Billionaire tech leaders’ move toward Trump has created a split with workers in Silicon Valley

Billionaire tech leaders’ move toward Trump has created a split with workers in Silicon Valley
Demonstrators rally against President Trump and TESLA CEO Elon Musk in San Jose, California, as part of a day of action on April 5, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 14 April 2025
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Billionaire tech leaders’ move toward Trump has created a split with workers in Silicon Valley

Billionaire tech leaders’ move toward Trump has created a split with workers in Silicon Valley
  • Trump has filled a number of his administration’s posts with billionaires and his support from wealthy tech leaders led Democratic President Joe Biden to warn that the US risked becoming an oligarchy ruled by elite

SAN JOSE, California: Like many in the tech industry, Jeremy Lyons used to think of himself as a relatively apolitical guy.
The only time he had participated in a demonstration before now was in the opening days of Donald Trump’s first presidential term, when he joined fellow Google workers walking out of the company’s Silicon Valley campus to protest immigration restrictions. Google’s co-founder and its chief executive officer joined them.
Last weekend was Lyons’ second, also against Trump, but it had a very different feel.
The man directing thousands of marchers with a bullhorn in downtown San Jose on April 5 was another tech worker who would not give his full name for fear of being identified by Trump backers. Marchers were urged not to harass drivers of Tesla vehicles, which have gone from a symbol of Silicon Valley’s environmental futurism to a pro-Trump icon. And no tech executives were anywhere to be seen, only months after several had joined Trump at his January inauguration.
To Lyons, 54, the change says as much about what’s happened to Silicon Valley over the past quarter-century as it does about the atmosphere of fear surrounding many Trump critics nowadays.
“One of the things I’ve seen over that time is a shift from a nerdy utopia to a money first, move fast and break things,” Lyons said.
Political gap seen between tech leaders and their workforce
The tech industry’s political allegiances remain divided. But as some in the upper echelons of Silicon Valley began shifting to the right politically, many of the tech industry’s everyday workers have remained liberal — but also increasingly nervous and disillusioned. Their mood is in stark contrast to the prominent tech leaders who have embraced a conservative populist ideology.
“I think you’re seeing a real gap between the leadership elite here in Silicon Valley and their workforce,” said Ann Skeet, who helps run a center at Santa Clara University studying the ethics of the tech industry.
“The shift hasn’t been for a lot of people,” said Lenny Siegel, a former mayor of Mountain View and longtime liberal activist in the valley. “It’s a handful of people who’ve gotten the attention.”
The biggest example of that is Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and CEO of the world’s best-known electric car company who has taken on a prominent role slashing federal agencies in Trump’s administration. Musk has been joined by several tech billionaires, including investor David Sacks, who helped fundraise for Trump’s campaign and became the White House’s artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, and venture capitalist Marc Andreesen. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also attended Trump’s inauguration in Washington.
Zuckerberg began praising Trump after the then-candidate, angered over money Zuckerberg steered toward local election offices in some states in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, threatened last summer to imprison him. Zuckerberg also donated $1 million to the president’s inauguration fund and co-hosted an inauguration reception for billionaire Republican donors.
Trump has filled a number of his administration’s posts with billionaires and his support from wealthy tech leaders led Democratic President Joe Biden to warn that the United States risked becoming an oligarchy ruled by elites. During Trump’s first term, the valley and its leaders were a bulwark of resistance to the Republican, especially over immigration, given that the industry draws its workforce from around the globe.
It’s against that backdrop that thousands of people attended the recent rally at a downtown San Jose park to protest the actions of Trump and Musk.
Even as tech industry has changed, Silicon Valley has leaned Democratic
Santa Clara County, which comprises most of Silicon Valley, swung 8 percentage points toward Trump in November election against Democrat Kamala Harris, matching the shift across California. Even with that swing, the county voted 68 percent to 28 percent for the then-vice president and remains a Democratic stronghold.
“We’re still in the belly of the beast,” said Dave Johnson, the new executive director of the Santa Clara GOP, who said the party has gained some new members in the county but few from the tech industry. “If the lake was frozen, there’s a little glimmer on top. I would not say there are cracks in the ice.”
The valley has long leaned Democratic, but with an unusual political mix: a general dislike of getting too involved in Washington’s business coupled with an at-times contradictory mix of libertarian individualism, Bay Area activism and belief in the ability of science to solve the world’s problems.
That has persisted even as the tech industry has changed.
The tech boom was fueled by scrappy startups that catered to their workers’ dreams of changing the world for the better. Google’s motto was “don’t be evil,” a phrase it removed from its code of conduct by 2018, when it and other companies such as Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, had grown into multinational behemoths. The companies have had layoffs in recent years, a shock to an industry that not long ago seemed poised for unlimited growth.
Entrepreneurs once dreamed of building startups that would change the world, said Jan English-Lueck, a San Jose State University professor who has been studying Silicon Valley culture for more than 20 years.
“Now,” she said, “if you’re part of a startup, you’re hoping you’ll be absorbed in a way that’s profitable.”
Discontent among some in the tech industry about where it’s headed
Even before some prominent tech leaders shifted toward Trump, there was mounting discontent among some in the industry over its direction. IdaRose Sylvester runs a business promoting a Silicon Valley-style approach to entrepreneurs in other countries.
“I feel sick to my stomach now,” she said.
Sylvester was already disenchanted with the growing inequality in the valley and the environmental cost of all the energy needed to power crypto, AI and data centers. She took part in protests against Trump in 2017, but felt that energy fade once he lost the 2020 election to Biden.
“I saw a lot of people get out of politics once Biden won. There was a feeling it was all OK,” Sylvester said. “It was not all OK.”
It is worse now, she said. She helped organize one of several demonstrations across the valley last weekend during a national day of protests against the new administration.
At first glance, the one in downtown San Jose could have been a typical anti-Trump protest anywhere. A large crowd of largely middle-age and older people carried signs against the president and Musk while chanting against oligarchs.
But it was clearly a Silicon Valley crowd, one still reeling not only from Trump’s challenges to the country’s system of checks and balances but also from the actions of the valley’s top executives.
“The money is all shifting to the wealthiest, and that terrifies me,” said Dianne Wood, who works at a startup. “Unfortunately, you’ve got the Zuckerbergs and Elon Musks of the world who are taking that over.”
“Just coming here, everyone’s saying turn off the facial recognition on your phone,” Wood added. “We’re all scared.”
Kamal Ali, who works in AI, said he felt betrayed by that shift.
“The trust is broken. A lot of employees are very upset by what’s going on,” he said. “It’s going to be different forever.”
 


