Latest news with #techBillionaires
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Tech-bro satire Mountainhead is an insufferable disappointment
Picture this: a group of very rich people gather at an ostentatiously large, secluded retreat. The SUVs are black, tinted, sleek. The jets are private. The egos are large, the staff sprawling and mostly unseen, the decor both sterile and unimaginably expensive. This is the distinctive milieu of Succession, the HBO juggernaut which turned the pitiful exploits of a bunch of media mogul failsons into Shakespearean drama for four critically acclaimed seasons. It is also the now familiar aesthetic of a range of eat-the-rich satires plumbing our oligarchic times for heady ridicule, if increasingly futile insight – The Menu, Triangle of Sadness, Knives Out: Glass Onion, Parasite, The White Lotus and the recent A24 disappointment Death of a Unicorn to name a few. (That's not to mention countless mediocre shows on the foibles of the wealthy, such as this month's The Better Sister and Sirens.) So suffice to say, I approached Mountainhead, Succession creator Jesse Armstrong's first post-series project about four tech billionaire friends gathering for poker as one's AI innovation wreaks havoc on the globe, with a sense of pre-existing fatigue. The market of ultra-rich satire is, to use the logic of Armstrong's characters, saturated. (Or, to use their language: 'I would seriously rather fix sub-Saharan Africa than launch a Sweetgreen challenger in the current market.') There's more than a whiff of Argestes, the second-season Succession episode at a billionaire mountain retreat, to these shots of private cars pulling up to a huge chalet hugged by snowcapped peaks. And though Armstrong, who solely wrote and directed the film, continues his avoidance of easy one-to-ones, there's more than a whiff of Elon Musk to Venis (Cory Michael Smith), an AI company CEO and the richest person in the world with a tenuous grasp on reality, a stupendous sense of nihilism and unrepentant need to assert his own virility (the landscape, he notes, is 'so beautiful you can fuck it'). In some ways, it's a relief to see tech bros, especially AI entrepreneurs, reach full, unambiguous movie-villain status. Already, there is a competently made movie for the Doge era, and Armstrong, as ever, can nail hairpin turns of phrase on the sentence level. But as much as I hate to contribute to the 'anti anti-rich content' discourse, on which much ink has already been spilled, I can't say Mountainhead refuted any expectations of reality fatigue; watching Venis, host Soup (Jason Schwartzman, playing the least rich of the group, and thus nicknamed after a soup kitchen), Marc Andreessen-esque venture capitalist Randall (a miscast Steve Carell), and fellow AI wunderkind Jeff (Ramy Youssef) brainstorm plans for the post-human future as more of a slog than if I were high-altitude hiking with them. To be honest, I'm not sure any classic satire – as in, using irony or exaggeration to highlight hypocrisies, vices and stupidity – could work for the second Trump administration, at once dumber and more destructive than the first, nor the release of generative AI on the public. Both require a level of hypernormalization and devaluing of reality that make the idea of enlightening ridiculousness feel, well, ridiculous. Even the most inventive writers and performers will struggle to craft humor out of beyond farcical political figures and norms degraded beyond recognition (see: Mark Ruffalo's effete and grating parody of Trump in Bong Joon-Ho's Mickey 17). Succession, which ran from 2018 to 2023, soared on its 'ludicrosity', to borrow a made-up term from its billionaire patriarch Logan Roy, with a precise critical distance from reality. The deeply cynical, psychically fragile, acid-tongued media conglomerate family loosely based on the Murdochs were just far enough removed from the real Fox News timeline. Its inverted morals, barren decadence and high irony the right angle of fun-house mirror to become, in my view, the defining show of the Trump era, without ever mentioning his name. But we are in a different era now, and the same tools feel too blunt to meet it. Mountainhead shares much of the same DNA as Succession, from Armstrong to producers to crew, to trademark euphemisms (why say 'murdered' when you can say 'placeholdered'?) It was completed on an extraordinarily fast timeline – pitched in December 2024, written (partly in the back of cars while scouting locations) this winter, filmed in Park City in March and released by end of May – giving it the feel of a streaming experiment for the second, more transparently oligarchic Trump term. How fast can you make an HBO movie? How can you satirize current events moving at a speed too fast for any ordinary citizen to keep up, let alone be reasonably informed? 