The Tech Right Realizes That It Got Played
Technology leadership is impossible without the talent, exports, and federal research that Trump is restricting.
American technology leadership rose in response to a terrifying fear. German scientists had discovered nuclear fission, so by the early 1940s, US military planners were alarmed at the possibility that Hitler would build a nuclear bomb.1 In response to this perceived existential threat, the US developed a system of technological innovation that shaped the next 80 years. It began with the Manhattan Project, a sprawling, secretive effort that catalyzed government money, university research, and private-sector logistics to beat the Nazis to a nuclear weapon.
The result was more than a bomb – it was a blueprint. The collaboration between physicists like Robert Oppenheimer, military leaders like Leslie Groves, and industry leaders like Chrysler’s K.T. Keller turned wartime fear into a peacetime model. Long before the Cold War, science-led industrialization had become America’s national strategy.
To this day, America’s system of technological innovation is its most reliable source of power, prestige, and profit. Astonishingly, Donald Trump is treating this treasure not as a strategic asset but as a political liability. Initially, the “tech right” went along, lured by their common disdain for DEI, crypto regulation, and antitrust enforcement. That’s starting to change.
The MAGA Attack on Technological Innovation
In recent months, the Trump administration has slashed federal research funding, harassed foreign scientists on dubious ideological grounds, and pressured universities to police thought rather than produce knowledge. It has imposed tariffs not just on geopolitical rivals, but on longstanding allies and partners. The effect has been immediate and chilling: Talented researchers are leaving, international applicants are hesitating, and rival nations are circling like vultures. This reflects a staggering national miscalculation.
Eight of the ten most valuable companies in the world, including the top six (NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet/Google, and Meta/Facebook, in that order), are based in the United States. All have benefited massively and directly from decades of public research funding and access to overseas talent and markets. Two examples:
NVIDIA, the game card maker that turned graphics processors into the world’s most valuable business, received contracts from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), notably for the Power Efficiency Revolution For Embedded Computing Technologies (PERFECT) program. This funding supported research into low-power circuits, energy-efficient architectures, and parallel computing algorithms—technologies that underpin Nvidia’s leadership in GPU and AI hardware.
The Apple iPhone is a private-sector miracle powered by public-sector breakthroughs: GPS (courtesy of the Department of Defense), touchscreens (developed with NSF support), voice recognition (developed by DARPA), and, of course, the internet itself (born at ARPA in the 1960s). Even Siri was named after SRI (then the Stanford Research Institute), which spun voice recognition out of a DARPA project.
The prominent tech leaders who backed Trump did so out of frustration with the Biden Administration's cryptocurrency and antitrust regulations, as well as because they supported Trump’s culture war against “woke” ideologies. However, they did not sign up for policies that crippled their recruiting, exports, or federal research lifelines. They have major concerns about Trump’s decision to slash the National Science Foundation’s $9 billion budget to less than $4 billion. They were appalled when more than 1,000 NSF grants were terminated within two weeks this spring. Evidence is growing that America’s national research infrastructure is in chaos.
At the same time, the White House is leaning into culture war politics on campus, pressuring universities to surveil speech and purge faculty under the banner of fighting antisemitism. Some of these moves—like the masked federal arrest of a Turkish Ph.D. student at MIT who criticized Israel’s war policy—are less law enforcement and more intimidation theater. As a result, America’s top universities have lost credibility with the very global talent that once viewed them as safe havens. On a recent trip, several Europeans made it clear that they were unwilling to risk even vacation flights to the US under these conditions.
From Brain Gain to Brain Drain
For more than a century, research investments and the world-class universities they produced have made the United States the world’s most successful talent magnet. Initially, Europeans, including Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, came to the US to escape fascism. They were followed by the brightest minds from China, India, Iran, Turkey, and dozens of other countries.
Over the objections of the tech right, Trump is reversing the polarity of our talent magnet and actively repelling expertise. According to a 2025 survey by Nature, 75% of US-based scientists are considering leaving the country. The journal’s job board reported a 32% spike in overseas applications in just the first three months of the year.