Europe launches a drive to attract scientists and researchers after Trump freezes US funding

Europe launches a drive to attract scientists and researchers after Trump freezes US funding
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Europe launches a drive to attract scientists and researchers after Trump freezes US funding

Europe launches a drive to attract scientists and researchers after Trump freezes US funding
  • The European Union is launching a drive to attract scientists and researchers with offers of grants and new policy plans
  • It comes after the Trump administration froze US government funding linked to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives
PARIS:The European Union launched a drive on Monday to attract scientists and researchers to Europe with offers of grants and new policy plans, after the Trump administration froze US government funding linked to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“A few years ago, no one would have imagined that one of the biggest democracies in the world would cancel research programs under the pretext that the word diversity was in this program,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at the “Choose Europe for Science” event in Paris.
“No one would have thought that one of the biggest democracies in the world would delete with a stroke the ability of one researcher or another to obtain visas,” Macron said. “But here we are.”
Taking the same stage at the Sorbonne University, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU’s executive branch would set up a “super grant” program aimed at offering “a longer-term perspective to the very best” in the field.
She said that 500 million euros ($566 million) will be put forward in 2025-2027 “to make Europe a magnet for researchers.” It would be injected into the European Research Council, which already has a budget of more than 16 billion euros ($18 billion) for 2021-2027.
Von der Leyen said that the 27-nation EU intends “to enshrine freedom of scientific research into law” with a new legal act. As “the threats rise across the world, Europe will not compromise on its principles,” she said.
Macron said that the French government would also soon make new proposals to beef up investment in science and research.
Last month, hundreds of university researchers in the United States had National Science Foundation funding canceled to comply with US President Donald Trump’s order to end support to research on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as the study of misinformation.
More than 380 grant projects have been cut so far, including work to combat Internet censorship in China and Iran and a project consulting with Indigenous communities to understand environmental changes in Alaska’s Arctic region.
Some terminated grants that sought to broaden the diversity of people studying science, technology and engineering. Scientists, researchers and doctors have taken to the streets in protest.
While not mentioning the Trump administration by name, von der Leyen said that it was “a gigantic miscalculation” to undermine free and open research.
“We can all agree that science has no passport, no gender, no ethnicity, no political party,” she said. “We believe that diversity is an asset of humanity and the lifeblood of science. It is one of the most valuable global assets and it must be protected.”
Von der Leyen’s drive to promote opportunities in Europe in the field of science and take advantage of US policy shifts dovetails with the way that she has played up the potential for trade deals with other countries since Trump took office in January and sparked a tariff war last month.
The former German defense minister, and trained doctor, vowed that the EU would also address some of the roadblocks that scientists and researchers face, notably excessive red tape and access to businesses.
Macron said that science and research must not “be based on the diktats of the few.”
Macron said that Europe “must become a refuge” for scientists and researchers, and he said to those who feel under threat elsewhere: “The message is simple. If you like freedom, come and help us to remain free, to do research here, to help us become better, to invest in our future.”

