Silicon Valley, which was at its most politically vocal before the election, reacts with disbelief, anger, and frustration at Trump's win
I am writing this from Web Summit … Brad Feld / Feld Thoughts : Getting Back To Work — Yesterday morning I woke up and said out loud … Gordon Hunt / Silicon Republic : Donald Trump: The shock president Silicon Valley disdains Rob Thubron / TechSpot : Silicon Valley reacts to Donald Trump's victory Antonio José Vielma / CNBC : Shervin Pishevar wants to help California secede from the US Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch : With Trump's win Silicon Valley investors start losing their damn minds Juan Buis / The Next Web : Trump knows nothing about tech, and that's scary Bogdan Popa / Softpedia News : Donald Trump Elected President of the US Is Bad News for Apple and Microsoft Rebecca Stewart / The Drum : Live: Reaction from the marketing, digital and tech industries emerges online as Donald Trump takes the US presidency Robert Hackett / Fortune : Silicon Valley Is Panicking About a Donald Trump Presidency Emilio Ferrara / Ars Technica UK : How Twitter bots helped Donald Trump win the US presidential election Kelly Fiveash / Ars Technica UK : Donald Trump faces “awesomely difficult task,” says tech investor Peter Thiel Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch : Cryptocurrencies rise on Trump victory Lucas Nolan / Breitbart : Silicon Valley Elite Panic At Possibility Of Trump Presidency Biz Carson / Business Insider : Silicon Valley leaders floored by Donald Trump's lead in electoral race Howard Lindzon : So Trump Won ... What Next for Mother Market? David Kravets / Ars Technica UK : Donald Trump elected US president: What it means for tech and science Peter Baker / New York Times : Donald Trump's Victory Promises to Upend the International Order Meena Jang / AOL : Mark Cuban's surprising response to Trump victory Billy Mitchell / FedScoop : Election 2016: A recap of Clinton's and Trump's stances on tech and IT Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE : Secretive Silicon Valley self-driving vehicle startup Zoox raises $50 million Tweets: @shervin : 1/ If Trump wins I am announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation. Mark Pincus / @markpinc : Is this what it felt like when people first realized hitler could actually take power? Mark Cuban / @mcuban : We all need to give President-Elect Trump a chance. Support the good. Lobby against what we disagree on. No one is bigger than us all Michael Arrington / @arrington : Drudge headline “Silicon Sultans S**t Themselves” - which is pretty much what I'm seeing in my Twitter feed. Dara Khosrowshahi / @dkhos : As tech leaders we have to admit that we are hugely disconnected with our nation. I don't like it but have to recognize this issue. Aaron Levie / @levie : You know those times where we watch other countries and are like “oh man you guys are crazy”. S**t that's us now. Chris Sacca / @sacca : Congratulations President-Elect Trump. I hope you are able to help the people who need it most. Adam Singer / @adamsinger : Party is prob over for Silicon Valley for now Trump presidency means recession time. Startups and big companies alike in trouble. Sad. Steve Case / @stevecase : I am surprised & disappointed. But now that the people have spoken, we should accept the result & work together to move the country forward. Sam Altman / @sama : i'd like to wake up now please Sam Altman / @sama : Tonight we cry, we despair, and we fear. Tomorrow we get back to work trying to build the world we want. John Gruber / @gruber : We, as a civilization, f**ked up. And I can't get passed that. Steve T-S / @stroughtonsmith : This wasn't a normal election—there's no going back to normal or ‘coming together’ after this. The fear and hate that caused this persist Paul Graham / @paulg : Losing the election doesn't mean giving up. Joshua Topolsky / @joshuatopolsky : Think what you want. Say what you want. A Trump win is the end of America as we know it. It is a validation of hatred and stupidity. Ben Tossell / @bentossell : Dear @elonmusk, When will Mars be ready? Anil Dash / @anildash : No matter what, we have to organize & stand up to Trump and fight for the marginalized. I am not afraid of that motherf**ker Anil Dash / @anildash : I am not moving to Canada, not surprised by white supremacists & misogynists, and not afraid of Donald Trump. We have got to get to work. Bijan Sabet / @bijan : Thinking about what I am going to tell my children at breakfast tomorrow. Gabe Rivera / @gaberivera : So if you still the USA, get up tomorrow and continue fighting for truth, the Constitution, tolerance, basic decency, and wisdom. Please. Kashmir Hill / @kashhill : Secession plans begin. http://twitter.com/... Keith Rabois / @rabois : I believe we can decommission all nuclear weapons before Trump takes office. Tristan Walker / @tristanwalker : Terrified for my son's hope in a world with Trump. Terrified. Aaron Levie / @levie : Nate Silver, we trusted you. Robin Wauters / @robinwauters : Oh OK then. http://twitter.com/... Matthew Garrett / @mjg59 : Hey tech people: if you are responsible for an algorithm that chooses what people see, spend tomorrow thinking carefully about your choices Wayne Sutton / @waynesutton : This is scary as hell! A racist, sexist guy as the President! #ElectionNight pic.twitter.com/6IFZinC2Ej See also Mediagazer Expand More For Next 3 Unexpand More For Next 3
Context & Ripple Effects
In November 2016 an industry that had been politically vocal all cycle woke up to a result it did not expect: investors venting publicly, and Shervin Pishevar announcing he would fund a campaign for California to secede rather than accept a Trump presidency. The immediate question, picked up the next day in coverage asking whether the victory exposed how badly Silicon Valley had misread voter anxieties, was whether the industry had lost touch with the country it sells to.
The longer arc matters more than the day's emotion. TechCrunch's contemporaneous read of Trump's nascent positions on immigration, trade, and cybersecurity framed the concrete stakes for a talent- and trade-dependent industry — and eight years later the same leaders who raged in 2016 were lining up to congratulate Trump on his 2024 win, with Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman among them.
First-order effects
- Investors and founders are reacting in public rather than through channels: Feld Thoughts, TechCrunch, and CNBC capture everything from 'losing their damn minds' to Pishevar's secession pledge, turning private dismay into a visible industry schism.
- Companies built on immigrant engineering talent face immediate uncertainty, since Trump's campaign platform on H-1B-adjacent immigration and trade was sketched but not yet operationalized.
Second-order effects
- A White House hostile to the industry forces every major CEO into a new job function — government relations becomes existential, not ancillary, which is why the same executives who scorned Trump in 2016 were congratulating him by 2024.
- The 2016 rupture creates the opening for a pro-Trump tech faction; its later prominence is exactly what makes the Musk–Trump rift so destabilizing for figures like David Sacks, whose standing depends on proximity to both sides.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, tech's relationship with presidential power settles into transactional accommodation regardless of party — the 2016 anger reads today as the starting point of an eight-year migration from resistance to courtship.
- The episode also foreshadows platforms' exposure to election-era political pressure, a dynamic that resurfaces in later coverage of content-moderation calls made under duress and of YouTube's recommendation changes around elections.
The trend: Silicon Valley's posture toward Washington has shifted from open hostility after Trump's 2016 win to transactional accommodation by his 2024 return, with individual founder leverage replacing collective industry dissent.