'The terror is real': Tech insiders are furious at Elon Musk but 'afraid to speak up'
Elon Musk has alienated others involved in the tech industry with his indiscriminate cuts to the federal government, but many of them say they're afraid to speak out publicly against Donald Trump's billionaire adviser.
Politico Magazine spoke to investors, engineers, startup founders and public relations professionals working in tech, many of whom asked to remain anonymous in fear of backlash, and they described a chilling effect over the industry in response as Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency dismantle much of the government.
“Not everyone in tech is supporting Elon Musk,” said Mark, a tech company founder who preferred not to use his last name. “It’s just that you don’t hear their side because they’re afraid to speak up.”
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Silicon Valley has long been a bastion of liberalism, so that hesitation to criticize a Republican president's ally is a sharp turn away from its prevailing culture.
"The terror is real," said Niki Christoff, a tech consultant who experienced culture shock after joining Google after working on John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. “I used to joke that [colleagues] were like, ‘What do you guys eat for breakfast? Puppies?’”
Christoff says her clients aren't willing to speak out against Musk out of fear of losing government contracts, but she said even some crypto executives, who generally view Trump as a champion for their industry, are grumbling in private about DOGE.
“They see this administration as a path to achieve their worldview,” she said, “but that’s really different than them thinking that this is any way to run an operation effectively or efficiently or successfully.”
One early-stage investor who also asked to remain anonymous excoriated Musk's spending cuts, comparing his error-plagued work with DOGE to the founder of biotech firm Theranos who's now serving an 11-year prison term for defrauding investors.
“If Elizabeth Holmes did that she’d be run out of town,” that one early-stage investor said. “When you’re dealing with people’s lives and deaths, errors and fraud and deception land you in jail, not in the Oval Office.”
That investor also said that gutting an organization to make it more efficient was "catastrophically risky," adding that "you would only do that if the risk of the company failing was low.”
"In general, when there’s a strip-down-to-the-bone cost cut, it is not followed by success," he said. "It is followed by a slow spiral of deterioration.”
Tech insiders aren't just appalled by Musk's politics, though many of them are, but they're also angry that DOGE has seemingly discredited their industry.
“We’re all embarrassed by [Musk] at this point, but it’s just quiet muttering over lunch,” said one current Tesla employee.