Pakistan conducts second missile test since renewed India standoff

Pakistan conducts second missile test since renewed India standoff
Updated 05 May 2025
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Pakistan conducts second missile test since renewed India standoff

Pakistan conducts second missile test since renewed India standoff

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan military said on Monday it had conducted a missile test with a range of 120 kilometers (75 miles), the second launch in two days as tensions with India have soared over disputed Kashmir.
New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on tourists on the Indian side of Kashmir last month, sparking a fresh stand-off between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
“The launch was aimed at ensuring the operational readiness of troops and validating key technical parameters, including the missile’s advanced navigation system and enhanced accuracy,” the military said in a statement.
On Saturday, the military said it had tested a surface-to-surface missile with a range of 450 kilometers (280 miles).
It did not say where either of the tests took place.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he was satisfied with the military’s “full preparedness for national defense.”
“The successful training launch clearly shows that Pakistan’s defense is in strong hands,” he said in a statement.
The missile training launch comes after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he has given his military “full operational freedom” to respond to the April 22 attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 people.
Pakistan has denied any involvement and called for an independent probe.
Islamabad warned last week of an imminent air strike from its neighbor and has repeatedly made clear it will respond with force to any aggression by India.
International pressure has been piled on both New Delhi and Islamabad — who have fought several wars over the disputed Kashmir region — to de-escalate.
The two sides have exchanged nightly gunfire for more than a week nine along the militarised Line of Control, the de facto border, according to Indian defense sources.
Muslim-majority Kashmir, a region of around 15 million people, is divided between Pakistan and India but claimed in full by both.
On the Pakistani side, emergency drills have been carried out on playing fields, residents have been told to stock up on food and medicine, and religious schools have been closed.
In Indian-run Kashmir, a vast manhunt seeking the gunmen continues across the territory, while those living along the frontier are moving further away — or cleaning out bunkers fearing conflict.
Sharif has postponed an official visit to Malaysia scheduled for Friday as tensions mounted, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Monday.
His office said the two sides spoke on Sunday night and that he “conveyed that he looked forward to paying an official visit to Malaysia later this year.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Islamabad on Monday for an official visit.
“Pakistan is presenting its case to friendly countries,” Information Minister Attaullah Tarar told reporters on a visit to Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Monday.


Indigenous Catholics hope the next pope shares Francis’ approach to Native people

Indigenous Catholics hope the next pope shares Francis’ approach to Native people
Updated 05 May 2025
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Indigenous Catholics hope the next pope shares Francis’ approach to Native people

Indigenous Catholics hope the next pope shares Francis’ approach to Native people
  • Francis was the first Latin American pope and the first from the order of the Jesuits, who are known for, among other things, their frontline work with society’s most marginalized groups

