Does Proton really support Trump? A deeper analysis (and surprising findings)
Recently, allegations surfaced on Reddit that Proton (or at least Proton’s CEO) supports Trump. Hillary Keverenge from Tech-Issues Today summarized the entire timeline of events here, complete with screenshots, and I recommend you read this first if you don’t know what happened.
Now, as someone who deeply opposes Trump and everything he stands for, this situation is worrying to say the least. Given Proton’s outstanding track record and reputation thus far as a free, open-source, crowdfunded organization, owned by a non-profit and based in Switzerland (a country known for its neutrality), this topic is worth a deep dive.
As most of us are aware, Reddit, at times, can become a very opinionated echo chamber where one narrative trumps all the others, leaving little room for nuance, and therefore, it must be taken with a grain of salt. What you’ll find below is a presentation of all the data I gathered for the reader to draw their own conclusions.
During this deep dive, I scoured copious amounts of information, thousands of tweets, replies, and comments, as well as blog posts. Initially, I was interested to see if Proton’s track record would expose them as closet Republicans, but what I found surprised me.
TLDR: my conclusion is that it is far more likely that Proton and its CEO are actually liberals.
The case for Proton being MAGA
Most people did not see or bother to read Yen’s entire tweet, so I’ve attached it below.
This was posted on Proton CEO Andy Yen’s personal Twitter account on December 4th, 2024, and one month later, Reddit picked it up.
While the text that Andy wrote has been reproduced on Reddit, almost no commenters show or read what he is quoting, which is important for this analysis. And while the tweet praises Trump’s pick for leading antitrust at the DOJ, it is exceedingly clear that he did not directly endorse Trump himself or Republicans in general.
Now, why would Andy praise Gail Slater, a Republican who we know worked with the likes of JD Vance in the past? Well, a quick Google search shows why the CEO of a privacy company like Andy might believe she’s a good pick.
Legal experts have described Slater to be “not known as a friend of Big Tech”, and “not good for Google” despite her Republican ties. It is likely that knowing this, Andy was caught by surprise at Trump’s pick (which is indeed surprising).
Moving on, others have rightfully accused Andy of being “MAGA” because of the second part of his tweet that reads:
“10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.”
In this statement, Andy distinguishes between “big business” and the “little guys”, which many have interpreted to mean that Andy believes that Republicans care for ordinary, average people who do not possess power, wealth, or influence.
However, within the context of Trump’s original post that Andy is quoting, it seems more likely that “big business” = Big Tech, and “little guys” = Little Tech, but this is not obvious if you did not see the original post, and this therefore caused outrage online.
Andy later confirmed this himself on Reddit:
The third and final part of the tweet, which completes the “Proton is MAGA” hypothesis, is the final part that says:
“People forget that the current antitrust actions against Big Tech were started under the first Trump admin”
Redditors pointed this out and piled criticism on Andy & Proton, calling them ignorant and saying that they are cherry-picking facts to fit their narrative, which is a fair criticism, given that the Trump administration is known to be unfair, manipulative, and liars.
But, if we are to be fair, it is worth checking whether or not Andy’s point has any ground to stand on. While it seems hard to believe that Trump would crack down on Big Tech, my research indicates Andy is actually just stating a fact.
There is one other fringe criticism that some people over on Mastodon and Reddit have pointed out, and that is Yen’s personal u/ on Reddit being “andy1011000,” which is binary for “andy88”.
Some have called this a Nazi/fascist dog whistle, which is understandable in the current polarized climate, but it is also borderline paranoia. Proton and Andy have repeatedly clarified that ‘88’ is Andy’s birth year and a lucky number in Taiwan.
Andy is an Asian immigrant living in Europe, and he’s not even ethnically white, which makes it even more unlikely that he would be a white supremacist.
Is the above evidence enough to say that Andy Yen and his company, Proton, are “MAGA” supporters? There is no evidence of Andy or Proton praising Trump or his actions outside of this relatively niche policy area.
Overall, the evidence for the MAGA hypothesis is a bit lacking.
The case for Proton NOT being MAGA
In contrast to the information I was able to find that suggests Proton & Yen as MAGA, there is much more information that supports the alternative hypothesis that Andy/Proton are liberals.
Where Proton gives money
Ever heard the phrase put your money where your mouth is? Turns out that Proton’s politics can be easily identified by seeing where they actually donate and who they support.
Under Yen’s leadership, Proton donates a sizeable amount of cash, and the benefactors are easy to find since non-profits must disclose donations. In total, I’ve identified over 30 organizations that received grants from Proton, and you can find a partial list here. Interestingly, they also made a few donations not publicized on that page (one was to a Hong Kong democracy org, which might explain why it was hidden).
Findings:
- Not a single organization has ties to Republicans or conservatives.
- Many of them are known to be liberal, for example, Access Now and Fight for the Future in the US.
- There were at least 10 that also received funding from Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
In my research, I discovered that under Andy’s leadership, Proton has a giving pattern similar to George Soros, one of the Democratic Party’s mega-donors.
As we are all aware, Trump’s Republicans are fixated on killing independent press, which he calls “fake news”. However, in this list of benefactors, 11 of the 30 organizations financed work to defend the free press. For example, they provided direct financial support for The Markup, a liberal news site.
Other recipients also include Women Who Code (a women's rights and gender equality NGO), 350.org (a climate change NGO), and Law for Change (a social justice NGO).
I am not sure that a CEO aligned with Trump and his politics would support any of these organizations, which oftentimes directly speak against Trump and Republicans.