China, long accused of stealing US intellectual property, is now simply recruiting it. Following US budget cuts that affected agencies such as the CDC, NIH, and NOAA this spring, Chinese talent recruiters flooded social media with job offers in cities like Shenzhen and Hangzhou.
Meanwhile, China’s university system is experiencing rapid growth. According to Times Higher Education, the number of Chinese and Hong Kong universities in the global top 100 doubled in just five years. In a broader 500-university ranking, China's representation tripled between 2010 and 2020, while the US experienced a decline.
The metaphor writes itself: just as we reversed the course of the Chicago River in 1900, we are reversing the river of talent that once flowed so reliably into the US. Both friends and rivals are waiting downstream with open arms.
As Washington retreats from science, Brussels is doubling down. In April, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a €500 million program to attract researchers from the US and elsewhere, championing values such as freedom and openness, language that used to be America’s brand.
French President Emmanuel Macron chipped in another €100 million, pledging to make France a “safe haven” for global science. Even regional governments are getting in on the action. In Spain, Catalonia just launched a €30 million initiative to finance roles for US scholars whose careers have been derailed by political interference.
The UK is debating a £50 million talent rescue fund. Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and Norway are rolling out their own programs. If you’re a scientist watching the US self-sabotage, the world is full of alternatives.
Designing the Next Great Recession
In 1944, FDR wrote to Vannevar Bush, asking him to envision a postwar science policy that could preserve and build upon the wartime scientific achievements.2 The result was Science, The Endless Frontier, which gave birth to the modern research university and institutionalized federal funding for science. It worked. America became the default home of global talent.
Trump is now laying siege to this legacy, scaring off innovators, and trying to substitute populist demagoguery for a world-beating pool of scientific, technical, and humanitarian talent. The world is stunned. How could a nation that built the modern scientific enterprise be this committed to tearing it down?
Trump appears intent on dismantling the institutions that enabled American prosperity. A 2024 study by economists at American University estimated that a 25% cut to public R&D spending would reduce US GDP by 3.8%—a contraction roughly equivalent to the Great Recession. A 50% cut would knock 7.6% off GDP – a figure so large it would erase almost all of the last decade’s economic growth.
This isn’t high theory. It’s about low-interest mortgages, new drugs, affordable energy, and job creation in places like Austin, Pittsburgh, and Salt Lake City, where public-private partnerships have incubated the next generation of industries. After all, Oppenheimer didn’t build the bomb himself. It took hundreds of scientists, thousands of workers, and dozens of universities and companies. As physicist Niels Bohr said at the time, the US didn’t just build a weapon—it “turned the whole country into a factory.”
Today’s version of that factory is labs, code, models, and proteins. But the principle hasn’t changed. Innovation requires scale, time, and institutional trust. It requires collaboration among government, academia, and industry. Right now, Trump is tearing that system of innovation down, and the conservative bros in Silicon Valley are starting to realize just how badly they have been played.
The Revenge of the Jedis
Silicon Valley conservatives are beginning to question MAGA under the auspices of Elon Musk, easily its most hapless representative. Tech-aligned conservatives and libertarians have increasingly distanced themselves from Trump on science and technology policy, global trade, and immigration (although many still support Trump’s “war on woke”, hands-off AI policies, and perposterously corrupt approach to crypto).
Trump’s proposed NASA and NSF funding cuts (e.g., the potential loss of 1,600 NSF grants, including the elimination of STEM outreach programs) have alarmed tech conservatives, who view these as undermining America’s scientific edge. High-profile voices, such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, have publicly accused Trump of waging an “attack on science,” arguing that interfering with peer review and firing experts directly jeopardizes US global innovation.
Trump’s trade escalations—new tariffs on Japan, South Korea, and the EU, as well as attempts to retaliate against foreign tech regulation—have been unpopular within the tech industry, which increasingly views these moves as defensive profiteering for Big Tech rather than strategic economic policy. Silicon Valley figures have warned that undermining the EU’s Digital Markets Act immunity or weaponizing tariffs endangers US–EU tech partnerships and weakens the structures that tech firms need to operate globally.
