In recent months mainstream newspapers have featured stories about some of the divisions and potential conflicts among both individual capitalists and groups of capitalists in this 2024 election.
It’s been reported that many tech billionaires are supporting Trump and the Republicans, especially if they’re invested heavily in crypto currency. Fossil fuel company leaders and owners also obviously tend to support the climate-change-denying Trump and his party.
It’s also been reported that many traditional Wall Street banker types are not supporting Trump. Some of the big names are supporting Democrats. Some of these CEOs, owners and corporate brands tried to distance themselves from Trump after the Charlottesville white supremacist rally and after January 6.
There is, of course, truth to these stories. There have always been and will continue to be some capitalists who see more economic advantage in supporting one party or the other, or some who personally disagree with the more reactionary or more liberal social policies of a candidate or party. Some will even disagree about which party or candidate will be more economically advantageous to their industry.
But when we dwell on these differences we miss the bigger point: if both political parties need and get the financial and propagandistic support of big business and the CEOs and owners, then both political parties are organs of the capitalist class.
Just look at the tech world and Silicon Valley. Yes, the big tech capitalists Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Elon Musk and others openly support Trump and their creation, J.D. Vance. They think that Trump is their best way to maintain profits and advance their interests. But other big tech capitalists like Reid Hoffman (part founder of PayPal along with Peter Thiel, David Sacks and Musk), Vinod Khosla, Reed Hastings and Sheryl Sandberg support the Democrats because they think the Democrats will allow them to continue innovating their way to even more billions.
Some, like Alex Karp of Palantir Technologies, a software company that specializes in security and military technologies, highlight the real yet not-so-significant contradictions within the capitalist class. He supports Harris, yet is business partner and friends with Peter Thiel, with whom he is a co-owner of Palantir, despite the fact that Thiel is a huge supporter of Trump and helped to create Vance as a political creature. Their company gets billions in profits from the federal government, including the Department of Defense for their military technologies, which means that whoever gets elected, they will have to work with them even if they weren’t their preferred candidate. Elon Musk is another example of these contradictions. Even though Tesla might be more profitable under a Democratic administration, his Starlink and SpaceX companies also makes billions from contracts with the federal government and will remain profitable no matter who is president.
It should be clear to all of us that the big capitalists know that both parties will allow them to remain profitable, and that they will have to find ways to work with whomever is president in 2025. One Silicon Valley titan who supports Harris, recently said that he’ll “work with almost anyone if what I’m working on can change the world.”
And Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorganChase, the world’s largest and most profitable bank, perhaps said it best in an interview last year. While he has been critical of Trump, he has also complimented him. It was also rumored that he might even be Trump’s next Treasury Secretary. After saying that people should give some support to Nikki Haley in the Republican primary last spring, he was asked if he was a “never Trumper.” He responded with, “I would never say that, because he might be the President and I have to deal with that, too.”
The point is that, even if these capitalists have their own personal preferences, they are all out to do one primary thing: constantly increase their profits. And that one goal is entirely opposed to what the rest of us need. They are each spending millions to shape our views and to get one of these two candidates elected. That’s because they know that they can and will work with either Trump or Harris and their respective parties, both of which will continue to manage our nation and world in the interests of these capitalists.
