Meet Shaun Maguire, the multi-millionaire tech VC embracing anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian hate as Silicon Valley pours money into US and Israeli defense startups.

“[Zohran] Mamdani comes from a culture that lies about everything,” he posted. “It’s literally a virtue to lie if it advances his Islamist agenda. The West will learn this lesson the hard way.”

Maguire lives in the Bay Area, but has tweeted incessantly about Mamdani since the progressive leader won the New York City Democratic mayoral primary last month. He has repeatedly falsely claimed that Mamdani, who is Muslim and has faced a tidal wave of Islamophobia since his win, is a radical Islamist. (Mamdani marched in NYC’s Pride parade just last week)

Maguire also published a post on the Fourth of July, implying that “ending America” is a “religious goal” for Mamdani. “Mamdani is a new strain of Islamism, mutated to be more palatable for the Western mind,” Maguire posted.

The fact that Maguire can make such extremely racist and Islamophobic comments publicly about a major American political figure shows how deeply anti-Muslim bigotry has become embedded in Silicon Valley culture. Silicon Valley billionaires are now openly embracing anti-Muslim hate as they pivot toward defense startups that profit from perpetual war and the genocide in Palestine.

The US war machine is structurally dependent on Islamophobia to justify decades of military intervention and surveillance, and, as Silicon Valley becomes even more intertwined with the defense sector, extremists like Maguire will likely only obtain more power and influence.