• Peter Thiel attributes Trump’s recent support in Silicon Valley in part to Elon Musk’s efforts.

• Thiel told journalist Bari Weiss that Musk had provided “cover” for other tech executives to support Trump.

• Thiel also said that growing frustration with “wokeness” has proven the industry right.

Billionaire Pierre Thiel Credited Elon Musk, in part, with helping other tech executives feel comfortable publicly supporting President-elect Donald Trump.

The former CEO of PayPal participated in a post-election debriefing with journalist Bari Weiss during a episode from his podcast “Honestly” published Thursday.

Thiel, who supported Trump financially in 2016 but said he was moving away from political donations this year, said Musk’s embrace of Trump was key to facilitating Silicon Valley’s shift to the right in the 2024 elections.

“To some extent, it was safer for people to speak out when others people were talking” Thiel said on the podcast.

Before the election, several billionaires and Silicon Valley business leaders who had previously shunned Trump or remained publicly apolitical came out in support of the former president, including Marc Andreessen, David SacksAnd Shaun Maguireamong others.

The industry’s apparent shift toward Trump in the months leading up to the election boosted more than 100 venture capitalistsincluding Reid Hoffman, Ron Conway and Mark Cuban, to pledge their support for Vice President Kamala Harris.

And even though Silicon Valley, which has long been a progressive stronghold, remained solidly Democratic in the November elections, Trump saw a notable increase in support in the three counties that constitute America’s tech hub, BI previously reported.

Weiss asked Thiel if Tesla’s CEO was “the essential ingredient” that made other business leaders feel safe supporting the divisive president.

“I think Elon played an extremely important role,” Thiel said, later adding that Musk “obviously gave people a lot of coverage.”

Musk did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

Poured musk million dollars to help Trump get elected. This week, Trump announced that Musk would play a role in his administration as co-leader of the Department of Government Effectiveness, or DOGE, alongside entrepreneur and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy.

But Thiel said The cultural shift of Silicon Valley has been building for years because people have redoubled their efforts for “political correctness and wokeness” within companies.

“There was a point where everything ran out and a lot of top tech founders and CEOs felt comfortable telling me behind closed doors,” Thiel said.

Thiel characterized the sentiment within Silicon Valley as one of growing frustration towards “corporate governance” and “how ridiculous it has become to manage these ideologically deranged millennial employees.”

In 2022, Musk, who Thiel said was once “left of center,” described his new foray into conservative politics as an effort to stop the “awake mind virus”.” The business leader moved Tesla headquarters from the blue state of California to red Texas in 2021 and said earlier this year that he would move SpaceX and X to the conservative state.

“At some point, Elon changed,” Thiel said. “Part of it is this sort of intellectual straitjacket where you’re not allowed to have ideas, even if you agree 80 percent with them. It’s never enough. You have to be at 100 percent.”

Thiel suggested Elon Musk’s fierce support for Trump before the election was “incredibly dangerous” and “incredibly courageous”.

“Maybe we can all be a little braver than we otherwise would have been,” Thiel said.

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