President Trump targets California's emissions bill: Here's why investors should pay attention
Jon McNeill, DVx Ventures CEO, GM board member, and former Tesla president, joins CNBC's 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss President Trump's plans to sign a resolution blocking California's plan to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035, what it means for the auto industry, and more.
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Vox
12 minutes ago
- Vox
What drove the tech right's — and Elon Musk's — big, failed bet on Trump
is a senior writer at Future Perfect, Vox's effective altruism-inspired section on the world's biggest challenges. She explores wide-ranging topics like climate change, artificial intelligence, vaccine development, and factory farms, and also writes the Future Perfect newsletter. While tech has generally been very liberal in its political support and giving, there's been an emergence of a real and influential tech right over the last few years. Allison Robbert/AFP via Getty Images I live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I don't know anyone who says they voted for Donald Trump in 2016 or 2020. I know, on the other hand, quite a few who voted for him in 2024, and quite a few more who — while they didn't vote for Trump because of his many crippling personal foibles, corruption, penchant for destroying the global economy, etc. — have thoroughly soured on the Democratic Party. Future Perfect Explore the big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them. Sent twice a week. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. It's not just my professional networks. While tech has generally been very liberal in its political support and giving, the last few years have seen the emergence of a real and influential tech right. Elon Musk, of course, is by far the most famous, but he didn't start the tech right by himself. And while his break with Trump — which Musk now seems to be backpedaling on — might have changed his role within the tech right, I don't think this shift will end with him. The rise of the tech right The Bay Area tech scene has always to my mind been best understood as left-libertarian — socially liberal, but suspicious of big government and excited about new things from cryptocurrency to charter cities to mosquito gene drives to genetically engineered superbabies to tooth bacteria. That array of attitudes sometimes puts them at odds with governments (and much of the public, which tends to be much less welcoming of new technology). The tech world valorizes founders and doers, and everyone knows two or three stories about a company that only succeeded because it was willing to break some city regulations. Lots of founders are immigrants; lots are LGBTQ+. For a long time, this set of commitments put tech firmly on the political left — and indeed tech employees overwhelmingly vote and donate to the Democratic Party. Related The AI that apparently wants Elon Musk to die But over the last 10 years, I think three things changed. The first was what Vox at the time called the Great Awokening — a sweeping adoption of what had been a bunch of niche liberal social justice ideas, from widespread acceptance of trans people to suspicion of any sex or race disparity in hiring to #MeToo awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace. A lot of this shift at tech companies was employee driven; again, tech employees are mostly on the left. And some of it was good! But some of it was illiberal — rejecting the idea that we can and should work with people we profoundly disagree with — and identitarian, in that it focused more on what demographic categories we belong to than our commonalities. We're now in the middle of a backlash, which I think is all the more intense in tech because the original woke movement was all the more intense in tech. The second thing that changed was the macroeconomic environment. When I first joined a tech company in 2017, interest rates were low and VC funding was incredibly easy to get. Startups were everywhere, and companies were desperately competing to hire employees. As a result, employees had a lot of power; CEOs were often scared of them. The third was a deliberate effort by many liberals to go after a tech scene they saw as their enemy. The Biden administration ended up staffed by a lot of people ideologically committed to Sen. Elizabeth Warren's view of the world, where big tech was the enemy of liberal democracy and the tools of antitrust should be used to break it up. Lina Khan's Federal Trade Commission acted on those convictions, going after big tech companies like Amazon. Whether you think this was the right call in economic terms — I mostly think it was not — it was decidedly self-destructive in political terms. So in 2024, some of tech (still not a majority, but a smaller minority than in the past two Trump elections) went right. The tech world watched with bated breath as Musk announced DOGE: Would the administration bring about the deregulation, tax cuts, and anti-woke wish list they believed that only the administration could? …and the immediate failure The answer so far has been no. (Many people on the tech right are still more optimistic than me, and point at a small handful of victories, but my assessment is that they're wearing rose-colored glasses to the point of outright blindness.) Some deregulation has happened, but any beneficial effects it would have had on investment have been more than canceled out by the tariffs' catastrophic effects on businesses' ability to plan for the future. They did at least get the tax cuts for the rich, if the 'big, beautiful bill' passes, but that's about all they got — and the ultra-rich will be poorer this year anyway thanks to the unsteady stock market. The Republicans, when out of power, had a critique of the Democrats which spoke to the tech right, the populist right, the white supremacists and moderate Black and Latino voters alike. But it's much easier to complain about Democrats in a way that all of those disparate interest groups find compelling than to govern in a way that keeps them all happy. Once the Trump administration actually had to choose, it chose basically none of the tech right's priorities. They took a bad bet — and I think it'd behoove the Democrats to think, as Trump's coalition fractures, about which of those voters can be won back.
