Two South African-born entrepreneurs will help Trump run America

Two South African-born entrepreneurs, Elon Musk and David Sacks, have been appointed to prominent positions by the next United States President, Donald Trump.

Trump won the 2024 United States presidential election by a significant margin, defeating the Democratic Party’s Kamala Harris.

He won 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226 and was victorious in every swing state in addition to holding on to all of the states he won in 2020.

The Republic Party also won enough seats to control the U.S. House and Senate, giving Trump effective control over the government.

When he returns to the White House on 20 January 2025, he will be working with a “Make America Great Again” party and a Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices.

The most important issues for voters were the economy, healthcare, democracy, foreign policy, illegal immigration, abortion, and climate change.

Since his victory on 5 November, he has been building a team to support his plans to address voters’ concerns.

He selected many people who supported him during his campaign, including Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff and Robert F. Kennedy as HHS secretary.

Other prominent picks include Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Pam Bondi as Attorney General, Elise Stefanik as U.N. ambassador, and Tom Homan as Border czar.

Trump, who favours business over politics, selected two South African-born entrepreneurs, Elon Musk and David Sacks, as part of his team.

Musk was one of Trump’s biggest backers during his 2024 presidential campaign, using his money and prominence to gain votes.

Since Trump’s election, the two billionaires have been inseparable, with Musk travelling with Trump on numerous trips.

Musk also spent time with the Trump family at their Mar-a-Lago resort and had a seat at the family table for Thanksgiving dinner.

CNN reported that Trump and Elon walked around the room, stopped at each table, and spoke to all the guests.

More recently, he joined Trump at the Notre Dame reopening ceremony in Paris, where French President Macron hosted them.

Musk’s proximity to Trump makes him one of the most influential and powerful people in the United States.

Another South African-born entrepreneur, David Sacks, was recently appointed as the White House A.I. and Crypto Czar.

Like Musk, Sacks is a former Paypal executive. He was the company’s first product leader and later served as its chief operating officer.

Sacks also used the money from PayPal’s listing on the Nasdaq and sale to eBay to launch his own companies.

In 2008, he founded enterprise collaboration company Yammer, which was one of the first software startups to apply consumer growth tactics to enterprise software.

Yammer’s viral approach made it one of the fastest-growing software startups in history, exceeding eight million enterprise users in just four years. As Founder/CEO of Yammer, Sacks grew the company to roughly $60 million in sales and 500 employees.

In July 2012, Microsoft acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion. Using this money, he co-founded Craft Ventures, a venture capitalist firm, in 2017.

As a partner at Craft, Sacks has invested in over 20 unicorns, including Affirm, AirBnB, ClickUp, Eventbrite, Facebook, Houzz, and Lyft.

His other high-profile investments include OpenDoor, Palantir, Postmates, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, and Wish.

Following Trump’s 2024 election victory, Sacks said it was a reminder that after all the manufactured drama and overheated rhetoric, politics is still about issues.

“Whether you agreed with him or not, Trump ran a substantive campaign based on issues like the border, inflation, crime, and war,” he said.

He said Harris, in comparison, ran on vibes, celebrity endorsements, name-calling, debunked hoaxes, and platitudes.

While Trump expanded his coalition with health and government efficiency, Harris concluded her campaign by going all in on demonising her opponent.

“Voters want to know how a candidate will give them a better life, and, increasingly, they have learned to tune out the rest as noise,” he said.

“While the legacy media creates excuses and impugns voters’ motives to explain why Trump won, the reason is simple: Trump is the candidate who spoke to voters’ concerns directly.”