SIMOJOVEL: At a recent service in the remote southern Mexican community of Simojovel, Catholic and Mayan symbolism mingled at the altar as the deacon — his wife beside him — read the gospel in his native Tsotsil and recalled Pope Francis’ teachings: work together for human rights, justice and Mother Earth.
The scene in the small church in Mexico’s poorest state, Chiapas, conveyed much of the message Francis delivered during his 2016 trip to the region and his other visits to far-flung locales, including the Amazon, Congo and the jungles of Papua New Guinea.
It also illustrated what the world’s Indigenous Catholics don’t want to lose with the death of the first pontiff from the Southern Hemisphere: their relatively newfound voice in an institution that once debated whether “Indians” had souls while backing European powers as they plundered the Americas and Africa.
“We ask God that the work (Francis) did for us not be in vain,” Deacon Juan Pérez Gómez told his small congregation. “We ask you to choose a new pope, a new servant, who hopefully Lord thinks the same way.”
Empowering Indigenous believers
Francis was the first Latin American pope and the first from the order of the Jesuits, who are known for, among other things, their frontline work with society’s most marginalized groups. Although some feel Francis could have done more for their people during his 12 years as pontiff, Indigenous Catholics widely praise him for championing their causes, asking forgiveness for the church’s historical wrongs, and allowing them to incorporate aspects of their Native cultures into practicing their faith.
Among the places where his death has hit particularly hard are the lowlands of the Bolivian Amazon, which was home to Jesuit missions centuries ago that Francis praised for bringing Christianity and European-style education and economic organization to Indigenous people in a more humane way.
Marcial Fabricano, a 73-year-old leader of the Indigenous Mojeño people, remembers crying during Francis’ 2015 visit to Bolivia when the pope sought forgiveness for crimes the church committed against Indigenous people during the colonial-era conquest of the Americas. Before the visit, his and other Indigenous groups sent Francis a message asking him to push the authorities to respect them.
“I believe that Pope Francis read our message and it moved him,” he said. “We are the last bastion of the missions. … We can’t be ignored.”
That South American tour came shortly after the publication of one of Francis’ most important encyclicals in which he called for a revolution to fix a “structurally perverse” global economic system that allows the rich to exploit the poor and turns the Earth into “immense pile of filth.” He also encouraged the church to support movements defending the territory of marginalized people and financing their initiatives.
“For the first time, (a pope) felt like us, thought like us and was our great ally,” said Anitalia Pijachi Kuyuedo, a Colombian member of the Okaira-Muina Murui people who participated in the 2019 Amazon Synod in Rome, where Francis showed interest in everything related to the Amazon, including the roles of women.
Pijachi Kuyuendo, 45, said she hopes the next pope also works closely with Native people. “With his death, we face huge challenges.”
A wider path for the church
Pérez Gómez, 57, is able to help tend to his small Tsotsil Catholic community in Mexico because the church restarted a deaconship program under Francis.
Facing a priest shortage in the 1960s, the church pushed the idea of deacons — married men who can perform some priestly rituals, such as baptisms, but not others, such as conducting Mass and hearing confession.
Samuel Ruiz, who spent four decades as bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas trying to improve the lives of Chiapas’ Indigenous people, saw deaconships as a way to promote the faith among them and form what he called a “Native church.” The deaconship initiative was such a hit in Ruiz’s diocese, though, that the Vatican halted it there in 2002, worried that Ruiz was using it as a step toward allowing married priests and female deacons. The halt was lifted in 2014.
Pérez Gómez, who waited 20 years before he was finally ordained a deacon in 2022, said he was inspired by Ruiz’s vision for a “Native church.” He said Francis reminded him of Ruiz, who died in 2011 and whom he credits with explaining the church’s true purpose to him as “liberator and evangelizer.”
“Francis also talked about liberation,” Pérez Gómez said, adding that he hopes the next pope shares that view.
New ways to celebrate Mass
It had been a half-century since the Vatican allowed Mass to be held in languages other than Latin when Francis visited Chiapas in 2016 and went a step further.
During a Mass that was the highlight of his visit, the Lord’s Prayer was sung in Tsotsil, readings were conducted in two other Mayan languages, Tseltal and Ch’ol, congregants danced while praying and Indigenous women stood at the altar.
Chiapas was a politically sensitive choice for the Pope’s visit, which wasn’t easily negotiated with the Vatican or Mexican government, according to Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi, who was then bishop of San Cristobal. In 1994, it saw an armed uprising by the Zapatistas, who demanded rights for Indigenous peoples.
Getting the Vatican to allow Mayan rituals in the Mass was also tricky, but Arizmendi recalled that there was a helpful precedent: Congo.
In 1988, the Vatican approved the first cultural innovation in a Mass, the so-called Zaire rite, which is a source of national pride and continental inclusion, said the Rev. Abbé Paul Agustin Madimba, a priest in Kinshasa. “It shows the value the church gives Africans.”
Francis cited the Zaire rite, which allowed some local music and dance to be incorporated into Mass, to argue for such accommodations with other Indigenous Catholics around the world.
The decision was made not only to expand Catholicism, which is in retreat in many places, “but also a theological act of deep listening and conversion, where the church recognizes that it is not the owner of cultural truth, but rather servant of the gospel for each people,” said Arturo Lomelí, a Mexican social anthropologist.
It was the Vatican’s way to see Indigenous rituals not as “threats, but rather as legitimate ways to express and live the faith,” he said.
‘No longer objects’
On the Saturday after Francis’ death, Pérez Gómez stopped by a church in the town near his village to pick up the Communion wafers he would give out during his service the next day. Because he’s a deacon, he needs a priest to consecrate them for him ahead of time.
He and his wife, Crecencia López, don’t know who the next pope will be, but they hope he’s someone who shares Francis’ respect for Indigenous people. And they smile at the thought that perhaps one day, he could become a priest and she a deacon.
“We are no longer objects, but rather people” and that is thanks to God and his envoys, “jtatik Samuel (Ruiz)” and “jtatik Francis,” Pérez Gómez said, using a paternal term of great respect in Tseltal.


