And Thiel is just one of the tech moguls backing Vance. An analysis by CBS News found that:
"Vance, a relative newcomer to national politics, has assiduously courted billionaires and Silicon Valley titans to bankroll his unlikely rise from bestselling memoirist of despair, drugs and generational poverty in Appalachia to a ticket that could seat him a heartbeat away from the presidency."
The conservative New York Post summarized the state of play in an article headline in July 2024: "Silicon Valley Cheers Vance Pick as More Tech Billionaires Back Trump." And keep in mind that Musk and Vance are not the only advocates for the military-tech sector embedded in the Trump administration. Stephen Feinberg, second-in-charge at the Pentagon, worked for Cerberus Capital, an investment firm that has a history of investing in the handgun and defense industries. And Michael Obadal, a senior director at Anduril, has been selected to serve as the deputy secretary of the Army. A recent analysis by Bloomberg, in fact, found that "more than a dozen people with ties to Thiel -- including current and former employees of his companies, as well as people who have helped manage his fortune or benefited from his investments and charitable giving -- have been folded into the Trump administration."
For their part, the Big Five arms contractors, led by Lockheed Martin, still have a firm foothold in Congress, having made millions in campaign contributions, employed hundreds of lobbyists serving on commissions that influence military spending and strategy, and placed their facilities in a majority of the states and districts in the country. Even if some in the Pentagon tried to phase out the F-35, Congress might well add funds to that institution's budget request to save the program.
Recent procurement decisions suggest that there may be a desire in both Congress and the Trump administration to finance traditional contractors and emerging tech firms alike. The two largest recent program announcements -- Boeing's selection as the prime contractor for that F-47 next generation combat aircraft and President Trump's commitment to a "Golden Dome" defense system supposedly geared to protecting the entire United States from incoming missiles -- will offer ample opportunities to both traditional arms firms and emerging military tech companies. The procurement phase of the F-47 program could cost up to $20 billion, but as Dan Grazier of the Stimson Center has noted, that $20 billion will be "just seed money. The total costs coming down the road will be hundreds of billions of dollars." Meanwhile, General Atomics and Anduril are competing to build drone "wingmen" that would work in coordination with those future F-47s in battle situations.
At this point, President Trump's Golden Dome isn't a fully fleshed out concept, but count on one thing: attempting to meet his goal of a comprehensive, leakproof defense against missiles would require building large numbers of interceptors and new military satellites woven together with advanced communications and targeting systems, at a potential cost over time of hundreds of billions of dollars. And while the big weapons firms may have an inside track on building the hardware for the Golden Dome, emerging tech firms are better positioned to produce the software, targeting, surveillance, and communications components of the system.
Golden Dome is poised to go forward despite the fact that, as Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists has asserted, "It has been long understood that defending against a sophisticated nuclear arsenal is technically and economically unfeasible." But that reality won't stem the flow of massive quantities of tax dollars into the project, no matter how unrealistic it may be, since profits from producing it will be all too realistic.
Resistance Rising?
There are signs of growing resistance to the Musk/Trump agenda from lawsuits, to rallies against the oligarchy led by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), to a boycott of Musk's Tesla automobiles. Such efforts will need to be supplemented by the involvement of millions more people, including Trump supporters hurt by his cuts to essential programs that had helped them stay above water financially. The outcome of all this may be uncertain, but the stakes simply couldn't be higher.
Copyright 2025 William D. Hartung
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