2024 9/27 为何硅谷精英会支持特朗普

Why Do People Like Elon Musk Love Donald Trump? It’s Not Just About Money.

CHRIS HUGHES

2024年9月27日

On a Friday morning in May, a day after Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in a scheme to influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records, I met a tech leader for breakfast in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. A lifelong Democrat, he had recently reinvented himself as an ardent Trump supporter. Unmoved by the conviction, he was on his way to a fund-raiser for the former president about a week later (starting ticket price: $50,000).

今年5月的一个周五上午，也就是特朗普因涉嫌伪造商业记录影响2016年大选，被判34项重罪成立后的第二天，我在曼哈顿熨斗区与一位科技行业领袖共进早餐。他一生都是民主党人，最近才改头换面成为特朗普的热心支持者。他对这一判决不为所动，大约一周后，他去了前总统的筹款活动（起价5万美元）。

I co-founded Facebook in college 20 years ago, but I left California and start-up culture behind long ago for public policy and economics. As we sat over scrambled eggs, chicken sausage and whole-wheat toast, I was struck by how many of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in Silicon Valley — including some I knew — were now loudly backing Mr. Trump.

20年前，我在大学期间与人共同创立了Facebook，但我很久以前就离开了加州和创业文化，转而投身公共政策和经济学。当我们坐在一起吃炒蛋、鸡肉香肠和全麦吐司时，我惊讶地发现硅谷有那么多最富有、最有权势的人物——包括一些我认识的人——现在都在大张旗鼓地支持特朗普。

The event my companion jetted off to raised $12 million in a single evening. Among the former president’s highest-profile backers in the Valley are the venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who endorsed Mr. Trump on their podcast, and Elon Musk, who founded one of the most well-funded super PACs supporting his campaign. Mr. Trump claims that Mark Zuckerberg called him to say that he wouldn’t support a Democrat in November, although Mr. Zuckerberg’s spokesperson denied the claim.

我的同伴乘飞机去参加的那个活动一晚上就筹集了1200万美元。这位前总统在硅谷最引人注目的支持者包括风险投资家马克·安德森和本·霍洛维茨，他们在自己的播客上支持特朗普，还有埃隆·马斯克，他成立了支持特朗普竞选活动的资金最雄厚的超级政治行动委员会之一。特朗普声称，马克·扎克伯格给他打电话说不会在11月支持民主党人，尽管扎克伯格的发言人否认了这一说法。

It would be easy to write off tech’s rightward drift as nothing more than the rich acting in their economic self-interest, but Silicon Valley has always been driven by profit, and it hasn’t tilted Republican since the 1980s. Even now, it remains largely Democratic, even though even some of Kamala Harris’s strongest Valley supporters worry about how she might approach tech policy.

我们很容易把科技行业的右倾归结为富人出于自身经济利益的行为，但硅谷一直是由利益驱动的，自上世纪80年代以来，它就没有向共和党倾斜过。即使是现在，它在很大程度上仍然是民主党的天下，虽然就连贺锦丽在硅谷一些最坚定的支持者也对她会如何处理科技政策感到担忧。

Mr. Trump appeals to some Silicon Valley elites because they identify with the man. To them, he is a fellow victim of the state, unjustly persecuted for his bold ideas. Practically, he is also the shield they need to escape accountability. Mr. Trump may threaten democratic norms and spread disinformation; he could even set off a recession, but he won’t challenge their ability to build the technology they like, no matter the social cost.

特朗普对一些硅谷精英有吸引力，因为他们认同这个人。对他们来说，他也是国家的受害者，因为大胆的想法而受到不公正的迫害。实际上，他也是他们逃避责任的挡箭牌。特朗普可能会威胁民主范式，传播虚假信息；他甚至可能引发经济衰退，但他不会挑战他们构建自己喜欢的技术的能力，不管这样的技术会带来多么大的社会成本。

These leaders are betting they can sway Mr. Trump to their ideas through public support and financial backing, and they might be right. Once a critic of cryptocurrency, he has shifted to opposing regulation after crypto executives donated to his campaign, and this month he and his sons unveiled a crypto business. Mr. Trump recently proposed a “government efficiency commission” — an idea Mr. Musk floated to him only weeks earlier. While Mr. Trump’s allies in Silicon Valley may be few, their support could grant them influence over how his potential second administration — and by extension, the Republican Party — shapes tech policy for years to come.

