed new taxes on multi-millionaires and unrealised capital gains.

He has also alienated some with his embrace of organised labour, and his administration’s pursuit of tech companies in anti-monopoly and other cases.

Businessman Mark Cuban, who supports Democrats, suggested that the gravitation towards Trump was a “bitcoin play” – a bet that cryptocurrency value could be boosted by high inflation and political chaos that Democrats say would result under a Trump administration.

Swing to the right

Stanford Business School professor Neil Malhotra, who has studied the political views of tech founders, said it would be a mistake to conflate the “most vocal people on Twitter” with the industry overall – or even its elites, whose views historically have straddled both parties.

A 2017 survey he and colleagues conducted found that as a group, tech leaders were aligned with Democrats on issues such as gay marriage and abortion – even taxes. However, they swung Republican in strongly opposing regulation.

He noted that since the survey, new social issues such as policing, schooling and transgender rights have come to the fore. San Francisco has been a key battleground in those debates, driving some of the tech world backlash.

“The suspicion is that most people in venture capital are still centre-left,” Prof Malhotra said. But, he added: “There’s definitely a movement to the Republican Party.”

Trump’s shift on tech

Evan Swarztrauber, an adviser to the Foundation for American Innovation thinktank, said tech leaders were betting Trump would be more hands-off on crypto and AI.

But the gamble is not without risk.

As president, Trump won praise from the business community by cutting taxes, putting anti-labour officials in charge of labour rights and generally veering away from regulation.

But he also took a markedly more interventionist approach to the economy – and to tech – than previous administrations – starting a trade war with China, ordering a TikTok ban, and launching some of the ongoing anti-monopoly lawsuits against tech companies.

Since then, he has pushed the Republican party further in that direction – while at the same time moderating or reversing himself on issues such as the TikTok ban and crypto.

Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow in tech policy for the libertarian Cato Institute, said Trump may be shifting his stance on some tech issues, noting that he is now the owner of a social media platform.

JD Vance, Trump’s choice for vice-president, also previously worked in venture capital and got key support from PayPal’s Peter Thiel during his 2022 senate campaign.

But she warned that the effort to distinguish between the interests of “big” tech and “little” tech would prove difficult when it comes time to govern.

David Broockman, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said Trump was finding success in the business world by presenting himself as more moderate than other members of his party on social issues such as abortion.

After boasting of being “proudly the person responsible” for removing Roe v Wade protections, Trump has rejected claims he will back a national ban pushed by many conservatives, and says the matter should be left up to the states.

But Prof Broockman noted that Trump also ran a relatively moderate campaign in 2016, only to adopt more extreme policies once in office.

Those hurt his public approval and eventually frayed Republican ties to Wall Street, a traditional source of support for the party.

“Tech and other business leaders are banking on a lot of Trump’s more eccentric policy ideas … just not happening,” Prof Broockman said. “But they really could happen.”

Outside of tech, Trump has backed radical changes including mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, a dramatic reduction in the government workforce and a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the country.

But Garrett Johnson, co-founder of the Foundation for American Innovation and now an executive at a venture-backed tech firm, said he thought that as time had passed more tech and business elites have come around to Trump’s views.

“Trump singlehandedly made the threat that China poses to our country a national topic,” he said. “He was right and everyone else had to come along.”

“So absolutely I think that is part of the dynamic, of the vibe shift,” he said. “Was he right on everything? No, but on many big issues Trump was right.”

Reporting contributed by Jude Sheerin at the Republican National Convention

The post Why tech bros are turning to Trump appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Californians almost voted on two statewide tax hikes this month. A measure to fund pandemic detection by raising affluent residents’ income taxes had the signatures to qualify for a spot on the ballot but instead got kicked to 2024. That was after Gov. Gavin Newsom conveyed his resistance (the governor strenuously opposed the other proposal, Proposition 30, which made it to the ballot and then failed). That theoretically set things up for the next cycle. The campaign had already sunk $19 million into the mission.

But a principal funder detonated after writing checks to qualify the measure. The woes besetting Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire directly affect the likelihood Californians will get a viral early warning system. Alameda Research,the trading firm linked to the now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, spent $12 million to get that measure on the ballot with Sam’s brother Gabriel serving as treasurer. It was part of Bankman-Fried’s larger political project of lobbying and funding politicians who backed his pandemic prevention agenda.

