The photo of Silicon Valley centi-billionaires at Donald Trump’s inauguration – Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, front row and side by side – now looks like a hitlist for a blue Congress hellbent on making life difficult for billionaires. The picture symbolized at the time the bending of the knee by the richest men in the world to its most powerful, a symbiosis of the ultra-rich. Already unfathomably wealthy, Silicon Valley tycoons believed a Maga-sized public shift to the right would enrich them even more.
For several years, while Trump seemed an everlasting kingmaker and AI’s expansion seemed unstoppable, their fortunes ballooned to values beyond comprehension. Elon Musk’s surpassed $1tn. In the harsh blue light of Tuesday’s midterms, though, going all-in on Maga seems an unwisely unhedged bet.
Democrats took decisive control of the US Congress, flipping seats right and left that in previous years seemed like given wins for Republicans. Governors’ mansions across the country likewise lit up blue as Democrats ascended even in the reddest of states, such as Texas. Voters concerned about corruption expressed their displeasure at oligarchs’ blatant attempts to create a political environment to their liking.
Voting against technocrats drove people into the hands of Democrats and away from Republicans. Tech oligarchs themselves, along with anger over the AI boom, datacenters and Flock surveillance cameras, shifted the tides. Democrats must hold them accountable instead of cashing their checks,” wrote Texas Democratic representative Greg Casar.
Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff, who won re-election to the Senate, summed up the prevailing attitude towards the tech industry in his victory speech. He pledged to bring “big tech to heel”. Others were more bellicose.
Ed Markey, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, tweeted late on Tuesday: “They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing.” Democrats have both promised congressional investigations into tech companies and moratoriums on datacenters, which may hamstring compute-hungry AI companies. In the past year, the major AI firms have been competing in a fierce race to buy or build massive, noisy, resource-intensive facilities full of semiconductor chips that will supply their growing needs for computing power. Democrats stand firmly in the way of that arms race.
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