This ‘Mafia’ Of Tech Billionaires Has Roots In Apartheid And Profits From Policing 

He’s earned the nickname “President Musk,” but he’s not our president. Elon Musk co-leads the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). He isn’t the only tech billionaire profiting from the U.S. government’s fascism. He belongs to the “PayPal Mafia.”

David Sacks, Trump’s AI and crypto czar, invested in Airbnb, Facebook, Slack, Palantir, Uber, SpaceX, and more. Peter Thiel co-founded Palantir and was Facebook’s first outside investor. Outside the PayPal bubble are elites like Mark Zuckerberg, who’s faced criticism for “illegal practices” via Meta’s surveillance-based advertising system. But the PayPal Mafia specifically shares corporate reach AND roots in apartheid South Africa.

Musk, Sacks, Thiel, and others were born in or grew up among white supremacist ideologies disseminated by right-wing Germans and Afrikaaners. This contextualizes overarching “white genocide” and “replacement” rhetoric and behaviors like Musk’s Nazi salute.

They line their pockets with money from U.S.-grown mass deportations and police surveillance, too. According to its CEO, the software company Palantir exists to “scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them.” Spy technologies target U.S. immigrant families and generate “kill lists” for the Israel Defense Forces.

While these tech billionaires flaunt their wealth, and pose as “aspirational” symbols for the working class, we know the truth. When Trump’s administration is over, we’ll remember their investments in mass surveillance, incarceration, deportation, and death.