have you noticed how many people in Donald Trump’s Inner Circle are influential Tech billionaires well this isn’t a coincidence in fact many of them have something in common they look the same they all have close connections to PayPal and they even have a name the PayPal Mafia now not only is the PayPal Mafia behind many other major tech companies but they’re also now having a profound influence on the Trump Administration so today we’ll tell you everything about the PayPal Mafia and how their influence could affect us policy and indeed the markets my name is Guy let’s dive in let’s start with a bit of context the PayPal Mafia is an elite group of entrepreneurs who were once founders of or managers at PayPal which began life in 1998 as field link before rebranding to confinity the company was co-founded by Levin Luke noek and Peter teal in 2000 confinity merged with Elon musk’s original x.com which he’ founded alongside Harris fricker Christopher pay and Ed ho in 2001 the merged company became PayPal which would ultimately become a digital wallet that revolutionized online payments PayPal began to experience rapid growth from early on in its existence and this caught the attention of online or auctioning company eBay which acquired PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion PayPal would then become eBay’s default payment method with PayPal’s team working for eBay however this was where tensions quickly started to emerge many PayPal employees who were accustomed to a somewhat unconventional workplace culture found eBay’s more corporate environment to be not so much their Vibe within 4 years just 12 of PayPal’s original 50 staff members remained many however would go on to create invest in or lead some of the world’s biggest tech companies and some went on to engage with politics too this group became so prolific that the media dubbed it the PayPal Mafia a term that was solidified on the cover of Fortune Magazine in 2007 with the entrepreneurs dressed up as Mafia gangsters and members of the PayPal Mafia have remained Close Associates over the years many have overlapping business interests and often lean on each other for financial or advisory support the group has a significant presence in an expanding number of sectors and domains and those around them have gained significant power and influence but who is actually in the PayPal Mafia well at the top is Paypal co-founder Peter teal who’s often dubbed the dawn now teal is a Powerhouse of both venture capital and political activism he’s known for his unique critical thinking and for his liberal anti establishment mentality he’s also now the founder of paler a data analytics software company as well as the Venture firm’s Founders fund and ve Ventures he was the first outside investor in Facebook and has also backed huge Brands like stripe Yelp and Linkedin most of which were started by other PayPal mafia members and teal is also an investor in the companies of one of the PayPal mafia’s most iconic figures Elon Musk around 2 years before eBay’s acquisition of PayPal musk was actually ousted from the company and replaced by Teal so musk naturally did what anyone would do and went off to revolutionize entire Industries through a series of companies such as Tesla SpaceX open AI the boring company neuralink and x and notably musk rebranded Twitter as X after reclaiming the x.com domain from PayPal for quote sentimental reasons happily though he and teal have since made up with musk now an established PayPal Mafia Hood moving on and another name you’re probably familiar with is David saak a longtime venture capitalist and PayPal’s former Chief Operating Officer or coo saak is also an investor in Peter Teal’s paler and Elon musk’s SpaceX there’s also Reed Hoffman another one of PayPal’s former Coos who would later create LinkedIn then there’s Max Levin an aforementioned PayPal co-founder who also started finance companies like a firm and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention jaed Kareem Steve Chen and Chad Harley all former PayPal colleagues who went on to start a little known video sharing platform called YouTube nope me neither and by the way if you’re enjoying the video then let the algorithm know by Smashing those like And subscribe buttons and pinging that notification Bell so you don’t miss our next one now if anyone’s everever tried to tell that money can’t buy Power then they’ve obviously never heard of the PayPal Mafia as it happens these Wise Guys have been using their money and influence to basically reshape the political landscape of the US how exactly well several key members of the PayPal Mafia have played pivotal roles in getting president Donald Trump back in the white house but why is this well building PayPal showed the PayPal Mafia just how much red tape there is from overregulation and bureaucratic resistance and this appears to be the primary inspiration behind their libertarian leaning political philosophy that influences their approach to government despite many of their companies relying on Government funding through various contracts this was especially true for the Don Peter teal but because the PayPal Mafia are so close the majority of them also share this view to many members of the payal mafia Trump is the perfect embodiment of their economically driven philosophical beliefs however we should caveat that not all PayPal mafia members support Trump for instance Reed Hoffman the former PayPal coo and Linkedin co-founder is a key Democratic party supporter in fact he’s even spoken out against other PayPal mafia members for their support of trump in any case three key PayPal mafia members have been instrumental in securing a trump Victory behind the scenes Elon Musk David saaks and Peter teal in musk’s case his acquisition of Twitter in April 2022 arguably got the ball rolling again for Trump at the time musk vowed to quote upset the far-left and the far right equally to keep the platform politically neutral but well let’s just say that is Up For Debate regardless after Trump was banned by Twitter’s previous team musk reinstated his account in November 2022 and in the months leading up to the 2024 election musk used his X profile the platform’s most followed account as a fog horn for views that aligned with Trump and the Republican Party more broadly at