Finally, many tech conservatives are upset by Trump’s opposition to H‑1B visas and OPT programs that have led to an exodus of foreign STEM talent and cut vital revenue to American universities. Tech CEOs have warned that this poses an existential threat to US innovation. The use of AI and surveillance technology in immigration enforcement—often with limited due process —has sparked concerns among tech libertarians about civil liberties and the potential for international talent flight.
No tech leader has been more humiliated by Trump than Elon Musk, who invested massive financial and reputational capital in MAGA. The political alliance between the two legendary egomaniacs was widely seen as doomed from the start. It suffered a public and acrimonious breakdown over Trump’s ruinous budget, his so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill." When Musk left the federal government in late May 2025 due to opposition to the BBB, he began insulting Trump on social media and claimed that Trump would have lost the election without his support.
The feud escalated when Trump publicly dismissed Musk’s influence, suggested he had asked Musk to leave, and rescinded policies favorable to Musk’s businesses, such as the electric vehicle mandate. In an echo of Ross Perot, Musk launched the American party this week and threatened to fund primary challengers against MAGA Republicans. With Trump now positioned to dominate the Republican party for the remainder of his life, we should hope that he means it.
Tech-MAGA has suddenly gone quiet. MAGA-adjacent pashas like Zuckerberg, Andreessen, and Horowitz are keeping their heads down. MAGA’s favorite tech-darling, Vice President JD Vance, has acknowledged the split, highlighting the differences between MAGA-populist immigration priorities and Silicon Valley’s need to access talent from around the world. In recent days, he has described the rift with Musk as likely unsalvageable, while leaving no doubt about his loyalty to Trump.
Democrats: “Pass the Popcorn” is not a Strategy
Democrats are naturally tempted to sit back and enjoy watching the MAGA coalition splinter. They need to do much more, even if it occasionally means agreeing with Elon Musk. To keep the MAGA coalition divided, Democrats should use talent, trade, and technology as wedge issues – and honestly confront their own demons that prevent them from doing so.3
Talent. Democrats should highlight the obvious benefits to everyday families of welcoming talented immigrants who generate millions of jobs. To do this credibly, however, Democrats must also support strong border enforcement — three words that still choke far too many Democrats.
Trade. Democrats need to distinguish trade with friends from trade with adversaries. They need to point out the folly of punishing allies at a time when Chinese industrial capacity has grown to dominate almost every leading industrial and consumer technology. This means supporting globalization while opposing Chinafication – another distinction that Democrats struggle with.
Technology. Finally, Dems should become a full-throated voice for federally funded scientific research and the role of researchers at leading-edge universities, even while forcing these universities to expand admissions and reduce tuition as a condition of federal research grants. This means rescinding many of the grant reporting requirements that have helped increase costs. It also means allowing the federal government to take a stake in companies that license public technology, as leading universities do.4
Like all coalitions, MAGA is built on deep fault lines. It embraces both foreign policy hawks and isolationist doves. It contains Rand Paul libertarians and those who, like Reagan, profess belief in small government even as they increase federal spending. There are MAGA populists like Josh Hawley who advocate for non-college working-class Americans, and many others who are happy to slash funding for Medicaid. Democrats need to take advantage of these divisions when, as is now occurring with the tech right, groups faithful to Trump begin to realize that they have been badly misled.
CODA
Brian Wilson, the massively underrated leader of the Beach Boys, passed away recently after a productive but very challenging life.
German scientists, including Otto Hahn and Fritz Straßmann, were among the first to discover nuclear fission in 1938. This discovery sparked alarm in the Allied nations, who feared Germany would develop an atomic bomb. While Nazi Germany did conduct research into nuclear fission and had a nuclear program, they never got close to building an atomic weapon. Their efforts were hampered by resource limitations, political decisions, and the inability to produce the necessary enriched uranium.
Seated next to George HW Bush at a dinner honoring my company for community service, I asked the former president if he was related to Vannevar Bush. “Heck no,” came the candid answer, “Nobody in our family has that kind of brains”.
To this list, one is tempted to add fiscal discipline. After all, it was the budget-busting BBB that caused Musk to finally break with MAGA. He is not wrong to be concerned, even if his attempt to apply his trademark chainsaw to federal budget cutting ended in tears.