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Comment by goalieca | Hacker News Reader

After listening to his interview on JRE, it sounds like the Biden administration came down on him hard during Covid and then when he didn’t _fully_ fall in line they threw the machine at him with a large number of government investigations. This is a much bigger machine than exists in Brazil and India. I think Zuck realized they were not on his team anymore and walked over to the other side.

The same thing seems to happen to musk.

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A simpler theory might go like this: Musk and Zuck both want to be richer, and both want a government that regulates, investigates, and fines them less.

The Republicans are the team you want to play on. There doesn't need to be any retribution or payback or realizations or switching sides.

It's a money play, simple.

If the Democrats could come up with a plausible pro-business strategy (and they could), it might not be such as easy choice.

> A simpler theory might go like this: Musk and Zuck both want to be richer, and both want a government that regulates, investigates, and fines them less.

I agree with your conclusion, but not your premise. If they solely wanted to be richer, the obvious move would be to divest their holdings and start their own broadly diversified wealth funds - similar to Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund or Saudi PIF. Then retire to their yachts and private islands. Rather, it seems to me that they both have specific goals they want to accomplish and are making the (ethics aside) rational moves to limit government interference.

Certainly Musk doesn't just want to be rich. He also craves power and adoration. Zuckerberg is less public than Musk but could easily have retired if he didn't actually enjoy having the power of being a mega-tech CEO. So power is at least as important to them as money.

I think you may be onto something.

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