这些领导人赌的是他们可以通过公众支持和财政支持让特朗普接受他们的想法，他们可能是对的。特朗普曾是加密货币的批评者，但在加密货币高管向他的竞选活动捐款后，他转向反对监管，本月，他和他的儿子推出了一个加密货币企业。特朗普最近提议成立一个“政府效率委员会”——这是马斯克几周前向他提出的想法。虽然特朗普在硅谷的盟友可能很少，但他们的支持可能会让他们对特朗普可能的第二届政府——乃至共和党——在未来几年如何制定科技政策产生影响。

As much as they want to influence Mr. Trump’s policies, they also want to strike back at the Biden-Harris administration, which they believe has unfairly targeted their industry.

他们不仅想影响特朗普的政策，还想反击拜登—贺锦丽政府，他们认为后者不公平地针对了自己的行业。

More than any other administration in the internet era, President Biden and Ms. Harris have pushed tech companies toward serving the public interest. Key to their approach is the support of start-ups to counterbalance the dominance of tech giants, whose combined market value eclipses the G.D.P. of many countries. Brian Deese, the former director of Mr. Biden’s National Economic Council, has made clear that “big” companies are not inherently bad. But when they wield their market power, they can unfairly increase prices, narrow consumer choice, lower wages and impede the innovation that comes from fruitful competition.

在推动科技公司为公众利益服务方面，拜登总统和贺锦丽比互联网时代的任何一届政府做得都要多。他们的做法的关键是支持初创企业，以抗衡科技巨头的主导地位。这些科技巨头的总市值超过了许多国家的GDP。拜登的国家经济委员会前主任布莱恩·迪斯明确表示，“大”公司并非天生就不好。但是，当他们行使市场权力时，他们可以不公平地提高价格，缩小消费者的选择范围，降低工资，并阻碍通过卓有成效的竞争而产生的创新。

Over the past three years, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice have taken on some of the largest tech companies — Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple — arguing that they’ve stifled competition and harmed consumers. They’ve already made progress, including a major antitrust ruling against Google that could create momentum for other cases.

过去三年，美国联邦贸易委员会和司法部起诉了一些最大的科技公司——Facebook、谷歌、亚马逊和苹果——称它们扼杀竞争，伤害消费者。他们已经取得了一些进展，包括一项针对谷歌的重大反垄断裁决，这可能会为其他案件创造动力。

It’s not just antitrust. Mr. Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission, led by Gary Gensler, another target of the tech elite backlash, has aggressively reined in cryptocurrencies, the mistakenly named category of products that offers little practical value to most Americans. The Biden-Harris administration also issued a landmark executive order last year that created a framework to ensure that A.I. technologies are safe and fair.

不仅仅是反垄断。拜登的证券交易委员会由加里·詹斯勒领导，他是科技精英反对的另一个目标，该委员会对加密货币实行积极控制，这种错误命名的类别对大多数美国人来说几乎没有实用价值。拜登—贺锦丽政府去年还发布了一项具有里程碑意义的行政命令，创建了一个框架，以确保人工智能技术的安全和公平。

Most Americans see these actions as overdue. They blame tech companies for contributing to the mental health crisis among teenagers, political polarization, rampant misinformation and privacy violations. Many of us, reading the evidence about social media’s negative effects on our children, do not want to make the same mistake of failing to create guardrails for new technologies, however promising they may be.

大多数美国人认为早就该采取这些行动了。他们指责科技公司助长了青少年的心理健康危机、政治极化、猖獗的错误信息和侵犯隐私等问题。我们中的许多人在读到有关社交媒体对孩子产生负面影响的证据后，都不愿意在新技术面前重犯未能及时建立保护措施的错误，无论这些新技术看起来多么有潜力。

Mr. Trump’s tech supporters see it differently. Echoing monopolists of the past, they say they are the victims of zealous progressives who want to overregulate the industry. Constraints on their market power threaten the growth of their businesses — and challenge their foundational belief that technological advancement is good in and of itself.

