Tech had a TV drama-quality this year.
Perhaps this is true every year, but I’ve felt that tech in 2024 was an especially character-driven drama. What’s Elon going to do next? What’s Sam Altman’s next move? And how did GM’s acquisition of Cruise go so wrong?
I think clear-cut winners and losers are a rare (and fleeting) thing, but I can’t deny that a select few in tech clearly did come out on top in 2024.
Elon Musk was clearly tech’s runaway victor, main protagonist, and antagonist in 2024.
He backed Trump to the tune of more than $250 million, and on the other side of the election, Musk emerged as a political power player. In his victory speech, Trump called Musk “a new star,” and Musk has reportedly participated in Trump’s conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Musk has been tasked with the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, while his Twitter acquisition has, in some sense, found its purpose—as its owner’s political bullhorn. Meanwhile, Musk’s xAI is valued at $50 billion, SpaceX is flying, and Tesla shares are up north of 60% in the last twelve months.
There are other more minor winners, comparatively. With Trump’s reelection, new “AI and crypto czar” David Sacks has also seen his public-facing fortunes massively improve, and certainly gave a lot of himself in that process—becoming a key Silicon Valley fundraiser for Trump in the 2024 election. Now, Sacks is operating in new territory, far beyond his experience co-hosting the All-In podcast with his besties or as a venture capitalist and PayPal alum.
This year, perhaps no one has done less and gained more than Peter Thiel. Known as a talented chess player, Thiel’s 2024 was extraordinary. Though he made no financial contributions in this election cycle, his fortunes have somehow soared. Just a few of Thiel’s ascendant investments, companies, and connections, all seeds sown long ago: Thiel cofounded publicly-traded rocketship Palantir, is a central backer of defense upstart Anduril, and new vice president JD Vance was once his mentee.
This year has certainly had its losers, of course, along with events distinctly hard to categorize. Consider the rise and fall of ‘Hawk Tuah girl’ Hailey Welch, who went viral in June and in December for her catchphrase. Welch now faces a lawsuit after her crashed memecoin became a “one-day pump and dump,” as my colleague Leo Schwartz reported.
In tech, it strikes me that 2024 wasn’t a great year for incumbents. This is an incredibly broad statement, but all the biggest blow-ups in tech that immediately jumped to mind for me this year were companies that have been around for a while. There are, of course, no shortage of powerful incumbents that are crushing it (here’s looking at you, Nvidia). But it’s hard to forget CrowdStrike’s astonishing, world-altering IT outage or Intel’s deeply uncertain future amid CEO Pat Gelsinger’s exit.
There were also full-fledged collapses of incumbent Icaruses. The worst of them, I’d argue, are GM and Cruise. GM bought Cruise in 2016 in a deal reported as high as $1 billion, looking to be ahead of the curve when the self-driving revolution finally materialized. Now, in contrast to Alphabet’s Waymo making self-driving cars a genuine part of our lives, Cruise has folded. GM may have spent $10 billion investing in Cruise over the years, but in the end, as my colleague Jessica Mathews has reported extensively, it proved to be the nightmare more than the dream of self-driving cars, due to the division's safety problems. This month, GM said it was backing off Cruise and robotaxis for good.
23andMe also imploded this year in spectacular fashion. Once the in-vogue vanguard of personalized health information, the company struggled financially this year and it did a massive 40% workforce cut. But the biggest hit came in September, when the entire board resigned, declaring dissatisfaction with CEO Anne Wojcicki. My colleague Lila MacLellan spoke to Wojcicki, who still thinks the business is salvageable. Perhaps Wojcicki will be proven right, but how many times have you ever seen an entire public company board walk away?
Of course, 2025 is a new season, in ways both metaphorical and literal. Trump will soon take office and we’ll go deeper into AI mania, both of which are a stark reminder—tech may be a drama, but it’s a real-life drama, one that affects millions or billions of lives. And as is the case in a new season of TV, tech’s circumstances will change, likely rapidly and in unexpected ways.
Although things will inevitably get messy, the show will go on.
Happy holidays and see you Monday,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here.
Nina Ajemian curated the deals section of today’s newsletter. Subscribe here.