the same time X’s AI powered trending section frequently promoted prot Trump content and attacks on the Democratic party before long the platform had effectively become a wall of sound for the Maga movement musk would later support Trump at rallies and by donating around $243 million to his campaign making musk the largest Trump donor by a country mile as for David sa meanwhile his involvement was much more subtle sax has been a key Catalyst for entrepreneurs and big figures in the tech industry to back Trump he famously hosted a $500,000 per couple fundraiser dinner for Trump at his home last June raking in around $12 million now I for one would definitely have gone up for a second helping and dessert just saying anyway sax also reportedly helped musk with his acquisition of Twitter and the two apparently worked together to promote Senator JD Vance as Trump’s running mate but this leg up is nothing compared to the support Vance received from Peter teal who has reportedly bankrolled much of Vance’s political career Vance met teal way back in 2011 at a talk that the latter gave at Yale law school where Vance was studying after a short stint in law Vance switched to venture capital with teal becoming his mentor teal even backed Vance’s own VC firm that he started in 2019 now originally Vance was a harsh critic of trump but after teal brought him to maral Lago to smooth over his relationship with the then former president Vance became a trump supporter and Defender he even managed to secure an endorsement from Trump in his 2022 Senate run just weeks before election day teal meanwhile donated a record $15 million to Vance’s Senate campaign the largest ever donation to a single Senate candidate most of Vance’s campaign advertising was handled by a political action committee or pack that teal donated to which helped attract another handful of major donors one of whom was David sax who donated another $1 million notably though while Vance is Teal’s prote the latter doesn’t always agree with Trump himself other than financially backing Advance teal didn’t donate to Trump’s most recent campaign strangely though teal also said on a Joe Rogan podcast episode that he was doing everything he could to support Trump apart from endorse him officially hold PayPal Mafia supported Trump getting back into office the question now is what have they been doing since he got there as you’ll know a few of the names we’ve mentioned already have found their ways into key positions in the Trump Administration for example Elon Musk has found himself leading the department of government efficiency or Doge a White House team tasked with cutting government spending musk is classed as a special government employee meaning he’ll work with the government temporarily to provide specialized expertise a contractor basically the difference is that musk isn’t even being paid for doing this work well not that he needs the money but that hasn’t stopped him vigorously pursuing his ambition to cut around a trillion dollars from the national debt pile at the time of shooting the do’s official website claims to have saved the US government 105 billion dollar so far and it now also displays all government spending for transparency the Doge has also been going through government Data Systems to scale back or even dismantle many left-leaning programs within the federal government in some cases this has involved shutting down entire agencies which have previously targeted musk’s companies we’ll come back to that later though meanwhile David saxs was picked by Trump to serve as the government’s crypto and aisar saak will offer guidance and Leadership to help create regulations that Foster Innovation for the crypto and AI Industries which Trump says are quote two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness in a press conference in early February sax criticized the regulation by enforcement approach of the SEC over the previous four years and has pledged to establish clear Federal level crypto regulations notably he has just two years to push through as many meaningful policy changes as possible before the midterm elections with many investors hanging on his every word and on that note David is also a central figure in the recently announced us Bitcoin and digital asset reserves the latter of which includes a range of altcoins although at the time of shooting it’s not entirely clear exactly which ones however we do know that these reserves will only consist of cryptos that the government has already seized from illicit activity at least for now we actually have a video coming out soon that will dive into these reserves so make sure you’re subscribed to the channel for that one now sax has emphasized that the Bitcoin Reserve in particular will be held longterm as he explained the US government has previously sold around1 195,000 BTC for $336 million and if they had huddled that BTC would have been worth tens of billions instead he’s also said that quote the stable coin really has the potential to ensure American dollar dominance internationally to increase the usage of the US dollar digitally as the world’s Reserve currency and in the process create potentially trillions of dollars of demand for us treasuries oh and while we’re here we should also point out that another PayPal Mafia member Ken Howry has been selected by Trump to be the US ambassador to Denmark Ken is also an executive at clarium capital and co-founded the founders fund alongside Peter teal now the PayPal mafia’s involvement with the Trump Administration has unsurprisingly drawn criticism with some even describing it as a hostile takeover and given that many PayPal mafia members are billionaires with investments in major tech companies and VC firms this has raised concerns around conflicts of interest and it’s not hard to see why that’s because many of the companies that the PayPal Mafia are affiliated with could stand to directly benefit from the changes being made by the Trump Administration for instance critics say that Elon musk’s doge is gutting agencies like the cfpb SEC and FAA all of which have targeted Tesla SpaceX and some of his other Ventures potentially to benefit his companies and their investors now the White House has claimed that the doge is accountable to the president and will be kept away from conflicts of