What does Donald Trump’s government 2.0 mean for the technology sector?

Donald Trump’s second term in the White House promises news for the American technology industry, immersed in a frenzy of artificial intelligence (AI), cryptocurrencies and tensions over antitrust disputes.

Musk

There is no doubt that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, will play a central role in Trump’s approach to Silicon Valley, after providing a boost to his campaign financing.

“A star is born: Elon,” said the Republican in a tribute to the head of Tesla, SpaceX and the X network (formerly Twitter) in his victory speech last Tuesday.

Trump has offered Musk a position in his government to reorganize the federal administration and possibly have influence over regulation of the technology sector, to which his companies belong.

Directors

Contrary to the initial caution regarding Donald Trump’s first election in 2016, this time the technology titans did not take long to manifest themselves.

“Congratulations to our 45th president and now 47th president for his extraordinary political return and his decisive victory,” Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, wrote in X.

Bezos’s position was clear since he banned his newspaper, the influential Washington Post, from supporting Democrat Kamala Harris, a decision seen as an attempt to avoid friction in the event of Trump’s eventual return to power.

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Tim Cook, director of Apple, sent his congratulations to the president-elect, as well as Mark Cuban, a technology billionaire who supported the Democratic vice president.

Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta (Facebook, Instagram), also congratulated Trump, with whom in recent months he has tried to renew ties.

Trump reproaches the founder of Facebook for having temporarily excluded him from the platform at the beginning of 2021 for supporting his supporters who violently broke into the Capitol on January 6 of that year.

On the other hand, all the titans of the technology firms are seeking the departure of Lina Khan, director of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that oversees competition matters, appointed by President Joe Biden and who advances a policy to put a stop to the unlimited expansion of technological emporiums.

Artificial intelligence

One of the industry’s main challenges is the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI). Since the company OpenAI launched generative artificial intelligence through ChatGPT, the power and potential of this technology has unleashed passions, from enthusiasm to anguish.

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Joe Biden signed an executive order setting optional standards for AI safety, with an emphasis on protecting privacy and combating discrimination and bias.

It also establishes the creation of the American AI Safety Institute, in charge of studying the risks of this technology. However, said decree could be reviewed or annulled following recommendations from libertarian businessmen who fear regulations that stifle innovation.

Cryptocurrencies

Trump will almost certainly move in favor of cryptocurrencies after digital currency moguls contributed generously to his campaign.

With his victory, this market skyrocketed with a new record for bitcoin above $75,000.

In his first term, Trump called cryptocurrencies a scam, but then he radically changed his position, going so far as to launch his own cryptocurrency.

Trump will undoubtedly try to remove Gary Gensler, a cryptocurrency skeptic who chairs the Securities and Exchange Commission, in charge of regulating financial markets, detested by companies in the sector.

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TikTok

TikTok’s complicated fate could also change. According to a law enacted by Biden, the Chinese company that owns the application, Bytedance, has until January to dispose of it in the United States.

But Trump, who had tried to ban the platform, now opposes it, considering that this would only favor Instagram and Facebook.

Microchips

The president-elect has also talked about dismantling the CHIPS law, on essential electronic components made primarily in Asia.

Trump is counting on replacing Biden’s subsidies to this industry with aggressive tariffs, aimed at forcing companies to build them in the United States.

Jack Gold, an industry analyst, warned against this approach by emphasizing that “tariffs are a sanction, not an incentive (…) and these will not be enough to recover US microchip production.”