Tech titans and the race for the White House
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tech titan Elon Musk says he’s backing Donald Trump to win the US election this November. But is he representative of what the wider industry thinks? And what does Silicon Valley, traditionally a Democratic heartland, want from either a Kamala Harris or a Donald Trump presidency? We explore what the two presidential candidates are offering this important sector of the US economy.
(Picture: A smartphone screen shows the live broadcast of the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. A hand painted sign above it says ‘Trump or Harris?’ Credit: VCG/VCG via Getty Images.)
Presenter: Ed Butler Producer: Lexy O'Connor
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:06.3 | Do I get paid for this or not? |
| 0:10.0 | Today, politics meets the leaders of tech in the race for the White House. |
| 0:15.8 | You know, we could build a base on the moon. We could send American national votes to Mars. |
| 0:20.3 | We could build high-speed connections that are... |
| 0:24.7 | That's the world's richest man, Elon Musk, in conversation with Donald Trump last month |
| 0:29.5 | on his social media platform X. |
| 0:32.9 | The Tesla and SpaceX boss has very publicly backed the Trump presidential campaign, and he's not alone. |
| 0:39.9 | We think Donald Trump is actually the right choice. I'm sorry, Mom. I know you're going to be |
| 0:44.9 | mad at me for this, but like we had to do it. But are these pro-Republican voices representative |
| 0:50.9 | of the entire tech industry, or just a few big names who've caught everyone's attention. |
| 0:57.3 | The publicity surrounding some of these very high-profile people is extremely misleading. |
| 1:04.1 | Yes, in today's program, I'm finding out what America's tech titans really want from this election |
| 1:09.6 | and their chosen candidates. |
| 1:12.0 | That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:15.9 | In this, as in most US elections, most of the bigwigs of big tech, the likes of Facebook's |
| 1:23.0 | Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos of Amazon, tend to keep their political affiliations to themselves. |
| 1:29.7 | But is that now changing? |
| 1:31.5 | Along with Elon Musk, one or two others have begun to express publicly their Republican sympathies. |
| 1:37.7 | The billionaire technology investor David Sachs is one, throwing a fundraiser a few months ago for Donald Trump at his San Francisco |
| 1:45.6 | mansion with tickets reportedly costing more than $50,000 each. If you've never heard of |
| 1:51.4 | David Sacks, he's the founder of the Business Social Network Service Yammer and an early investor |
... |
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