interest and both musk and Trump have downplayed these concerns however according to lawmakers and attorneys representing federal workers musk has violated laws Union agreements and Civil Service protections by targeting these agencies meanwhile conflict of interest concerns have also been raised against David Sachs particularly when it comes to transparency and accountability especially as he continues to maintain his business interests while influencing government policy specifically critics have highlighted the lack of government oversight since sax will serve as a special government employee similar to musk which doesn’t require the same level of financial disclosure as a full-time federal employee the recent Trump and Melania meme coins have also raised questions since both were launched on the salana blockchain for those unaware sax has long been a salana bull so many critics have argued that he would have known what this increased Soul demand would have meant for Soul’s price meanwhile another conflict of interest concern relates to the federal crypto reserves particularly as saxes known to have held the cryptos mentioned in Trump’s announcements now sax has since claimed on X that he sold all his crypto before the administration began but a community note flagged that his Venture firm craft Ventures had exposure to bit wise’s spot Bitcoin ETF sax openly responded to this by saying that he had a $74,000 position in the ETF which he sold on the 22nd of January just days after Trump’s inauguration however some critics still say that Sax’s advocacy for these cryptos could mean that his policy advice will be somewhat biased it’s also worth repeating that his status as a special government employee doesn’t require excessive Financial disclosures then there’s Peter teal who I’ll remind you is a co-founder of paler which works extensively with US government agencies like the Department of Defense CIA and Ice their software supports military operations surveillance and law enforcement since Trump was elected palente pltr stock has rallied by over 200% before retracing along with the rest of the market notably paler also uses AI technology and teal musk and other PayPal mafia members have involvement in major AI companies like open Ai and X aai some PayPal mafia members have been known to criticize us AI policy in the past so changing these policies has raised some eyebrows several companies tied to teal also recently secured key Federal role in February andural Industries a defense startup backed by his Founders fund landed a US Army deal potentially worth over 20 billion dollar another Founders fund company scale aai also announced a new contract with the Department of Defense nothing to see here I’m sure so then by now you understand who the PayPal Mafia are and how they’re influencing key policies so this begs the all important question what does all this mean for the markets well in case it wasn’t already obvious this will be huge for any companies affiliated with key members of the PayPal Mafia That’s because many of the policy changes that the Trump Administration will likely introduce are coming from These Guys these changes are likely to ease regulations which will fuel growth Innovation and increased investment for these firms there are over 400 companies that could benefit in this regard and we’ll leave a link below in the description to this pretty awesome website that gives an overview of each company and which PayPal mafia members are involved involved it’s a similar story for the various cryptos held by key PayPal mafia members according to crypto rank both Founders fund and vear Ventures which will remind you of Peter Teal’s VC firms have investments in a handful of crypto projects these include positions in altcoins like Ono finance and starnet and nfts like infinex and Pudgy Penguins notably though teal has often given mixed messages about crypto during interviews despite his investment Fund aping in around $200 million to BTC and eth before the pump caused by Trump’s election Victory as we noted earlier David sax is a huge fan of salana and soul is likely to be included in Trump’s digital asset Reserve alongside other altcoins like ethereum’s eth it’s also worth noting that PayPal is using salana and ethereum for its py USD stable coin when you recall that sax is bullish on stablecoins for strengthening the dominance of the US dollar this suggests that salana and ethereum could seriously benefit as a result of the increased stable coin demand that should come if stable coin regulations are passed by Congress the same goes for other cryptos that have lots of stable coins on their chains now when it comes to Elon Musk this one’s pretty obvious as the Doge father himself and the leader of a government body literally called Doge it’s likely that his favorite crypto Dogecoin could enjoy some nice upwards price movement thanks to his actions some would say that this has already happened many times in the past but we have a feeling the Dogecoin s isn’t over just yet and of course there’s the cryptos also held by PayPal which include leer zero and Aptos notably layer zero is an infrastructure project that’s being used to bridge PayPal’s py USD stable coin meanwhile Aptos is arguably a top Contender to be a potential salana killer and has seen substantial stable coin growth on its chain namely via usdt and you can learn more about the differences between salana and Aptos using the link in the description so as you can see PayPal and the men that brought it into being have come a long way over the last 24 years from just another Silicon Valley startup to a major force in US politics many are wary of the power and influence that the PayPal Mafia have amassed for themselves and there’s little doubt that they will benefit enormously from their proximity to the president over the next four years or perhaps they’ll fall foul of trump like so many others have in the past and end up regretting dallying in politics or together either way it’s going to be fascinating to watch okay folks that’s all for today’s video so if you enjoyed it give it a boost by Smashing those like And subscribe buttons don’t forget to turn on those notifications too so you don’t miss our next one thank you all so much for watching and we’ll see you next time this is guy over and out
