Dozens of Silicon Valley Sycophants Now Work at Regulatory Agencies

Silicon Valley’s wealthiest and most galaxy-brained executives and venture capitalists went all-in on Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential election, and their investment is starting to pay off. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than three dozen people who have either worked under or are associates of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Palmer Luckey have been placed in roles at federal agencies that oversee the businesses of their Silicon Valley bosses.

Per WSJ, at least 18 federal agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Labor, Treasury Department, and Department of Defense, all employ at least one person with ties to one of Trump’s four favorite tech bros. Musk’s network is the most robust, with connections now occupying more than a dozen agencies. But all of the execs are positioned to benefit, as they have managed to place their own people—current and former employees, lawyers, investors, and financial advisors—in positions that oversee, regulate, and award government contracts to their companies.

The WSJ found that companies founded, owned, or invested in by Musk, Thiel, Andreessen, and Luckey have already snagged about $6 billion worth of federal contracts just since Donald Trump took office. And while some of the bidding process started before Trump’s second term began, those companies are currently pitching themselves for many more contracts worth billions of dollars and will likely find themselves with a leg up in the procurement process.

There have been some high-profile wins for these companies in that time. Palmer’s Anduril Technologies took over a government contract originally awarded to Microsoft to build mixed-reality goggles for the Army, which could ultimately pay out $22 billion. Musk’s SpaceX scored $5.9 billion to launch Space Force missions. Thiel’s Palantir got tapped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to build software for deportation processing.

That’s a solid payout for the billionaires, who have poured their own money into Trump’s campaigns. Musk spent $290 million on the project of getting Trump back to the White House, while Andreessen gave at least $2.5 million, and Luckey gave at least $400,000. Thiel, unlike these more recently Trump-curious opportunistic ghouls, has been a long-time Trump backer and gave around $1.5 million to Trump-related groups going back to the 2016 election.

All of this is on top of the cuts that Musk has managed to make at all of these agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency, which will likely reduce the resistance these companies will see in regulatory pushback. It’s hard to say some of those cuts didn’t seem at least in part targeted. USAID, which Musk tried to close the doors on entirely, was reportedly investigating Starlink contracts at the time it got axed. Employees at the Food and Drug Administration tasked with overseeing reviews and applications related to Musk’s Neuralink were fired. Staffers at the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration who were researching the safety of self-driving technology like Tesla’s FSD were forced out, too.

Trump has always claimed his goal was to drain the swamp. Instead, it seems he’s just handed control of the swamp over to tech titans, who are happily swimming in it.