Sam Harris on Silicon Valley’s Slide into Techno-Authoritarianism

On with Kara Swisher

New York Magazine

Society & Culture

4.2 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One of 2025’s most memorable images was of Silicon Valley’s billionaire CEOs lined up in the front rows at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. It was visual proof of the tech industry’s embrace of MAGA’s authoritarian-style of politics — one it has benefited from considerably over the last year. Author and neuroscientist Sam Harris has been using his podcast, “Making Sense,” to talk about the ways tech moguls are corroding our politics, and although he used to be close with some of them, he’s become a vocal critic of their support for Trump. Kara and Sam talk about why he thinks the left is to blame for the tech billionaires’ shift to the right, why all of us are bad at sorting through the glut of information we find online, and the potential risks that come with the Trump administration’s hands-off approach to A.I. They also talk about what possible tech regulation could look like, and whether everyday people stand a chance against tech oligarchs and their platforms. (Please note: This interview was recorded before President Trump signed an executive order to block states from passing A.I. regulation.) Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In Elon's world, there is no need to explain this change of heart, right?
0:05.7	So he is now going back to a man who he told us all is, if not a pedophile himself,
0:11.9	culpable for the rape and molestation of underage girls, right?
0:16.7	And somehow that's fine now.
0:19.8	Just kidding, folks.
0:21.1	Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:36.1	This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Caro Swisher.
0:39.4	As we look back on 2025, one of the years' most memorable images was of all the tech
0:44.2	billionaires at President Donald Trump's inauguration. They were there. Mark Zuckerberg,
0:49.0	Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Tim Cook, mingling with the Trump
0:54.0	family, his future
0:54.9	cabinet members, and other stars of the Magi universe. It was visual proof of the political
0:59.4	shift to the far right that has been taking place at the highest levels of Silicon Valley and
1:03.9	in tech more broadly. Over the last year, these same men have benefited a lot from Trump's
1:08.5	authoritarian-style politics insofar that he's let them do pretty
1:11.8	much whatever they want, which is exactly how they like it. But amid rising fears that we're now
1:16.8	in an AI bubble, there's a growing realization that those benefits may come at a huge cost to
1:22.2	Americans sooner than people thought. I wanted to talk to Sam Harris about Silicon Valley's
1:26.9	shift towards authoritarian
1:28.1	politics. Sam is a neuroscientist and the host of the Making Sense podcast, and he's been talking
1:33.2	a lot lately about the power these tech billionaires have and the ways they're hollowing out
1:37.7	democracy. I was really struck by how out there Sam was on this. He was very close to most of the
	...

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