Post-election rap, Marc Andreessen on social media censorship, Joe and Elon MAGA bros, Media PSYOP, Jack Dorsey's Bluesky takes on X and more fun...
The greatest media PSYOP in history, says Joe
In retrospect, if the kid on the roof hadn't tried to kill the Boogeyman, would Elon have publicly endorsed Trump? We think not. Prior to the assassination attempt, Elon and Trump had a contentious relationship. In 2022, Elon suggested that Trump should 'hang up his hat and sail into the sunset.' Elon is now working for the Bogeyman. Trump jokes that he can't get rid of Elon, who has been hitched to his side since the election. If Elon had not supported Trump, would Joe Rogan, who previously voted for the Socialist Bernie Sanders, have supported Trump in 2024? Nope.
We will never really know the further rippling effects that these two endorsements had on the 2024 election. Elon has 206 million followers on X. Joe's YouTube channel got a Trump Bump and rose to 18.6 million subscribers, up from 17.3 million just prior to his Trump interview, which a whopping 52 million people viewed. So we can be sure they had some impact on the election.
Interestingly, Joe Rogan just figured out why it took him and Elon until Trump's third Presidential run before they would cast their first votes for the Bogeyman.
Joe Rogan: What happened to Trump was the greatest PSYOP [short for 'psychological operation'] in the history of media. What we have seen with Trump, regardless of his flaws, is a massive, concentrated PSYOP by the media, which created a distorted narrative of who he is, and now everyone believes it.
Ari Shaffir: It's like when I tell people that Obama deported more people [5.3 million] than Trump [2 million], and no one believes it. Then you Google it, and the top 10 links confirm it. People need to ask themselves what influenced them to think differently.
Rogan: Exactly. Look at this clip on Hillary Clinton in 2008, who was saying some wild MAGA-type shit about illegal immigrants.
Clinton in her 2008 clip: I think we have to get tough and tell people to come out of the shadows. If they've committed a crime, deport them, no questions asked. If they've been working and are law-abiding, we should say, here are the conditions for your stay. You have to pay a stiff fine because you came here illegally. You have to pay back taxes. You have to try to learn English and wait in line.
Rogan: She said you 'You have to wait in line!' Hillary was more fucking MAGA than Trump! It's all an illusion. That's because they had control of the media until now. This is the first election they didn't have control of the media because of us—podcasters, social media, and X. Until now, they have been able to shove all this crap down our throats—especially the Russian collusion stuff.
The fact that Elon and Jumpin' Joe just figured this out and must admit they had embraced the false narratives perpetuated by corporate media shows how powerful the PSYOP campaign has been. But, as Joe also points out, this was the first election in which citizen journalists had more influence than the corporate puppets. This trend will continue until the puppets shrink down to a dot on the elephant's ass.
It’s the economy, stupid!
A late September Gallup poll showed that the economy ranked as the most important of 22 issues that US registered voters said would influence their choice for president.
Fifty-two percent of voters said the candidates' positions on the economy were 'extremely important,' with another 38% rating it as 'very important,' which means the issue could have been a significant factor for nine out of 10 voters. Fifty-four percent of the voters viewed Donald Trump as better able to handle the economy versus 45% who thought Kamala was better for that job. We are not political scientists, but now that the results are in, as in most Presidential elections, it appears that it was indeed 'the economy stupid' factor that determined the victor.
The chart above exhibits the most important issues of political parties, and we have a few ironic observations. First, in spite of a country challenged by inflation, the economy didn't show up as a top-five critical issue for the Blue team, while it was number one for the Red team. We believe that this difference has to do with a seismic move of working-class voters to the Red team and a solidifying of the Blue team's position as the Party of the 'highly educated' and economic elite. The elites can't be bothered with the price of eggs. They're more worried about 'saving democracy.'
Internet censorship and the Biden White House
Marc Andreessen came to Silicon Valley in his early 20s and earned his cred by inventing the first commercial web browser called Netscape at 23. He also gave Zuck early money for The Facebook (the company's original name) and has served on the company's board since 2008. During his career, he also built Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most dominant VC funds in the world and a pioneer in the crypto VC space. Marc sat down with Joe Rogan last week as the presidential election dust continues to clear. He gave his usual provocative perspective on the election and where AI innovation might lead us.
Joe Rogan: You can cast a lot of blame on the media, but the real rigging was the collusion [during the 2020 election] between social media companies and the government to suppress information that would have altered the election.
Marc Andreessen: Yeah, sure, that was like direct interference, and it was aided and embedded by a lot of former intelligence officials, the Biden people, and many arms of a censorship apparatus that put tons of pressure on Silicon Valley companies to censor.
Rogan: What was the general attitude of your peers in the technology industry when this collusion was revealed?
Andreessen: All the people in social media and the Internet knew what was going on, and so it was widely understood. Look, there was nothing that was happening to Twitter in the Twitter Files that was not happening at all of the social media sites. If we had the YouTube Files, the behavior patterns would look exactly the same. So we should get the YouTube files (laughs). We will probably get them when the new administration comes in. The people in those companies who knew what was going on should bear a lot of responsibility because they made a lot of, I think, bad judgment calls. But the Biden White House was directly exerting pressure on companies to censor US citizens, which I believe is flatly illegal, by the way, and the people involved have criminal liability.
