# The Tech Bros/Project 2025 influence in Trump's administration **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [November 12, 2024, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tech-bros-project-2025-influence-in-trumps-administration/1010133 "2024-11-12T07:41:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 2
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2024, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tech-bros-project-2025-influence-in-trumps-administration/1010133/2 "2024-11-12T11:33:37Z")
> [@aurora\_maire](#): > > But who are the Project 2025 guys who are right now groveling to be part of the administration? I’m not familiar with the ones who are going to be publicly pushing that agenda (not under that name, of course) Project 2025 is a product of the formerly über-conservative and now far-right [Heritage Foundation](https://www.them.us/story/heritage-foundation-republican-party-reagan-trump-project-2025): > ## _Who funded and wrote Project 2025?_ > > _The project is [being led and funded](https://www.project2025.org/about/about-project-2025/) by the [Heritage Foundation](https://www.heritage.org/about-heritage/mission), a conservative public policy think tank founded in 1973. In addition to Heritage, there are more than 100 conservative organizations on Project 2025’s [advisory board](https://www.project2025.org/about/advisory-board/). Among those “[coalition partners](https://www.heritage.org/press/project-2025-reaches-100-coalition-partners-continues-grow-preparation-next-president)” are the Center for Immigration Studies, Moms for Liberty, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Tea Party Patriots, Turning Point USA and America First Legal Foundation, which is headed by [Stephen Miller](https://aflegal.org/about/), a former Trump senior adviser._ This shit is pretty hard to take, so I’m going to offer a comedic summary that at least gives you a few laughs in-between the gut-wrenching realization that this is a full on fascist movement which desires a totalitarian theocracy by hijacking the instruments of government and tearing down all of the protections and guardrails: > [@aurora\_maire](#): > > And I wonder how these two groups get along? I look for the Tech Bros to be more focused on money and the P2025 guys to be more focused on culture. Could it be a situation where Trump pits them against each other, which he loves to do? Or do their goals mesh enough to work in tandem? Peter Thiel is really the leader behind the “Tech Bro” movement of Silicon Valley magnates boosting Trump (and incidentally, [the man to whom J.D. Vance owes everything he has](https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/07/16/jd-vance-and-peter-thiel-what-to-know-about-the-relationship-between-trumps-vp-pick-and-the-billionaire/)). He founded PayPal with software entrepreneurs Maksymilian ‘Max’ Rafailovych Levchyn and Łukasz ‘Luke’ Nosek in 1998, and merged with Elon Musk’s first company, online (sort of) bank [X.com](http://X.com) in 1999. Thiel was actually responsible for pushing Musk out of PayPal for his mercurial behavior and shitty decisions, but later was one of the ‘angel investors’ in SpaceX, and has maintained something of a love/hate/brahs-in-arms relationship with Elon Musk every since. Although Thiel is an openly gay man he has embraced anti-LGBTQ positions: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/gYwqpx6lp_s/maxresdefault.jpg "Trump’s Second Term: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwqpx6lp_s&t=5m43s) > [_In a very telling moment, Thiel referred to the devastating legislation that North Carolina and Mississippi passed prohibiting transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice as a “distraction.” Thiel also endorsed a political platform and party that includes the vice-presidential nominee who has voted aganst hate-crime laws, opposed HIV funding, and supported a law allowing businesses to deny services to people who identify as gay._](https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/10/14/peter-thiel-shows-us-theres-difference-between-gay-sex-and-gay) Thiel not only owns J.D. Vance like a pair of well-loved boots but has deep fiscal ties into both much of Silicon Valley via his venture capital fund imaginatively titled [Founders Fund](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founders_Fund) and backed [_Bollea v Gawker_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker), the lawsuit in which WWE wrestling personality bankrupted muckracking media outlet _Gawker Media_. Thiel describes himself as a “conservative libertarian” which means exactly what you imagine that means, and co-authored the book _The Diversity Myth_ with conservative entrepreneur and COO of PayPal David O. Sacks which criticized political correctness, racial and gender studies, and multiculturalism in collegiate education (essentially, the genesis of the “Critical Race Theory” backlash). Thiel is an alumni of the [Intercollegate Studies Institute (ISI)](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/intercollegiate-studies-institute-isi-bias/) and had close ties with Richard Mellon Scaife (one of the [founding members of the Heritage Foundation](https://philanthropydaily.com/richard-mellon-scaife-a-legacy-both-generous-and-mysterious/) and described by the _Washington Post_ as a “funding father of the Right” ) and the Scaife family which remains a substantial donor to Heritage and backer of Project 2025 as well as many other conservative and far-right organizations. So, I wouldn’t bet on pitting Thiel vs Heritage. While Thiel is the fairly private force behind the SiVal conservative movement, Elon Musk is the outward-facing spokesman, and while it has only been in the last few years that he publically moved into conspiranoia, condemnation of LGBTQ people, and [cut-rate would-be Bond villain](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--6rO43Stb--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/esqnyp8men1fmgpgvdq3.jpg) from a forgettable Brosnan-era movie. I’ve noted for at least a decade that Musk is and has always been [lying, manipulative asshole with narcissistic and bigoted tendencies](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-elon-musk/994365/4) who [SLAPP-sues anyone who criticizes him](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/elon-musk-media-matters-supreme-court.html), [takes credit for the work of others as evidence of his personal genius](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hate-for-elon-musk/961053/6), but [he’s recently gone full on fascist lickspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-teslas-recent-complications-stem-from-elon-musks-toxicity/983290/45), first to Ron DeSantis and then all-in on Trump to whom he wants to be a [Frederich Flick analogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk-learns-art-of-political-ratfucking-funding-ads-that-impersonate-the-harris-campaign/1008982/3) in Trump’s American Reich. Musk is also pretty hard to take once you get into the ugly details so here is another _Last Week Tonight_ video which at least brings some levity to the topic: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Eo3zORUGCbM/maxresdefault.jpg "Elon Musk: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo3zORUGCbM) I don’t know if this answered your question, or whether you are sufficiently horrified to realize that the American public has in its voting majority bought into these hucksters, schemers, theocrats, and underminers of democracy in favor of a far-right dictatorship, but there you go. Stranger --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tech-bros-project-2025-influence-in-trumps-administration/1010133)._