'Brazenness': Report claims super-rich have shrugged off fears that used to constrain them

The super-wealthy have always held sway over U.S. politics, but they haven't always been quite as brazen as Donald Trump's billionaire backers, according to a new report. Tesla CEO Elon Musk poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump's campaign and now serves as one of his closest advisers, while venture capitalist Marc Andreessen will help the tech mogul and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy recommend federal spending cuts for the Department of Government Efficiency after dumping millions of his own money into the race, reported The Atlantic. But that public reticence seems almost quaint after watching Musk leaping around on Trump's rally stages or publicly stumping for him on the X platform he bought to manipulate political coverage to his preference, and experts say part of that shift in vibes is based on the culture of Silicon Valley. “You’re supposed to be a disruptor or heterodox thinker.” Tech leaders had long positioned themselves as above politics, but technologies like cryptocurrency have become politicized – and the ultrarich have become richer than ever, according to Rob Larson, an economics professor who has written about the new ultrarich and Silicon Valley’s influence on politics. "The last time elites were this vocal in their influence, Larson said, was during the Gilded Age, when multimillionaires such as William Randolph Hearst and Jay Gould worked to shape American politics."