The Future of Political Influencers

Now, the podcasting industry has grown into a more than $25 billion industry. Influencer marketing has become a $250 billion industry as of last month, according to Forbes and both are likely only to grow larger in the coming years.

Like the Democrats, Republicans now see the value in collaborating with these creators and plan to bring them under their red tent for many elections to come.

“We need to actually create a bench of folks who can continue to promote conservative ideals online,” CJ Pearson, cochair of the Republican National Convention’s youth advisory council, tells me. “That can continue to reach young people where they are, where the traditional media can’t. And I think it’s going to be something that we’re going to be leaning on, not just this cycle, but in 2026 and 2028 and many more election cycles to come.”

There are going to be a lot of takes in the coming days and weeks about what went wrong for the Harris campaign. But one thing I’m confident about? The election, and the future of the political influencer, has forever changed as we know it. Now, they’ll be organized and operating under a new Trump administration as well.

The Chatroom

As of writing this, I’m running on three nonconsecutive hours of sleep. I’m sure you’re not at your bushiest either. So for this week, I want to hear all of your thoughts and frustrations about the election. Unload on me and we’ll regroup next week.

Send your thoughts to mail@wired.com. K, love you, bye! ❤️

WIRED Reads

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What Else We’re Reading

🔗 Kareem Rahma’s American Dream: Kareem Rahma, the creator behind the popular TikTok series Subway Takes, filmed a video with Harris earlier this year. It didn’t go as planned and was later scrapped. (The New York Times)

🔗 All The Big Tech leaders Congratulating Donald Trump: Big tech CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg are congratulating Trump on his victory, committing to work with the man who Emma Roth aptly points out threatened to throw some of them in jail. (The Verge)

🔗 What Trump’s Win Means for Silicon Valley: Cristiano Lima does a great job of laying out how the incoming Trump administration could regulate Silicon Valley tech companies. He covers everything from committee assignments to policy issues like data privacy and antitrust. (The Washington Post)

The Download

Leah, Tim, and Tori recorded the WIRED Politics Lab podcast today about how Elon Musk may have helped hand Trump his victory. Listen to it here.

That’s it for today—thanks again for subscribing. You can get in touch with me via email, Instagram, X, and Signal at makenakelly.32.