A better question might be why tech has become so political. Tech has never been neutral, to be sure. The industrial revolution brought about deep, fundamental, and undemocratic changes, imposed by the wealthy. Something similar is happening today, and the price is being paid primarily by the people who least benefit from them. It's only natural this results in a politically charged atmosphere. It doesn't help that the only recent development of note, ML/LLMs, is as highly polarizing as the mechanized looms back then, and probably far less beneficial.