So now that the dust has settled on the election…well, almost settled. While the President and Senatorial election results are in, there are still some house races that are being counted. At this moment, all signs point to a GOP “trifecta” – complete control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives.
So what does the Trump sweep mean for technology? Here are some things we can expect.
Artificial Intelligence
The Biden administration focused on making AI safe. Their primary concern seemed to be that this technology not discriminate or reflect bias, especially when used by the government. “Safety, transparency, and accountability” were the administration’s watch words on AI, and they focused on the “AI Bill of Rights” (which in spite of the name, was designed to protect humans, not virtual beings).
Trump’s approach is quite different, as he has focused less on safety and bias and more on out-competing China in these kinds of frontier technologies. Biden issued an executive order to address “the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence”. Trump plans to repeal it. The easiest way to understand Trump’s views on AI is to look at the technology as a kind of nuclear arms race, with the US on one side and China on the other. That’s his perspective and his administration’s focus will be on making sure that America is a leader in this field and benefits from the technology, and conversely striving to make sure China doesn’t.
Deregulation
This is an easy one. Every single presidential candidate in the history of the nation champions “deregulation”, “freeing Americans from government busybodies”, and “eliminating wasteful spending”. These are very easy campaign slogans to use and promises to make. Who in the electorate is going to vote for more waste?
Every citizen feels the government is wasting money. Classically, conservatives feel that social programs are shot through with graft and fraud, and liberals look at defense spending as an unnecessary cash cow for political favorites.
Generally, it’s difficult to measure deregulation and easy to claim that you’ve made huge strides. In this election, there is one wild card: Elon Musk. He has bemoaned regulations and it’s a major reason he backed Trump. He may make a concerted effort to reign in government spending – there is talk of him becoming a kind of “government efficiency czar” – but fundamentally government has to do all kinds of wasteful things because it’s not a profit-making enterprise.
There will be a lot of sloganeering on waste and getting rid of regulations, but we’ll see exactly how many government departments and bureaus are really shuttered by 2028.
Crypto
Considering that President-Elect Trump has his own crypto coin, I think it’s safe to say that the government is going to take a much more laissez-faire attitude towards cryptocurrency. Trump will have the power to shift the government’s attitude with appointments to various government posts, plus a compliant congress.
The CHIPS Act
Trump stated that the CHIPS act is a “terrible bill,” probably because its financial benefits largely accrued to blue states. However, it has broad bipartisan support and attempting to repeal it would be difficult politically. Who wants to argue that keeping the world’s chip production in Taiwan makes sense? The CHIPS Act isn’t going anywhere.
The Biden administration made a push to break up Google on anti-trust issues. Trump has said breaking up Google would “destroy the company”.
At present, the Federal government is involved in cases against Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon on anti-trust issues. But progress in those cases will come only in 2025, giving Trump plenty of time to change direction and emphasis.
After the 2016 election, at a company townhall, Sergey Brin told Googlers that he was “deeply offended” by Trump’s election. I’d wager he’s a lot less offended in 2024 with the prospect of anti-trust headaches being lifted.
What do you think? Do you see any other areas where the election will directly affect tech?
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You call out Elon in deregulation, but completely ignore he was the first person with influence that called for a pause on AI development while guard rails could be implemented. Also, Democrats are upset with military spending? It’s 2024, not 2004. They’re the new war hawks. Democrats haven’t made a consorted effort to curb military spending since GW Bush, which immediately went away when Obama was elected. They fought HARD to prevent the sequestration in 2013 and have been pro-conflict and military spending ever since. As for CHIPS act, it was $280 billion, and the only factory that will likely be built to completion is 14nm. We paid a premium for extremely outdated technology… but the politicians sure did make a killing with their legal insider trading. Finally, for government waste, my Army buddy works for the Department of Interior. His job is to review fencing materials used by the Bureau of Reclamation. He’s been there since 2014 and has done literally nothing. There haven’t been many advances in barbed wire in the last decade. Yeah… there’s a lot of room to clean house.