There were also members of Congress doing the same, which was also illegal, and there were a lot of outside 3rd party groups funded to pressure for censorship. As an example, right next door to us at Stanford, there was a government-funded Internet censorship unit that exerted tremendous pressure on companies to censor American citizens, and it was very effective. The same Internet censorship units exist at Harvard and other colleges.
Rogan: Does it smell like sulfur when you walk those halls?
Andreessen: It is very dark and grim.
Zuck supported Marc's claims above in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, stating that the White House had pressured his team to suppress certain content regarding COVID and Hunter Biden's laptop story. He also expressed regret for not being more outspoken about this pressure at the time. 'Looking back, we shouldn't have downplayed this story,’ he said. Zuck further expressed that content standards should not be compromised based on pressure from any administration. Ya think?
Time for the Democratic Party to return to its roots
Now, politics is not our beat, but as a former Democratic Party activist and an ardent believer in the two (or three) party system, I have one big pet peeve to get off my chest before we get back to the business of innovation.
The number one issue for the Blue team was ‘saving democracy.’ This makes sense given that the Blue team spent $1 billion (+ money they did not have) to fund their primary talking point that the Boogeyman was a Hitlerian, fascist figure who, if he won, would institute himself as a ‘dictator’ for life, yield ‘unchecked power’ and put all his naysayers in jail. Championing the Blue party messaging was a cabal of corporate media talking heads, 'top school' academics, and Hollywood elites. The Gallup poll reveals that they earned an A+ for getting this message across and convincing 58% of their party to think it was the number one fear.
Hold that thought for a moment while I ask a few questions.
Which Party is the Party of Censorship? Which Party and its Super Donors sued life-long Democrat RFK, Jr. to keep him off at least 6-7 State ballots during the 2024 Democratic Primary? Which party leaders tried to dismiss another Democratic presidential candidate, Tulsi Gabbard, as a ‘Russian asset’ and had her surveilled. Which Party pursued two unsuccessful impeachment proceedings—later determined to be based upon ‘raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence’—against a sitting President? Which Party’s Justice Department set out to derail their opponent’s 2024 presidential campaign by initiating a series of unsuccessful lawsuits to derail their candidacy? Which Party tried to hide a President who was mentally compromised until after he won the primary in 2024 and finally admitted it when the whole world could undeniably see it when he debated his general election opponent? Which Party allowed a small group of politicians and Super Donors to work behind the scenes and undemocratically push out the candidate who won the Party’s nomination and install a new candidate of their choice that no one voted for?
This politburo-style behavior by the Democratic Party is unAmerican, hypocritical beyond words, and represents the greatest political miscarriage of justice in my lifetime save going to war with Iraq based on false intelligence. We still do not know the people and details behind the Joe Biden coup and who hand-picked Kamala Harris. In fact, we still do not know who is running the most powerful country in the world to this very day. Do you know?
'Remember, Trump didn't have a chance to defend himself. In the grand jury, you can't defend yourself and present your evidence. Only the prosecutor can, so It is one-sided. An indictment is just an accusation and is generally not worth the paper it is written on.
For the purposes of proving guilt or innocence, as the Chief Judge of the New York Appellate Court of Appeals once said, a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor tells it to do so. In this case, Trump was the ham and the sandwich. So he got indicted, and those indictments have been dropped. Good riddance. They should never have been brought against him in the first place.
The efforts to impeach Trump and stop him from running in 2024 were unconstitutional and threatened civil liberties, due process, and the rule of law. The Mar-a-Lago raid was a deeply troubling action that the public should not forget.'
—Alan Dershowitz, a prominent American criminal defense and constitutional lawyer, legal scholar, and lifelong Democrat who voted for every Democratic presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
Silicon Valley is the land of math, and the math says that when you add up all these impeachments and frivolous lawsuits against their political appointments and the criminal-level abuse of power driving them, the Blue Party will ultimately end up with a Big Fat 0️⃣. The Blue Party totally whiffed. The red team won, and the blue team lost. The Red Party is in power, and the Blue Party is dead—as both should be.
What happened to my Blue Party, which worked for peace, clean air and water, sound education and affordable college tuition, free speech, and privacy? They used to watch out for the people falling between the cracks and aspired to create a society where all families had access to the American Dream. Our country still needs that Party. Where are you? Please come home, and I promise to join you again.
—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor of Cryptonite
Did you know?
(Overheard on the streets of the global Silicon Valley. Got any hot insider tips? Email us editor@cryptoniteventures.com)
Billionaire Boys Club
Elon is making good on his promise last year to give the X shareholders a collective 25% stake in his AI startup xAI. xAI's valuation is reported to be $50 billion, giving X investors a significant boost in their total holdings. This valuation surpasses the $44 billion Musk paid for Twitter.
Meanwhile, the world's richest man is taking his new political perch as co-head of DOGE seriously. He is now commenting on our national debt and polling X members on whether or not the IRS's $20 billion budget request was deleted. Politicians beware: More than 60% of X users preferred having the IRS's budget 'deleted,' and we agree.