Gizmodo
22 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
VC Men Pour $250 Million Into Musk's ‘White Genocide'-Obsessed AI Business
He may be hated by a vast number of the world's inhabitants, and his chatbot may have fixations on 'white genocide,' but it sure looks like Silicon Valley's money men still have a soft spot for Elon Musk. Venture capital firms are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into Musk's AI business, xAI, which is the company that, as of a couple of months ago, owns and operates X, Musk's social media platform. The New York Times reports that, as part of a 'tender offer' deal, several prominent VCs, including Sequoia (which has invested in some of the most successful tech companies on the planet—from Google, Apple, and YouTube, to Nvidia and Whatsapp), have agreed to buy some $250 million of shares in Musk's company. A tender offer deal involves a company or companies agreeing to buy shares of stock in a particular firm directly from its shareholders. The Times notes that many of the organizations involved in the new offer have previously 'invested in Mr. Musk's companies, including the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.' One of those firms is Fidelity, the financial services company, which currently owns a significant amount of X's stock. Fidelity plans to purchase approximately $20 million in xAI's stock as part of the new deal, according to The Times. The deal is yet another reminder that while Musk may currently be on the outs with the President of the United States, he is most likely going to be fine in the short term. There is still significant institutional interest in his companies, and it seems like orgs like Sequoia see a future in them. xAI is the company behind Grok, Musk's 'anti-woke' chatbot that is, sometimes, surprisingly woke. It also has, on occasion, broken down and ranted about 'white genocide' unprompted. The company merged with X (the company formerly known as Twitter, which Musk bought in 2022) earlier this year. True to form, Musk has made a lot of big promises about the robotics and automation opportunities his companies will produce in the years to come. He has alternately promised to launch a robotaxi business as well as to create a product line of domestic robots that will take care of Americans' household tasks. Relevantly, the billionaire's other company, Tesla, is busy suing one of its former robotics engineers, Jay Li, whom it has accused of stealing its trade secrets. The former engineer, who previously worked on Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus, has been accused of using tech developed at Musk's company to start his own company, 'Proception.' Neither Musk nor Li has shown the world anything particularly impressive on the robotics front.
