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The MAGA-Tech Partnership Was Never Meant to Last
The MAGA-Tech Partnership Was Never Meant to Last
“The marriage of tech right libertarianism and populist nationalism was always unstable,” writes Tyler Cowen. (Illustration by The Free Press)
Trump’s movement looks to the past for inspiration. Silicon Valley looks to the future. Is it any wonder their alliance is showing cracks?
By Tyler Cowen
06.16.25 — Tech and Business
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The Free Press
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The MAGA-Tech Partnership Was Never Meant to Last

Elon Musk and Donald Trump may have made up after their insult-slinging on social media, but the trust is surely gone. The marriage of tech right libertarianism and populist nationalism was always unstable, and now we are entering a time when the policy rifts will grow only deeper.

I think of the “tech right” as exemplified by figures such as Musk, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Peter Thiel, and Shaun Maguire. Whatever their differences and disagreements, all of them expressed a preference for Trump as president, doing so out of broadly libertarian motives.

The basic worldview of the tech right is that the future can and will change dramatically, in large part through the advent of technology, and it is futile to hold it off. We thus need leaders who will allow technological progress to proceed, and that means capitalism, open markets, and a legal framework to support innovation. To these individuals, Trump appeared better on that score than Kamala Harris, and to date his policies on artificial-intelligence regulation and crypto regulation have been more pro-progress than what we would probably have gotten from a Harris administration.

While I do not agree with every claim of the tech right—and while I am not a Trump supporter—I am largely on board with this worldview. I know some of these people and have worked together with them in the past.

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Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University and also Faculty Director of the Mercatus Center. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1987. His book The Great Stagnation: How America Ate the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better was a New York Times best-seller. He was named in an Economist poll as one of the most influential economists of the last decade and Bloomberg Businessweek dubbed him "America's Hottest Economist." Foreign Policy magazine named him as one of its "Top 100 Global Thinkers" of 2011. He co-writes a blog at www.MarginalRevolution.com, hosts a podcast Conversations with Tyler, and is co-founder of an online economics education project, MRU.org. He is also director of the philanthropic project Emergent Ventures.
Tags:
Donald Trump
Politics
Tech
Republicans
Elon Musk
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