Ukraine says it shot down 42 drones from Russia but two regions hit

Ukraine says it shot down 42 drones from Russia but two regions hit
Updated 05 May 2025
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Ukraine says it shot down 42 drones from Russia but two regions hit

Ukraine says it shot down 42 drones from Russia but two regions hit
  • The military said that Russia also attacked Ukraine with two ballistic missiles that were not shot down

KYIV: Ukraine’s air defense units shot down 42 of 116 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack that hit the regions of Sumy and Donetsk, the military said on Monday.
It said another 21 drones were lost but did not disclose the fate of the remaining 53, noting that Sumy and Donetsk “suffered as a result of the attack.”
The military said that Russia also attacked Ukraine with two ballistic missiles that were not shot down.
Civilian authorities in Ukraine did not immediately comment on the overnight attacks.


France, EU leaders spearhead effort to lure US scientists

France, EU leaders spearhead effort to lure US scientists
Updated 05 May 2025
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France, EU leaders spearhead effort to lure US scientists

France, EU leaders spearhead effort to lure US scientists

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen host a Paris conference Monday to attract US researchers ready to relocate because of President Donald Trump’s policies.
EU commissioners, scientists and ministers for research from member countries will discuss, among other things, financial incentives at the gathering to lure disgruntled American scientists across the Atlantic.
Paris’s Sorbonne university is hosting the conference, called “Choose Europe for Science,” which is to close with speeches by Macron and von der Leyen.

 

Under Trump, universities and research facilities in the United States have come under increasing political and financial pressure, including from threats of massive federal funding cuts.
Research programs face closure, tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, while foreign students fear possible deportation for their political views.
The European Union hopes to offer an alternative for researchers and, by the same token, “defend our strategic interests and promote a universalist vision,” an official in Macron’s office told AFP.
The French president had already last month appealed to foreign, notably US, researchers to “choose France” and unveiled plans for a funding program to help universities and other research bodies cover the cost of bringing foreign scientists to France.

Shortly before, Aix Marseille University in the south of the country said its “Safe Place for Science” scheme received a flood of applicants after announcing in March it would open its doors to US scientists threatened by cuts.

 

Last week, France’s flagship scientific research center CNRS launched a new initiative aimed at attracting foreign researchers whose work is threatened and French researchers working abroad, some of whom “don’t want to live and raise their children in Trump’s United States,” according to CNRS President Antoine Petit.
An official in Macron’s office said Monday’s conference comes “at a time when academic freedoms are retreating and under threat in a number of cases and Europe is a continent of attractiveness.”
Experts say, however, that while EU countries can offer competitive research infrastructure and a high quality of life, research funding and researchers’ remuneration both lag far behind US levels.
But CNRS’s Petit said last week he hoped that the pay gap will seem less significant once the lower cost of education and health, and more generous social benefits are taken into account.
Macron’s office said France and the EU are targeting researchers in a number of specific sectors, including health, climate, biodiversity, artificial intelligence and space.