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
America's migrant workers are terrified to work but unable to stay home
In the early morning on Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents chased farmworkers through a field in Oxnard, California. Agents tackled and restrained workers amid rows of produce, as seen in video from CNN affiliate KABC. 'What I fear is that sometimes, out of necessity, we show up wherever there's work,' one farmworker with her face covered told KABC in Spanish. 'With everything that is happening it's a bit difficult for us.' ICE, racing to fulfill President Donald Trump's goal to increase deportations, has increasingly targeted work sites for immigration sweeps in recent weeks. The escalation is creating a chilling effect on the businesses that rely on immigrant labor and the workers themselves, with some staying home out of fear. America's agriculture, construction, health care and hospitality industries are powered by immigrant workers, both legal and undocumented. 'Recent immigration enforcement raids on businesses nationwide are creating serious challenges for local economies, communities, and industries that depend on immigrant labor to operate and prosper,' said Rebecca Shi, the CEO of American Business Immigration Coalition, a group representing employers with immigrants. Undocumented immigrants make up 4% to 5% of the total US workforce, but 15% to 20% or more in industries such as crop production, food processing and construction, according to Goldman Sachs. United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero told CNN that she's been getting calls from concerned farmworkers across California about ICE crackdowns in the state. There are 2.4 million farmworkers in the United States, according to the Economic Policy Institute, 40% of whom the Agriculture Department estimates lack legal status. Despite the threat of deportation, migrant workers often can't afford to stay home, Romero said. 'They're terrified, but they have a family to support. They have a rent to pay, they have children to take to school, buy clothing and everything,' she said. 'They have to tell their children what to do if they don't come home.' Trump appeared to acknowledge Thursday that his immigration policies are straining farmers and businesses. 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' Trump said on Truth Social. 'We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!' But some farm owners worry that the Trump administration's current crackdown on undocumented immigrants will affect the nation's ability to produce food, Romero said. 'I can guarantee you that we're not going to have the workers that we need to do this work in agriculture,' she said. 'The agriculture industry in this country is going to disappear.' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told reporters on Thursday that she's already getting reports of people not going to work and store shelves being empty because people in the city are worried about being detained by ICE. Los Angeles' immigrant community is essential to the city's economy, she added. 'There are entire sectors of our economy that will not function if the immigrant community is too afraid to go to work and too afraid to go to school,' Bass said. Mass workplace immigration raids were a priority during Trump's first term, culminating in at least 680 arrests during a 2019 raid on chicken processing plants in Mississippi. The Biden administration ended the practice, saying employers exploited the raids to suppress workers from reporting labor violations. But ICE has stepped up sweeps again in recent weeks on industries that rely heavily on immigrant workers. That includes a local construction company in Exeter, Pennsylvania; construction sites in Brownsville, Texas; and a flood control project in New Orleans. ICE arrested about 40 people in Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, two prominent vacation spots in Massachusetts, last month. CNN asked ICE how many raids have been made under Trump's second term. The agency acknowledged CNN's request but did not respond to the question. 'Worksite enforcement operations are going to massively expand,' White House border czar Tom Homan said in an interview with Semafor on Wednesday. Detaining employees can have a significant impact on small businesses. For example, after authorities took dozens of workers away in buses following a raid at an Omaha meat production plant Tuesday morning, the plant was left running at about 30% capacity. The restaurant industry employs 1 million undocumented workers, or 10% of the total workforce, according to the Center for Migration Studies. It would be difficult for some restaurants to run without undocumented workers. 'The reality is … there clearly are not enough people in the United States who are authorized to work to fill all the available jobs,' said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the not-for-profit group NYC Hospitality Alliance. 'And because of that, you have people that have come to our country for many different reasons that are not authorized to work but find their way into the workforce to meet the needs and demands of United States citizens.' Arrests of migrant workers outside one business have become a flash point for opponents of Trump's immigration crackdown: Home Depot. Day laborers have long gathered outside the parking lots of Home Depot or similar retailers to find work. Home Depot, in particular, is a convenient spot for contractors and homeowners in many communities to approach and hire laborers to paint walls, nail down roofing and complete other manual labor projects. Day laborers are often paid in cash, and many return to these locations every day in hope of getting more work. Immigration agents conducted a sweep Friday outside a Home Depot in Westlake, Los Angeles, setting off days of protests around the city. Trump deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles, overriding California Governor Gavin Newsom. Home Depot told CNN that it is not notified when immigration officials and law enforcement conduct sweeps and that the company is not involved in the operations. The retail chain has been a target of immigration arrests — and protests — well before last week. In a raid on a Home Depot in Pomona, California, in April, 10 undocumented immigrants were detained, a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security told CNN. That led to a protest outside Home Depot among advocates for day laborers. 'Construction companies, contractors, private homeowners — they have historically gone to the Home Depot to buy their materials and then they come outside and hire a day laborer,' Alexis Teodoro, the worker rights director for the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center, a non-profit that helps day laborers find work and job training, told CNN at the time. 'This is common knowledge and is almost as American as apple pie now.' CNN's Stephanie Elam, Elise Hammond and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this story.
