THE ECONOMIST: Why, as a business leader, I’m backing Donald Trump in the November US election

American voters have a unique opportunity in 2024: to compare the records of two candidates who have already served as president.

That choice belongs to entrepreneurs and business leaders, too.

More and more prominent wealth-creators are warming to supporting Donald Trump, declaring it publicly and writing cheques. Reid Hoffman, a friend of mine with very different political views, wrote recently for The Economist about this trend:

“Unfortunately, many American business leaders have recently developed a kind of myopia, miscalculating what politics, and which political leaders, will truly support their long-term success.”

“Perhaps this stems from their having lived their entire lives in a stable legal regime that they now take for granted. But a robust, reliable legal system is not a given. It is a necessity we can ill afford to live without. We trade it away at our peril.”

In the abstract, we agree a stable regime and “robust” legal system matter.

But Mr Trump’s recent conviction for falsifying business records was not an example of a robust legal system at work.

It was lawfare: a coordinated attack to interfere in the election.

A prosecutor who had pledged to go after Mr Trump did so, concocting a legal theory to turn expired misdemeanours into 34 “felonies”.

The lawfare has failed to erode support for Mr Trump, including among entrepreneurs.

Why? In short: we have seen the administrations of both candidates. And contrary to Mr Hoffman’s assertions, business leaders who support Mr Trump are not hoping to be his “oligarchs”.

If anything, we know that supporting him opens us up to attacks on our character in the press, and attacks on our businesses by the administrative state.

Just look at how Mr Biden’s Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission (ftc) and other agencies mobilised against Elon Musk’s entities after he embarrassed the federal government with the release of the “Twitter Files”, which exposed the federal censorship apparatus.

But it’s not about us. It’s about the long-term health of the country. The choice is clear. The only candidate in this race whose administration is likely to restore competence to government is Mr Trump.

From the brazen plan to transfer $1t or more in student-loan debt onto working-class taxpayers, to the cynical idea of handing out $10,000 for first-time home purchases, Mr Biden has proven himself willing to use some people’s money to buy other people’s votes.

He depleted the strategic petroleum reserve in an attempt to lower fuel prices. And instead of showing contrition for bad policy that stoked inflation, he blames CEOs and corporations.

As a co-founder of Palantir, a data-analytics firm created to help dismantle groups like al-Qaeda, I find Mr Biden’s foreign policy debacles particularly galling.

The disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan left billions of dollars worth of weaponry to the Taliban and led to the release of thousands of dangerous prisoners, including members of al-Qaeda who intend to attack Americans again.

Mr Biden has enabled the terrorist regime in Iran through billions of dollars of sanctions relief and weak actions.

At America’s southern border, Mr Biden has allowed nearly 10m illegal immigrants—including a number of individuals on terror watchlists—to enter the country. Hamstrung border guards are furious.

Mr Biden is either intent on cultural destruction and long-term alteration of the electorate, or ignorant of what his administration is actually doing.

All over the place, the Biden administration is one defined by incompetence. Billions are wasted on a handful of electric-vehicle chargers; chips Act manufacturing plants are frustrated by nonsensical dei (diversity, equity and inclusion) rules, which demand they hire more female construction workers even though women make up only a tenth of the sector’s labour pool.

Having failed to disqualify, bankrupt or incarcerate Mr Trump before the election can take place, Mr Biden and the political left now face a tough run-in to November.

Mr Biden lacks the strength to campaign as vigorously as he once did, and his record on key issues—immigration, the economy, foreign policy—is abysmal.

The lawfare against Mr Trump has angered voters and entrepreneurs nearly as much as Mr Biden’s poor record has, leading to record fundraising for Mr Trump’s campaign: more than $50m at a single event in April, and more than $140m in the month of May.

Mr Biden has given business leaders plenty to oppose. His Treasury Department’s plan to tax unrealised capital gains would end the system of free enterprise in America as we know it—and he is appointing activist judges to pursue such a change.

His ftc regularly bullies businesses the left disfavours, slowing dealmaking and harming innovation—a nightmare for startup founders and employees.

Mr Trump’s first administration didn’t reduce regulation as much as many entrepreneurs had hoped. But it was a start.

Mr Biden, meanwhile, has reversed as many deregulatory orders as he could.

There will be work to do in a second Trump administration to cut through enough red tape to save America from bureaucratic strangulation.

But Mr Trump is the only candidate who has shown openness to doing what’s needed.

In 2016 Peter Thiel was considered a heretic in business circles for giving $1m to Mr Trump and speaking at the Republican National Convention.

The difference today is palpable.

Moreover, several business leaders who had supported Mr Trump but backed away after the 2020 election and the subsequent Capitol riot—including Stephen Schwarzman, Doug Leone and David Sacks—have written thoughtfully about their decision to support him once more.

There are many in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street who share Mr Hoffman’s sharply negative views on Mr Trump. Vinod Khosla has said: “We have to absolutely at any cost make sure that that donkey’s rump, Trump, doesn’t get elected and destroy democracy.”

I refuse to demonise Mr Hoffman and Mr Khosla. They are talented businessmen and good Americans.

But this type of rhetoric, the idea of stopping Mr Trump “at any cost”, is extremely dangerous. Any cost? That is how the idea of jailing one of the candidates and removing him from the ballot can be mentioned in the same breath as “protecting democracy”.

Democracy should mean we stop weaponising the government, and that the voters—“We the People”—get to decide who our next president will be.

Joe Lonsdale co-founded Palantir and is the managing partner at 8VC, a venture-capital firm.