What do tech giants and billionaires think of Trump and Harris?

– “Progressives are behind Harris and conservatives are behind Trump,” says Jones

– Technology giants Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft have supported Harris with at least $1 million in campaign contributions through their employees and families.

– Donations to Harris from Meta and Apple employees and their families far exceed those for Trump

HOUSTON, USA

US technology giants and billionaires are drawing clear lines when it comes to supporting either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election.

National giving data shows that employees of Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google's parent company, are donating millions to Vice President Harris, while Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings gave $7 million to her campaign.

Conversely, tech billionaires like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and billionaire investors Bill Ackman and David Sacks are supporting Trump with millions. Woody Johnson, co-owner of the NFL football team New York Jets, donated one million dollars to Trump's cause.

According to Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University in Houston, the motivation for these major donors is based on one important factor.

“We see this divide because these billionaires donate primarily based on their personal and ideological preferences and not to advance their business interests,” Jones told Anadolu.

“Given that some of them are more progressive and some are more conservative, you see a difference in who they support: the progressives are behind Harris and the conservatives are behind Trump.”

Arguably the most prominent billionaire to plunge headlong into the political arena in the 2024 elections is Musk, who has positioned himself as an ardent Trump supporter.

“Musk is actively involved in politics for political reasons. He does not donate to advance his business interests,” Jones said.

Jones pointed out that Musk, who owns former social media giant X, has a mass communications platform that allows him to share his political views with his 198 million followers with the click of a mouse.

“Unlike other leaders (such as tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Meta/Facebook) who grew their businesses and became politically active just because they were rich, Musk bought Twitter primarily to have that platform,” the professor said.

He said Musk “intentionally bought Twitter with the goal of advancing his political agenda or being more politically active.”

“Elon Musk is a very savvy businessman and I don't think he bought Twitter to make a profit. It was more of an opportunity for him to become a more important player on the national stage,” Jones said.

Such a mass platform changes the dynamic from Musk being a billionaire political donor behind the scenes to a tech billionaire who can share his political ideology with millions, Jones explained.

“He wants to give himself a platform to play a more active role in politics and the political world, both indirectly, by determining what content is and is not acceptable on X, and who can and cannot have accounts, and directly through his own online participation, which always has a huge impact given his follower count and reach,” he said.

Billionaires on the political battlefield

However, Musk's influence on social media does not necessarily translate into direct support for his political agenda, as can be seen in his own companies: Tesla, SpaceX, and X.

According to the nonpartisan nonprofit group OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign donations in the US, Tesla employees donated almost twice as much to Harris' campaign ($42,824) as to Trump ($24,840).

At SpaceX, employees have donated nearly five times as much to Harris ($34,526) as to Trump ($7,652), and at SpaceX, donations to the Harris campaign ($13,213) are more than 26 times the less than $500 donated to the Trump campaign.

Campaign finance laws prohibit companies themselves from donating to federal election campaigns. And while the political contributions from Musk's three companies to fundraise for the campaign are relatively small, they serve as a spot check that Musk's own employees don't agree with their boss.

Some political experts argue that Musk's support for Trump has actually backfired, especially given the billionaire's anti-worker and anti-union stance.

“Every time Elon Musk tries to help Donald Trump, I think he's inciting the Democratic base to work against him,” Democratic strategist Pete Giangreco told NBC News.

Musk is not the only prominent billionaire and donor on the political battlefield.

On the Democratic side, Mark Cuban, a billionaire investor, is actively supporting Harris. He told global online publication Semafor that he speaks with Harris' campaign team “three to four times” a week about budget policy.

Cuban said he praised Harris for her position on raising the capital gains tax to 28 percent for investors with income of $1 million or more, up from the current 23.6 percent but significantly less than the 44.6 percent rate proposed by President Joe Biden in July.

“She's spoken more than anyone about entrepreneurs and how to get access to investment and make it easier for people to invest in startups,” Cuban told CNBC. That may be a big reason why a group of more than 100 venture capitalists, led by the largest investor, Cuban Harris, pledged their support.

“We are pro-business, pro-American dream, pro-entrepreneurship and pro-technological progress,” the group said in a statement. “We also believe in democracy as the backbone of our nation.”

Donations for political influence

Three of the largest technology companies – Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft – have supported Harris with campaign contributions of at least $1 million through their employees and families.

According to OpenSecrets, Alphabet employees and their families donated $2.16 million to the Harris campaign, nearly 40 times what they donated to the Trump campaign.

Amazon employees and their families donated ten times as much to Harris ($1 million) as to Trump ($116,000). Microsoft employees and their families donated more than twelve times as much to Harris ($1.1 million) as to Trump ($88,000).

The other two tech giants – Meta, which owns Facebook, and Apple – have not yet reached the million-dollar mark for donations to Harris through their employees and families, but their donations to the vice president far exceed those to Trump.

Meta employees and their families donated $835,000 to Harris, more than 33 times the amount they donated to Trump ($25,000).

Apple employees and their family members donated a total of $861,000 to the Harris campaign, nearly 20 times more than their donations to the Trump campaign ($44,000).

When it comes to expanding political influence, money matters. And that's a big reason why tech companies and billionaires are jumping into the fray in the 2024 presidential election.

“Most people wouldn't recognize them in line, but their money gives them influence that dwarfs the influence of virtually any other citizen by a million times,” Jones said.

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