‘America is going bankrupt fast. The excess government spending is what causes inflation! Our interest payments now exceed what we spend on our military. ALL government spending is taxation. This is a very important concept to appreciate. It is either direct taxation, like income tax, or indirect via inflation due to increasing the money supply. If we don't tackle the national debt, all tax revenue will go to paying interest, and there will be nothing left for anything else.’
—Elon declared in a post on X.
The New York Times reported that Silicon Valley billionaire and George Soros wannabe Reid Hoffman is weighing a move outside the United States. As far as we are concerned, the Big Boy couldn't pack his bags fast enough. If Jack Dorsey broke one of the most precious Silicon Valley values by allowing the FBI to lead Twitter's content censorship operations (we still can't believe it), the Big Boy broke another cardinal rule using his outsized wealth to finance frivolous lawsuits as a tactic to punish politicians he doesn't like. Why is Mr. Hoffman leaving? The Big Boy fears political retribution because his team lost. What a chicken shit. Let's hope he takes his lawyers with him.
There is some levity behind the Big Boy's antics. His old boss at PayPal, fellow billionaire and Libertarian-leaning Peter Thiel, sarcastically thanked Mr. Hoffman for 'making Trump into a martyr by funding E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against the former president.'
If the Big Boy hasn't learned his lesson, Zuck has. In the 2020 election, Zuck suppressed and limited the distribution of validated content across his platforms, which showed his presidential choice in a positive light. As Jack Dorsey did, Zuck later admitted this was a mistake, stating, 'It has been clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation and, in retrospect, we shouldn't have limited the story's reach.'
It appears there are no hard feelings between Zuck and the Boogeyman, as he met with President-elect Donald Trump this week at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. A Zuck spokesperson confirmed the dinner, stating that he was ‘grateful for the invitation’ and the opportunity to discuss the incoming administration. Since his election, Mr. Trump has invited several technology CEOs to Mar-a-Lago, including Elon (who co-leads Trump’s DOGE initiative), Apple’s Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai of Google, Jeff Bezos, and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.
People certainly have the freedom to publicly endorse anybody they wish, but we would argue that this is not a good form for CEOs. By doing so, CEOs only alienate employees, stakeholders, and customers who disagree with their choices. Investor-backed companies need to stay in their lane, focus on their core businesses, and leave their political agendas at the door. Whether it has been at Twitter, Anheuser-Busch, or SVB, incorporating political activism into the workplace has led to failed businesses.
On an even higher level, the historian Alexis de Tocqueville observed in his book Democracy in America that we are a diverse and divided country. If we hope to last, we must hold onto 'intermediary institutions' as our apolitical sanctuaries that provide individuals with a sense of purpose and belonging outside of the political realm and help to promote social harmony and civic engagement. The free market is the biggest of those institutions. The imposition of ideology on your employees is the behavioral practice of a cult, not a thriving enterprise.
Seattle-based Web3 social network Bluesky, founded by Jack Dorsey, is gearing up to take on his first social network, formerly known as Twitter. He was forced to sell it to Elon Musk due to mismanagement and politically motivated censorship, which led to mistrust and a sub-IPO stock price after ten years of operation. Bluesky has raised $36 million in venture funding in three rounds since early 2023, led by Blockchain Capital, Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, and SevenX.
Bluesky CEO Lantian 'Jay' Graber recently told a gushing Barron's reporter that 'People who don't find the Twitter [X] style of talking and maybe arguing with strangers appealing can find a quiet, cozy corner of Bluesky that works for them. There is a lot to love about the company's open protocol and decentralization approach, and Bluesky now boasts 21 million users, boosted by the Taylor Swift community that 'came over all at once.’
Our hope is that Ms. Gerber got the memo that the 'woke' vibe killed Twitter 1.0 and depressed its stock price. Twitter's 2013 IPO stock price was $45.10, and it was down 13% almost 10 years later to $39.3 on April 1, 2022, the last trading day before Elon Musk announced his 9% stake in Twitter.
Sixty percent of the original Twitter members identified as Democrats or leaned toward the Democratic Party, with only 36% Republican. Today, 48% of X users lean Democrat, and 47% lean Republican. Despite what the Corporate talking heads might tell you, according to a new Pew survey, there's bipartisan agreement on X (89% of Republicans and 86% of Democrats) that people should feel free to express their political views on the downsized site. These numbers almost precisely parallel the recent Presidential election, with Ms. Kamala Harris earning 48.3% of the vote versus the Boogeyman with 49.9%.
If you build a consumer social network that encourages freedom of expression and is free of FBI supervision, it will mirror the biggest possible audience, and you will win. If you build a network that fosters groupthink, you will sputter and end up begging Elon to swoop in and pick up the pieces. Jay and Jack, we want Bluesky to win; please learn about the Twitter debacle and the unlawful behavior it enabled.
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Another great edition of Cryptonite Weekly Rap! Always appreciate the insightful breakdown of trends and key developments. Looking forward to the next one!