I come from an evangelical background. In the 1970s I was my father’s sidekick. My father was Francis Schaeffer. Along with C. Everett Koop, Ronald Reagan’s Surgeon General, he helped create the Religious Right. That movement eventually morphed into MAGA and helped put Donald Trump in the White House.
I take responsibility for that history. But religion alone did not put Trump in power.
What really put Trump in the White House were the tech billionaires.
And that is why the tech billionaires who sold out to Trump killed Alex Pretti.
Let me explain.
Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander at large, terrorized people across America dressed like a Nazi extra in a trench coat, marching around with armed goons.
He is not an outlier. He is a case study in cruelty. He is the kind of man Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk admire and emulate.
Musk mocks women whose images his Grok chatbot strips and turns into involuntary pornography. Zuckerberg has spent millions on lobbyists and public relations to avoid accountability for the social media addiction that has fueled teenage self-harm and suicide. Suffering means nothing to these men as long as they profit and remain unregulated.
Both Musk and Zuckerberg fetishize macho male role models. They play at masculinity. They build bodies with trainers and surgeons. They want to look like Bovino instead of what they fear being seen as:
Sexless nerds who never grew up.
The proposed cage fight between Musk and Zuckerberg told us everything we needed to know. It was never going to happen. These men hide behind private security armies and bomb shelters while the rest of us face the consequences of their actions. Zuckerberg eventually called it off. Musk teased it endlessly. It was theater. Empty bravado. Performance masculinity.
And remember why Zuckerberg created Facebook in the first place. To rate the bodies of women at Harvard. He did not invent a social platform. He built a machine for humiliation, addiction, and power.
As The Atlantic reported in late January, Silicon Valley’s top CEOs have been silent after federal agents killed civilians in Minneapolis. They are not silent because they are conflicted. They are silent because they are invested.
They are not just Trump supporters. They are his most ardent and needy backers. They are counting on his corruption to protect them from democracy itself.
Democracy regulates. The rule of law applies. These men want immunity. Absolute immunity. JD Vance style. The same immunity Vance promises to ICE killers.
Hours after Alex Pretti was killed, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy attended a private White House screening of a puff-piece documentary about Melania Trump. They ate popcorn and sugar cookies while demonstrators across America were beaten and arrested.
During Trump’s inauguration, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, Musk, and Cook sat smiling behind a con artist and draft dodger in the Capitol Rotunda. Their obsequiousness has not stopped. Cook presented Trump with a gold-based plaque in the Oval Office. Sergey Brin praised Trump’s civil rights work. Sam Altman called Trump’s leadership refreshing.
Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Google donated to build Trump’s White House ballroom.
If you want to know who killed civilians through ICE, look at who bought the election.
Peter Thiel helped do it. He funded Trump. He funded JD Vance. He reshaped the GOP in his image. He helped install Vance and Stephen Miller as architects of cruelty. Thiel is preparing to spend a billion dollars with Musk to ensure Democrats cannot limit ICE.
Tech companies restricted tools used by activists to track ICE. Salesforce pitched artificial intelligence to ICE. Mark Benioff publicly called for National Guard deployment against protesters in San Francisco.
Zuckerberg met Trump at Mar-a-Lago to pledge loyalty. Musk turned X into a propaganda arm for MAGA. This all began before the election.
Why?
Greed and ego.
They fear regulation. They fear antitrust. Musk has no company without taxpayer money. SpaceX survives on government contracts. Trump is all that stands between Musk and accountability.
Microsoft executives openly pitched AI to make ICE more efficient.
Efficient at what?
Arrests. Prosecution. Revenge.
The federal government announced massive partnerships with Microsoft. Tech companies want Trump to bully Europe into dropping regulation. Musk’s war on Europe mirrors Trump’s war on allies. Both are about avoiding oversight.
Grok produces sexualized images of women and minors. Zuckerberg rolled back content moderation in the name of free expression. What he means is freedom from consequences. Freedom to spread misogyny, lies, and hate.
Tech leaders endorsed Trump because Biden believed government still had power. Because regulation existed. Because someone dared to say no.
Under Biden, tech thrived. That is the lie they tell themselves. What they wanted was cultural alignment. Trump hates women and minorities the way they do. That was the bond.
And then there is electricity. Their data centers are draining the grid. Our bills go up. They demand coal, gas, nuclear. The environment be damned. Trump gives them what they want.
This is not business as usual.
This is authoritarian collaboration.
So what do we do?
Boycotts help. But elections matter more. The midterms matter. Votes must outweigh their billions.
Tech workers must speak up or walk out. Institutions must stop taking Silicon Valley money. States must regulate when Congress will not. Europe must continue to push back.
It cannot continue like this.
The tech industry sold us out to killers.
There is no reason to believe they will stop.
It is time to say it plainly.
The tech leaders who support Trump are fascists.
Period.
