Elon Musk, Peter Thiel And Billionaires' Influence In Trump's White House: Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich's Warning

Beginning on Jan. 20, 2025, a network of powerful billionaires will exert unparalleled influence over the U.S. government, according to former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. He names venture capitalist Peter Thiel as a central figure in what Reich describes as a “billionaire brain trust” poised to shape key aspects of policy and governance in President-elect Donald Trump‘s second term.

Thiel, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, PayPal and an early Facebook investor, has cultivated relationships with influential figures now securely inside Trump's political orbit, noted the Clinton-era labor secretary in a Sunday newsletter on Substack. Among them is J.D. Vance, who worked at Thiel's investment fund, Mithril Capital, before launching his own. Thiel also financed Vance's 2022 Senate campaign and introduced him to Trump.

Then there’s Tesla CEO Elon Musk who once worked at PayPal alongside Thiel who, via his Founders Fund, invested heavily in Musk’s ventures, including SpaceX, the Boring Company and Neuralink.

Musk, who is shaping up to be one of the President-elect’s most important advisers, reportedly donated up to a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump's 2024 election campaign. Along with billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk was tapped to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Read Also: Musk And Ramaswamy Back Foreign Tech Workers, Sparking Rift In MAGA Trump Camp & Twitter Firestorm

Silicon Valley Execs In The White House

Thiel's influence extends to billionaire David Sacks, a fellow PayPal colleague who Trump recently appointed as the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.” Two high-profile leaders at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz were recently offered White House jobs — Sriram Krishnan to head up the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Scott Kupor as director of the Office of Personnel Management.

Other Thiel Silicon Valley allies include Jim O'Neill, who Trump tapped to be the deputy director of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Michael Kratsios to head the Antitrust Division at the Justice Dept., reported Yahoo! News on Dec. 22. Trump named former Uber executive Emil Michael as undersecretary for research and engineering, according to CNBC.

What's The Ultimate Plan, If Any?

Reich suggests that Thiel and his associates appear to be seeking a rollback of reforms dating back to the New Deal era. In his essay, Reich draws parallels between today's billionaire influence and the Gilded Age of the 1920s — a period of extreme inequality that culminated in the Great Depression.

"If America learned anything from the first Gilded Age and the fascism that grew like a cancer in the 1930s,” Reich wrote, “it should have been that gross inequalities of income and wealth fuel gross inequalities of political power — as Musk, Thiel, Sachs, and other oligarchs are putting on full display — which in turn generate strongmen who destroy both democracy and freedom."

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Photo: Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Shutterstock