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

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Late in the evening, Vermont Sen. Peter Welch called on Biden to withdraw from the election, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so. Welch said he is worried because “the stakes could not be higher.”

The sudden flurry of grave pronouncements despite Biden’s determined insistence he is not leaving the 2024 race put on public display just how unsettled the question remains among prominent Democrats. On Capitol Hill, an eighth House Democrat, Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, and later a ninth, Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, publicly asked Biden to step aside.

“I want him to do whatever he decides to do,” Pelosi said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” rather than declaring Biden should stay in. While Biden has said repeatedly that he’s made his decision, she said, “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short.”

It’s a crucial moment for the president and his party, as Democrats consider what was once unthinkable — having the incumbent Biden step aside, just weeks before the Democratic National Convention that is on track to nominate him as their candidate for reelection.

Biden is hosting world leaders in Washington for the NATO summit this week with a crowded schedule of formal meetings, sideline chats and long diplomatic dinners, all opportunities to showcase he is up for the job despite a worrisome performance last month in the first presidential debate with Trump.

His party at a crossroads, Biden faces the next tests Thursday — in public, at a scheduled news conference that many Democrats will be watching for signs of his abilities, and privately, as his top advisers meet with the Senate Democratic caucus to discuss their concerns and shore up support.

Welch said in a Washington Post opinion piece published Wednesday evening, “We cannot unsee President Biden’s disastrous debate performance.”

The first-term senator said Vermonters love Biden and he was calling on the president to withdraw from the race “with sadness.”

To be sure, Biden maintains strong support from key corners of his coalition, particularly some in the Congressional Black Caucus on Capitol Hill, whose leadership was instrumental in ushering the president to victory in 2020 and is standing by him as the country’s best choice to defeat Trump again in 2024.

“At this moment, the stakes are too high and we have to focus,” Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota told The Associated Press earlier in the week, saying Democrats are “losing ground” the longer they fight over Biden’s candidacy. “Democracy is on the line. Everything we value as Democrats, as a country, is on the line, and we have to stop being distracted.”

Pelosi has been widely watched for signals of how top Democrats are thinking about Biden’s wounded candidacy, her comments viewed as important for the party’s direction as members weigh possible alternatives in the campaign against Trump.

Because of her powerful position as the former House speaker and proximity to Biden as a trusted longtime ally of his generation, Pelosi is seen as one of the few Democratic leaders who could influence the president’s thinking.

The lack of a full statement from Pelosi backing Biden’s continued campaign is what lawmakers are likely to hear most clearly, even as she told ABC later she believes he can win. Her remarks came as actor Clooney, who had just hosted a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser for the president last month, said in a New York Times op-ed that the Biden he saw three weeks ago wasn’t the Joe Biden of 2020. “He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

Democrats have been reeling over whether to continue backing Biden after his poor showing in the June 27 debate and his campaign’s lackluster response to their pleas that Biden, at 81, show voters he is ready for another four-year term.

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, spoke forcefully late Tuesday about the danger of a second Trump presidency and said it’s for the president “to consider” the options.

Stopping just short of calling for Biden to drop out, Bennet said on CNN what he told his colleagues in private – that he believes Trump “is on track to win this election — and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House.”

Bennet said, “It’s not a question about politics. It’s a moral question about the future of our country.”

By Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said he was “deeply concerned” about Biden winning the election, which he called existential for the country.

“We have to reach a conclusion as soon as possible,” Blumenthal said on CNN.

And Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia told reporters: “I have complete confidence that Joe Biden will do the patriotic thing for the country. And he’s going to make that decision.”Biden and his campaign are working more intently now to shore up support, and the president met with labor leaders Wednesday, relying on the unions to help make the case that his record in office matters more than his age.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer invited Biden’s campaign to address senators’ concerns, and redoubled his backing of the president. “As I have made clear repeatedly publicly and privately, I support President Biden and remain committed to ensuring Donald Trump is defeated in November,” he said.The president’s team is sending senior Biden advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, and Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon to meet with Democratic senators privately Thursday for a caucus lunch, according to both a Senate leadership aide and the Biden campaign.There were some concerns, however, that it could backfire. One Democratic senator who requested anonymity to speak about the closed-door meeting said it could be a waste of time if Biden would not make the case to senators himself.Pelosi said Biden “has been a great president” who is beloved and respected by House Democrats. The Californian said she watched as he delivered a forceful speech at the NATO summit Tuesday, and she recounted his many accomplishments.While foreign leaders are in Washington this week and Biden is on the world stage hosting the event at a critical time in foreign affairs, Pelosi encouraged Democrats to “let’s just hold off” with any announcements about his campaign.“Whatever you’re thinking, either tell somebody privately but you don’t have to put that out on the table until we see,” she said, how it goes “this week.”

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