'The way it was shot naturally simulated Adderall,' Youssef told the Atlantic, and it shows. Mountainhead plays out less like a drama between four tenuously connected, very rich friends, and more like a random word generator of tech and finance bro jargon – decel (deceleration, as in AI), p(doom) (the probability of an AI apocalypse), first principles. (Armstrong, by his own admission, binged episodes of the All-In podcast, which features prominent investors and Trump's AI/crypto czar David Sacks.) The backgroup of this billionaire conclave are series of escalating crises from Venis's guardrail-less AI that feel themselves AI generated – women and children burned alive in a mosque, a deluge of deepfakes that imperils governments in Armenia, Uzbekistan, Japan, Ohio. Italy defaults on its debt. Should they take over Argentina? Buy Haiti? 'Are we the bolsheviks of a new techno world order that starts tonight?' The deluge of contextless, characterless chaos – Succession's Kendall would call this dialogue 'complicated airflow' – succeeds in highlighting the depersonalizing effect of Silicon Valley's many innovations. None of this feels real, because none of this is real to these characters. Millions of No Real Persons Involved. But that is undercut by a pervasive sense of self-importance. Like the irksome climate-change satire Don't Look Up, directed by Succession executive producer Adam McKay, the exaggerated hijinks of Mountainhead reveal a deep self-assurance of its politics that border on smug. It's not that it doesn't, like Succession, attempt to humanize these figures – each billionaire has an Achilles heel of morality or mortality, though by now the fallibility of Musk-like figures is far from a revelation. It's that the drama between these billionaires felt frictionless – mostly unchallenged by secondary figures and impervious to other perspectives, at once predictable and insufferable to watch. Every human has their unique foibles and contradictions, but Mountainhead found itself too enthralled by figures who are no longer interesting, if they ever were. I found myself longing for more than two minutes with the girlfriend, the ex-wife, the assistant, the board member, let alone one of the many staff at the house – anyone to de-center a perspective that has already claimed far too much oxygen in the public sphere. For a Real Person to get involved. But that may be beyond this flavor of satire, now in an era of diminishing returns.
TechCrunch
16-05-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
How Silicon Valley's influence in Washington benefits the tech elite
Elon Musk isn't the only tech billionaire with power over the federal agencies that regulate his businesses. Since Donald Trump took office, more than three dozen employees, allies, and investors of Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Palmer Luckey have taken roles at federal agencies, helping direct billions in contracts to their companies. Companies owned, founded, or invested in by Musk, Thiel, Andreessen, and Luckey have collected more than a dozen federal contracts totaling about $6 billion since Trump's inauguration in January, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. And they're actively pursuing billions more. Those appointments, which are in departments that oversee, regulate, and award business to the four men's companies, raise a number of red flags. They could violate conflict of interest laws or government ethics regulations, both of which prohibit federal employees from using public office for private gain. And while it's not unusual to install trusted allies in government roles, Musk's network has moved in at an unprecedented rate and scale. TechCrunch has previously reported on all of the people in Musk's universe who have joined him at DOGE, where he has shuttered federal agencies and slashed workforces in departments that regulate his businesses. At least 19 others with Silicon Valley connections, be they founders or investors, have also joined DOGE. 'The second Trump administration is actually the first in recent years to not impose any sort of additional ethics safeguards on high level appointees,' Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center's Elections & Government Program, told TechCrunch. He noted that Trump fired at least 17 people at the Office of Government Ethics, including the director, immediately after taking office. 'It certainly does potentially increase the risk that you have people working on matters that do impact, at least indirectly, their bottom lines,' Weiner said. 'But this is a long-term issue in our government that's not unique to this administration.' Innovation versus accountability Peter Thiel speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference.(Photo by Marco Bello) Image Credits:Getty Images Some may argue that it makes sense for employees and associates of Musk, Thiel, Andreessen, and Luckey to join government agencies. Their insiders are talented individuals who are behind the cutting-edge technology the government genuinely needs, and they understand how to innovate quickly and compete globally. