Your reaction in the first instance to President Biden endorsing Kamala Harris as nominee?
Well, first you've got to give Joe Biden credit. It's an extraordinary act of selflessness for him to step down, having won the nomination, and to do what he thinks is right for the country, to basically say, I'm going to step down. It's time to bring in a new generation and to throw things open now. He endorsed Kamala Harris, but there's still going to be a process. And what we've seen now, I think, is quite exciting. Everybody in the world is watching what's going to happen next. There's going to be some new blood in the Democratic Party. Is it going to be Kamala Harris, which is terrific, or is it going to be someone else? And I think there's going to be at least one, maybe two other people that come into the race. I think it's going to add a lot of excitement to the race. It's going to mobilize Democratic

voters.
Everybody's going to be tuning into the convention.
It's just what you want. If you're a
Steve, you are in a large group of silicon, Silicon Valley or technologist
Dem donors and backers who are doing the math, and you're trying to calculate who
can win against Trump. Vance, do you think that Kamala Harris can win?
Absolutely. She's a known entity.
She's got high voter I.D. She's an articulate person, under a
former prosecutor. She will do very well in the debate.
And she's vibrant. She's all over high energy.
But there are other candidates like that, too.
I think the one who is most mentioned is Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
We'll see. I'm guessing, who knows?
But I'm guessing there'll be at least one other candidate in the race.
And I think it's just what the Democratic Party needs is to inject some
new blood to run against a 78-year-old

candidate who seems to be fuzzy on a lot
of the issues. I think it's a big opportunity for the
Democrats, a lot of energy. Everybody's going to be watching.
Steve, what about the opportunity to finance the Democrats right now?
How much do you think this is going to inspire?
Well, more of Silicon Valley to start speaking out about who they endorse and
with their money. Well, look, first there's going to be
enormous amounts of money that come in on both sides in terms of Silicon
Valley. I can just tell you right now, Silicon
Valley has gone roughly 80, 24 Democrats over the past two or three or four
elections. I think it's going to be the same this
time. If you look at the current
administration's support of the CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure bill, the
Inflation Reduction Act, the largest green energy stimulus in the history of
the planet, nobody other than Biden

could have gotten this time.
Stock market, historic highs; unemployment, historic lows.
And if there's one thing Silicon Valley and business in general really looks
for, it's stability. I think the Democrats have provided
that. I don't think anybody can say that that
is Mr. Trump's strength.
So we'll see how that involves. But I expect Silicon Valley to go
strongly for the Democrat, whoever it is.
But Steve, this far man, you know, well, having been on the board of Tesla,
having supported Elon Musk's companies in the past, he's giving 45 million a
month, we understand, to a PAC that supports Trump, whereas we look to the
previous full screen. And Reid Hoffman was the biggest donor
previously with a $25 million check. How do you see those sorts of numbers
adding up? Will there be someone who can match that
sort of huge gift that we see coming from the world's wealthiest man?
Absolutely.

Look, there's going to be huge amounts
of money that come in on both sides, but there are a lot of people,
Miss Gates and Bezos. Many of the wealthiest people in the
world are strong Democrats. And I think you're going to see equal
many matched, if not more coming in on the Democratic side.
And again, with the Democrats have provided over the last four years,
historically high stock market rates, historically low unemployment.
This is a good story to campaign on. And if you can wrap all that together
with a strong new candidate, whether it's Kamala Harris or someone else, I
think that's a winning package for the Democratic Party.
Steve, a criticism of President Biden's term in office has been his attitude
toward and lack of engagement with Elon Musk in the context of electric vehicles
and SpaceX as well. Do you expect Kamala Harris or whoever
the Democratic nominee ends up being to change policy that.
Not for a moment.

I think the Biden administration has been a champion not only for green energy, but to stimulate this boom in electric vehicles. And the great news is not only are electric vehicles becoming cheaper every year, they're creating huge jobs, battery plants, EV plants being built around the country and blue and red states, which for the first time this year, you're going to see EVs at parity for internal combustion engine vehicles. This is something that's wildly popular, especially for young people. Biden administration. And I think any of the Democratic nominees are going to be strongly in favor of the new green economy and the 15 million jobs that the administration has created over the last 40 years. I think Trump may be the odd guy out to be holding on, embracing an internal combustion engine vehicles at a time when they're less popular than they have been in the past.

Biden Drops Out, Harris Comes In: What it Means for Tech

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