Next, we’ve also seen Andy commit 10% of Proton’s revenue in support of Ukraine:
The Republicans have long spoken out about supporting Ukraine in their defense against the Russian invasion, which once again goes to show that Andy & Proton are not really aligned with Trump’s goals or policies.
By following the money, we can clearly see that Proton, under Yen’s leadership, have a definite liberal bias.
Andy’s comments on race & gender issues.
As I mentioned before, Andy is an ethnic minority in Europe and an immigrant. I can’t see Yen being involved in U.S. politics, and even so, he would be far less likely to side with the right-wing authoritarians who constantly promote racism and xenophobia and would kick out an ethnic minority immigrant like himself.
Even so, let’s see if Andy has shown himself to be a racist/misogynist or not:
- In 2023, Andy made a tweet criticizing the racism against Credit Suisse’s first (and only) black CEO.
- In 2021, Yen posted about a program that helps girls get into tech, using the term “gender-atypical professions”.
- In 2017, Proton announced they were supporting Project Integration, which helps refugees gain access to education in Switzerland.
Proton/Andy works with Democrats and has a pro-regulation stance
Going through all of Proton’s blogs (and there are many), a pattern appears. On the surface, Proton hides it well (probably because they want to maintain the neutral image). Here’s what I found:
- Back in 2020, Proton participated in a congressional report, which was written by the Democrats. Specifically, it was written by Lina Khan before she was appointed as FTC chair by Biden.
That is the same Lina Khan that MAGA supporters and corporate Republicans have been demonizing.
- Yen also publicly praised Lina Khan, but this statement did not cause the same level of uproar as his Slater praise did, despite the fact that his and Proton’s neutrality can be questioned as a result.
Proton, and Andy in particular, are pro-regulation. This is in direct contrast with Republicans and Trump, who favor de-regulation. I have found dozens of interviews online where Andy Yen is supporting regulatory efforts in the EU and United States, with the U.S. proposals being made by the Democratic Party.
Here are a few articles & interviews that I found during my research:
I was also surprised to see that Proton’s own blog attacks Trump & Republicans a fair amount, including this post written by Andy, which is something they also recently doubled down on.
One thing to note is that while on Reddit, people are alleging that Proton is a company run by a fascist, pro-MAGA, pro-dictatorship CEO, users on X are accusing Andy and the company of being anti-MAGA/anti-Trump.
So, in the face of all the evidence I’ve found, to compare Andy to a tech oligarch like Zuck and Elon, who are now bootlicking on display for all to see, is not supported by the evidence.
Further to this, Yen set up Proton as a non-profit Foundation, and he donated his stock. So now Proton is non-profit, and Andy wouldn’t even stand to profit from backing Trump like the real Silicon Valley tech oligarchs.
Looking at the board of Proton (as in the company and the Foundation that owns it), there are three cis-gender women on the board. These board members (Alisee de Tonnac, Carissa Veliz, and Rosemary Leith) are public persons with high profiles.
They have interviews and videos online, and it’s pretty apparent they are feminists with liberal values. This begs the question: if Andy Yen was a closet Republican MAGA supporter, why would he stack his own board with feminists?
Conclusion
To conclude, my findings suggest that it is far more likely Andy is a liberal rather than a pro-MAGA Republican. This is something he will never admit to in order to avoid losing Proton’s MAGA customers (who probably are also a loud/angry Proton user group), but the evidence seems clear.
But how do you explain the Gail Slater post? In this case, I am more inclined to believe Andy’s statements at face value. He most likely actually believes that Slater is a good pick who will deliver on her promise to crack down on Big Tech. The now controversial post is very likely to have been a knee-jerk reaction to his disbelief that Trump would actually make a good antitrust lead pick for the DOJ.
Proton and Andy have been campaigning together with Democrats in the U.S. to introduce regulation and stop Big Tech’s uncontrolled reign over user data and privacy infringements. It’s very likely that Yen has grown disillusioned with the Democrats when it comes to antitrust because every so often they undo all the progress made:
However, being disillusioned with one party on one issue doesn’t mean that all of a sudden Andy Yen changed all of his stances and that now he’s actually pro-Republican or pro-MAGA. All of the evidence gathered suggests the exact opposite.
Does it even matter?
As I was writing this, I realized that for Proton, this doesn’t even matter:
- The company is controlled by a non-profit, with very clearly liberal members on its board.
- Proton is headquartered in Switzerland, a neutral country that is not part of the 5-Eyes or 14-Eyes intelligence alliances with the U.S.
- Under Swiss law, Proton cannot comply with U.S. subpoenas, as any legal request must first be approved by a Swiss court.
- Even if Andy supported MAGA and wished to cooperate with Trump’s DOJ, such actions would be illegal in Switzerland and blocked by Swiss courts.
- Proton is end-to-end encrypted, meaning it cannot decrypt user data. Even if they violated the law and a Swiss court allowed it, they still wouldn’t be able to decrypt the data to provide it to Trump.
- Proton is open source, so any attempt to secretly insert a backdoor for Trump would be detected, as the code is publicly accessible.
So, in the end, none of this matters. Even if enraged internet users were correct, and Proton was 100% MAGA, it’s set up so that user privacy remains protected.
Postscript
While researching this article, I came across several interesting interviews with Andy dating back a decade. He doesn’t discuss politics, but these interviews offer insight into his personality. After watching them, I’m even more convinced he’s not MAGA — the messaging and convictions have remained consistent from 2014 to today. Definitely worth a watch.
