Silicon Valley Feud: Tech Billionaires Engaged in Political Clash

In a bizarre chain of events that began in Butler, Pennsylvania, an assassination attempt on Donald J. Trump has garnered significant attention in the tech world. Less than an hour after the incident, San Francisco-based venture capitalist David Sacks used the occasion to express his discontent with a former colleague on X (formerly Twitter). In his online post, Sacks blamed the political left for the attack and referenced Reid Hoffman, a technology investor and prominent Democratic donor. He insinuated that Hoffman's criticism of Trump and the financing of a rape and defamation lawsuit against the former president had contributed to the assassination attempt. Adding fuel to the fire, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, mentioned Hoffman's name on X and claimed that people like Hoffman had seen their deepest wishes fulfilled. This public clash among tech billionaires not only undermined cohesion within the close-knit Silicon Valley community but also disrupted former collaborations and friendships. Especially affected were members of the so-called "PayPal Mafia," a wealthy clique of tech executives who had worked together at the online payment firm PayPal in the 1990s and later made headlines by founding their own companies or becoming high-profile investors. Other prominent technology leaders such as Vinod Khosla, as well as Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, have increasingly been drawn into these political skirmishes.