特朗普的科技支持者对此有不同看法。他们与过去的垄断者如出一辙，声称自己是激进的进步人士的受害者，这些激进人士希望对该行业进行过度监管。对他们市场力量的限制威胁着他们业务的增长，并挑战了他们的基本信念，即技术进步本身就是好的。

Last year, Mr. Andreessen, whose venture capital firm is heavily invested in crypto, wrote a widely discussed “manifesto” claiming that enemy voices of “bureaucracy, vetocracy, gerontocracy” are opposed to the “pursuit of technology, abundance and life.” In a barely concealed critique of the Biden-Harris administration, he argued that those who believe in carefully assessing the impact of new technologies before adopting them are “deeply immoral.”

去年，安德森的风险投资公司在加密领域投入了大量资金，他写了一份被广泛讨论的“宣言”，声称“官僚主义、否决政治、老人政治”的敌对声音反对“追求技术、富裕和生命”。他几乎毫不掩饰地批评拜登—贺锦丽政府，他认为，那些相信在采用新技术之前要仔细评估其影响的人是“非常不道德的”。

It’s not surprising then that tech titans feel some camaraderie with Mr. Trump, who portrays himself as a savior and a martyr. Like them, he doesn’t want to have to play by the rules or entertain challenges to his vision for a “better” America. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he said in his first presidential run, “which is why I alone can fix it.” He launched his 2024 campaign by saying, “I am a victim,” and continues to claim that the justice system is rigged, as are elections. He will fight for self-perceived victims of all sorts, even (or especially) the ones who live in gilded mansions.

因此，科技巨头与自诩救世主和殉道者的特朗普产生某种友情也就不足为奇了。和他们一样，他也不想循规蹈矩，也不想接受对他“更美好”美国愿景的挑战。“没有人比我更了解这个体系，”他在第一次总统竞选中说。“所以我一个人就能将其修复。”他在开启2024年总统竞选时说“我是受害者”，并继续声称司法系统和选举都受到了操纵。他将为各种自认为的受害者而战，甚至是（或者尤其是）那些住在镀金豪宅里的人。

Arguments like Mr. Andreessen’s offer a false choice between economic and technological advancement — made possible by boundary-breaking business leaders — and ineffective, bureaucratic regulation. I, too, am a techno-optimist, and I believe that the world is largely better off because of the avalanche of technologies that have emerged over the past two decades. But just as we needed rules of the road for cars and safety regulations for planes, we need to manage these new technologies through public policy to ensure we like what they are doing to us, not resign ourselves to letting them run wild.

安德森这样的论点提供了一个虚假的选择，要么是经济和技术进步——由打破边界的商业领袖促成——要么是无效的官僚主义监管。我也是一个技术乐观主义者，我相信，由于过去二十年来涌现的大量新技术，世界在很大程度上变得更好了。但是，就像我们需要汽车的道路规则和飞机的安全规定一样，我们需要通过公共政策来管理这些新技术，以确保我们喜欢它们对我们所做的事情，而不是听任它们肆意妄为。

Some Republicans have appeared to realize this, which can make the budding alliance between tech and Mr. Trump seem strange at first glance. A group of economic nationalists, which includes JD Vance, claims to want more oversight of tech companies. Teaming up with Democrats, Senator Lindsey Graham has proposed a digital regulatory agency and Senator Josh Hawley has proposed a particularly aggressive framework to manage A.I. companies. Mr. Vance himself has said that Mr. Biden’s F.T.C. chair, Lina Khan, is “doing a pretty good job.”

一些共和党人似乎已经意识到了这一点，乍一看，这可能会让科技公司和特朗普之间的新兴联盟显得有些奇怪。包括JD·万斯在内的一群经济民族主义者声称希望加强对科技公司的监管。参议员林赛·格雷厄姆与民主党人合作，提出成立一个数字监管机构，参议员乔希·霍利提出了一个特别激进的框架来管理人工智能公司。万斯本人也表示，拜登的联邦贸易委员会主席莉娜·汗“做得相当不错”。

In the presidential race, however, stray remarks about antitrust from Mr. Trump’s running mate hold little weight with the candidate himself. Mr. Trump controls his party, and tech leaders know the only voice that truly matters is the last one he heard whispering in his ear.

然而，在总统竞选中，特朗普的竞选伙伴关于反垄断的零星言论对特朗普本人没有多大影响。特朗普控制着他的政党，科技领袖们知道，唯一真正重要的声音，是他听到的最后一个在他耳边低语的声音。

Chris Hughes是经济安全项目的主席，也是即将出版的《Marketcrafters: The 100-Year Struggle to Shape the American Economy》一书的作者。他还是Facebook的联合创始人。

翻译：晋其角