Silicon Valley's Soulless Plutocrats Look to Donald Trump to Save Their Billions

Andreessen talks about this proposal as if Putin himself were invading Atherton, California, the elite ZIP code where he lived until recently. If this tax is imposed, he says, investors will leave the market and innovations will not be funded. First, you kill startups and venture capital. So congratulations, you kill the tech industry, basically, he says. Second, you kill California’s tax base. California is finished!

But the carnage doesn't stop there, says Andreessen. Once the government gets a taste of this new tax on the rich, it will want more and more, and more, until this threatened class of wealthy investors is finally drained of its content. The government will then go after the wealth of people who are not super rich, but simply very rich. Sooner or later, we're all going to pay wealth taxes! Presto, chango, this is Argentina! says Horowitz, and Andreessen quickly endorses this doomsday scenario.

Before we start the Evita soundtrack, let’s back up a moment. There’s no evidence that a tax on unrealized gains would end venture capital. If Andreessen and Horowitz quit for tax reasons, others would jump at the chance to play the lucrative startup lottery—even if, God forbid, they had to pay pre-IPO taxes on spectacular gains.

But there’s also little reason to think the tax will happen. Biden’s proposal is just that, a proposal. Changing the tax code requires congressional action. At a minimum, Congress would address some of the reasonable objections Andreessen raises, such as the possibility that an investor’s gain could be measured by a temporary spike in a company’s valuation. But Congress is far more likely to reject the idea, even if the public wants to see the very wealthy pay their dues. Consider the utterly indefensible carried interest loophole, which allows hedge fund and private equity executives to dodge taxes. Despite near-universal agreement that it’s a total scam—even Bill Ackman has called it a stain on the tax code—and Biden’s promise to eliminate it, it’s still alive. The idea that a brand new wealth tax, desperately opposed by the country's biggest political donors, could pass a divided Congress is a fantasy that even ChatGPT wouldn't propose.

Andreessen and Horowitz are smart enough to know this, and so their objections can come across as paranoid and self-serving. But I think there’s something else going on, something often cited as why some in Silicon Valley have turned to Trump: They resent the media, a segment of the woke population, and left-wing politicians for disliking them, even vilifying them. In Trump country, their wealth and the wisdom that supposedly goes with it are respected.

Andreessen deserves credit for voicing this grievance loudly. He fondly remembers the days when Democrats catered to his colleagues. They were pro-tech, pro-startups, he says. You could make a lot of money, then give it away to philanthropy, and you got a huge credit for it. And that absolved you of everything. He was on that path himself, he says, until the critics turned on billionaires who gave away their money. His eyes were opened when he saw what happened after Mark Zuckerberg announced his intention to give away almost all his money to his foundation; people thought he was doing it for himself, to improve his company’s reputation. What’s the point of giving away all that money, Andreessen seems to be saying, if you’re not going to be celebrated for it? (Um, for doing good? To repay society for all that money you’ve earned and paid minimal taxes on?)

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