That funding stream may evaporate, along with money people invested with FTX. Bankman-Fried and his companies are now facing enormous scrutiny. The Senate is set to hold a hearing on the matter Thursday, with the House expected to follow next month. FTX faces mounting regulatory and law enforcement investigations amid allegations that it misused customer funds.

Back in California, initiative proponents say they weren’t relying on FTX financing. Tech-philanthropist power couple Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz had nearly matched Alameda Research with about $10 million in contributions to date. Initiative proponent Max Henderson told us he was confident there’s plenty of money available, with other funders prepared to step in.

But resources aren’t the same thing as political viability. Henderson said the scandal engulfing FTX may extend beyond the company to the campaign: “If the brand is substantially tarnished, then just having FTX as a funder may be damaging to us.” He argued that proponents have a finite window, with Covid-19 still pervasive and memories of it still potent, to erect a system that can prevent or minimize the next pandemic.

Backers are still communicating with Newsom’s office. Henderson said they aren’t married to the ballot initiative route. But with a projected $25 billion deficit threatening to end California’s era of fiscal abundance, a major new budget outlay could be a hard sell. What does that mean for 2024? The answer is unknown at this point.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Crypto and the next pandemic appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Anna Werner | Contributed

A Tennessee woman said she lost $390,000 belonging to herself and her father after she fell for an online crypto dating scam. After losing her mom, 24-year-old Nicole Hutchinson inherited her mother’s house which she sold and split the proceeds with her father. The $280,000 she inherited was supposed to go toward helping her family and building a life in California.

As a way to make new friends before moving to California, Hutchinson began to use the online dating website “Hinge.” She said she met a man who called himself “Hao” and they became friends. She told CBS News’ Consumer Investigative Correspondent Anna Werner that she felt a strong connection with him when he told her he came from the same town in China from where Hutchinson was adopted.

He was into investing and cryptocurrency and suggested she too could invest.

“I’m like, ‘I’ve never invested in my life.’ I don’t know anything about cryptocurrency either. So I was very skeptical,” she said. Hutchinson said that Hao reassured her that this was an area he knew well.

Hutchinson said Hao told her to create an account on a legitimate site, Crypto.com. Then she said he sent her a link and told her to transfer money to the new link, to what he said was a cryptocurrency exchange platform.

She started small but said she soon started investing larger amounts.

“He just kept saying things of, like, ‘Look at this money that can help support your family.’ Obviously that’s what I wanted to do,” she said.

When her account began showing profits, she suggested to her father that he invest too and so he did.

By December, their accounts showed a combined balance of $1.2 million, and Hutchinson decided it was time to cash out. That’s when the site told her before she could withdraw her money, she would have to pay a hefty “tax bill” of roughly $380,000.

She discovered that the cryptocurrency investments weren’t real. All her and her father’s funds had gone into the scammer’s pockets.

“I messed up my life. I messed up my dad’s life,” Hutchinson said.

When she tearfully told her father about the scam, he comforted her.

“All I could do was just hug her and tell her ‘It’s okay. It’s okay.’ And it was hard. It was hard. It was, we lost everything,” Melvin Hutchinson said.

They’re not alone: a new report found that just in 2021, cryptocurrency scam victims lost more than $7.7 billion.

Rich Sanders investigates cryptocurrency scams as co-founder of the company Cipherblade. When he looked at Hutchinson’s transactions, he described it as a “pig-butchering scam.”

“The name really comes from the fattening up before the slaughter,” Sanders said.

In Hutchinson’s case, he found her money started in those legitimate cryptocurrency accounts but the links the crooks told her to transfer the money to were digital wallets belonging to the scammers.

Cipherblade’s review found additional fake accounts the company says appear to be linked to the same scammers. The company told CBS News that the scammers may have stolen more than $20 million.

Sanders said that the money likely went to an organized ring of scammers operating out of Asia who prey on inexperienced victims.

“I think he really played off that I was naive and not knowing anything about crypto, and taking that and running with it,” Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson and her father are now living in his RV and hope their story can help someone else avoid the scam.

“I just hope others don’t have to fall for it. So, if me sharing this story helps that, then I’m so grateful for that opportunity,” she said.

Crypto.com warns consumers to take steps to be sure any accounts they’re moving money into are legitimate.

The company says it takes a proactive approach to threats and immediately takes down any wallets linked to a scam. The dating app Hinge told us it takes fraud “very seriously” and has trained content moderators who look for evidence of fraud.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Woman loses $390,000 in online crypto dating scam: “I messed up my life” appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.