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW More serious questions arise when favoritism threatens to undermine competition, when policy is created or destroyed to protect market dominance, or when regulations that would serve the public good are waylaid to promote business interests. For instance, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently retreated from pursuing rules that would restrict data brokers, despite growing privacy concerns – a shift that stands to benefit companies involved in AI, surveillance, and data analytics. Another example is DOGE's firing of staffers at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration who investigate autonomous vehicle safety, including several probes into Tesla. 'One of the defining structural challenges the government of the United States has right now is that we have a system in which the very wealthiest interests have so much power to shape our elections and then turn around and shape government policy,' Weiner said. Another Silicon Valley appointee, Mike Kratsios – a former Thiel employee – is now leading technology policy for the U.S. government. In an April speech, he spoke about throwing away bad regulations that 'weigh down our innovators,' particularly those who are innovating in AI. 'Many people in Silicon Valley tend to think that whatever worked in Silicon Valley is also going to work for administering the United States government,' Weiner said. 'And as we're seeing now, the danger is a lot of people are going to get hurt because of the assumptions they make.' 'The fact that you had a successful startup after five others failed doesn't necessarily mean you know how to run the Social Security Administration,' he continued. A network inside and a payoff outside Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Image Credits:Getty Images All of the businesses between Musk, Thiel, Andreessen, and Luckey are related. Musk's SpaceX was backed by Thiel's Founders Fund and Andreessen's a16z (which also invested in X and xAI). Both of those VCs also backed Anduril, Luckey's defense startup. The overlapping network of founders, funders, and insiders extends into several federal agencies. And in many cases, those agencies are steering billions in federal contracts back to those companies. The Journal found that across Washington, people from Musk's network, including Tesla, X, and SpaceX, are in more than a dozen agencies, from the executive office of the president and Office of Personnel Management all the way down to the Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy. SpaceX employees are also in agencies that could provide the company new business. For example, the Journal reports that SpaceX senior engineer Theodore Malaska got an ethics waiver in February that lets him take a temporary job at the Federal Aviation Administration while still working at the rocket company. The FAA hasn't given any contracts to SpaceX yet, but Malaska said on X the agency has used Starlink to upgrade a weather observing system in Alaska. SpaceX is also the main commercial provider that transports crew and cargo for NASA. Despite national security concerns – like the company's secret backdoor for Chinese investment and Musk's reported habit of drug-taking – SpaceX in April won $5.9 billion of a $13.7 billion multi-year contract from the U.S. Space Force in April to launch Pentagon missions. The DOD, which is currently a Starlink customer, also plans to buy SpaceX's Starshield satellites, a militarized version of the internet satellites. Employees at Thiel-backed firms have found themselves in roles in the State Department, the Office of Management and Budget, Health and Human Services, and Social Security, per The Wall Street Journal. Thiel's Palantir has already been awarded nearly $376 million since 2020 from Health and Human Services. In 2024, the company was also awarded at least $1.2 billion in Department of Defense contracts in 2024, and is in the running for another $100 million deal. Anduril, Palantir, and SpaceX recently submitted a multibillion-dollar proposal for Trump's 'Golden Dome' missile-defense program, which would also add to Anduril's existing contracts with the U.S. Army. Recently, Anduril and Microsoft took over a 2021 contract worth up to $22 billion to develop AR headsets, per the Journal. An Anduril executive, Michael Obadal, has been nominated to a top role at the Department of Defense. In his ethics disclosure, he stated that he would retain his Anduril stock if appointed. TechCrunch has reached out to Anduril, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Palantir, and SpaceX for comment. 'This sort of concentration of private wealth and political power is ultimately very risky for our economy,' Weiner said. 'Because instead of the government making decisions that are intended to foster competition, foster economic growth, you run the real risk that government decisions are going to instead be structured around protecting particular companies and particular industries from full economic competition.'
