Tech giants are preparing to revamp artificial intelligence and withdraw from antitrust under Trump

Silicon Valley is preparing for a very different relationship with the US government as Donald Trump returns to the White House with promises to undo many of his predecessor’s policies, and Elon Musk prepares to play an influential role.

Regarding artificial intelligence, Trump pledged to rescind an executive order issued by President Joe Biden aimed at placing security barriers on the emerging technology. In the antitrust space, the new administration is expected to seek a lighter touch on merger oversight, while in the semiconductor space, the president-elect has expressed concerns about a bipartisan program that uses government investments to boost domestic chip production.

Industry leaders may see a repeat of the tense relations during Trump’s first term, when he clashed with technology executives including Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos and struck up cordial relations with others such as Apple CEO Tim Cook. Since leaving office, Trump has complained that Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Withholding good news from him and accusing Meta Platforms Inc. By being unfairly banned from Facebook and Instagram in 2021.

Trump has received support from some of the biggest names in technology, led by Musk, the world’s richest man, who has poured more than $130 million of his own money into pro-Trump super PACs and Republican congressional campaigns. Musk addressed a rally in Pennsylvania for Trump and used his ownership of Site X — the social media site formerly known as Twitter — to amplify the Republican’s message to hundreds of millions of users.

Musk’s closeness to the president-elect makes him able to shape policies that affect his biggest projects, including Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, which could leave rivals in the electric vehicle and space industries at a disadvantage in contracts and government oversight.

Other tech billionaires have found ways to bolster their standing with Trump. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Trump’s response to the July 13 assassination attempt “vicious,” while Facebook removed several of its own guardrails aimed at combating misinformation. The Washington Post’s owner, Bezos, uploaded an editorial in support of Vice President Kamala Harris less than two weeks before the election.

How much Trump can accomplish as president will depend on whether Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives. They have already taken back the Senate from the Democrats, making it easier for him to confirm his nominees. Here’s a closer look at what technology can expect from the incoming Trump administration:

artificial intelligence

Trump intends to replace the measure signed by Biden last year by establishing voluntary security and privacy guidelines for artificial intelligence developers. This order sought more funding for AI research, gave the National Institute of Standards and Technology a greater role in formulating risk mitigation guidelines and created a new agency to test and evaluate AI models before they are released.

Despite providing few details, the president-elect called Biden’s policy “dangerous” and claimed it stifles innovation. Trump said he would replace it with “AI development rooted in freedom of speech,” echoing other Republicans’ criticism of Biden’s efforts to ensure AI is used fairly and free of algorithmic bias.

“In some right-wing policy circles, safety is seen as synonymous with censorship,” said Gregory Allen, director of the Wadhwani Center for Artificial Intelligence at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Parts of Biden’s AI agenda, including his push for more AI infrastructure, could continue. Allen said the Trump campaign highlighted the need to expand U.S. energy capacity to remain competitive in the field of artificial intelligence, which could ease hurdles to permitting land and electricity use.

Trump may seek to preserve Biden’s recent memo making artificial intelligence a national security priority and press agencies to maintain American leadership by keeping the technology that underpins them away from adversaries like China. Trump could also take action through export controls that go beyond Biden’s current restrictions.

It is not yet clear who Trump will appoint to lead AI policy. However, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance could play a key role, given his experience in Silicon Valley. Vance has already expressed doubts about regulation, arguing that guardrails will only tighten the grip of large AI companies on the industry while stifling small startups. He has also supported open source technology to protect against perceived left-wing bias in AI models.

Antitrust enforcement

A second Trump administration may be more trade-friendly, but will likely continue to aggressively pursue antitrust cases targeting Big Tech.

FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan will be asked to step down, making way for Trump to appoint a third Republican to the agency. Meanwhile, he will likely choose one of the agency’s current GOP members — Andrew Ferguson or Melissa Holyoke — to serve as acting chief. Top antitrust officials at the Justice Department, including Biden appointee Jonathan Kanter, will also step down, leaving the agency in the hands of career staff until Trump’s picks take the helm.

The two agencies are likely to continue lawsuits targeting the tech giants. Some companies, such as Amazon.com, facing antitrust litigation targeting its core e-commerce business, may seek to settle with new leaders. Other monopoly cases may see changes or settlements, including the Justice Department’s lawsuits against Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and Visa Inc.

Republicans on the FTC are also likely to push back on the agency’s rulemaking efforts, a priority under Khan that GOP members have strongly opposed. Although it would be a radical and unlikely move, the Trump administration could simply drop any cases it does not want under Biden.

Perhaps the biggest shift is in the approach agencies take to dealing with mergers. While the first Trump administration challenged some high-profile transactions, such as Visa’s move to buy Plaid Inc. Fintech startups, however, have generally taken a friendlier approach, often allowing major deals to go ahead with conditions.

Some major companies are considering deals — including Qualcomm Inc. And health insurance giant Cigna Group and Humana Inc. – By delaying the completion of the proposed transactions until after the elections, in the hope of obtaining a more positive situation under the new administration.

Reverse on TikTok

Trump has said he opposes banning TikTok, a reversal of his position in his first term when he signed an executive order demanding the popular app be shut down unless its Chinese owner ByteDance Ltd pulled the plug. It’s unclear how the platform will avoid enforcement of a new federal law — now tied up in a court challenge — that would ban TikTok from selling by January 19, one day before his inauguration.

The president-elect now sees the video-sharing app as a strong competitor to Meta, which sparked his anger at being banned from its sites after his supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Americans are less supportive of the potential ban than they were a year ago, according to Pew Research Center data released in September, which found that only 32% supported it, down from 50% in March 2023.

Semiconductors and export controls

Trump’s victory creates significant uncertainty about US semiconductor policy, which under Biden has included spending tens of billions on domestic chip manufacturing and using trade and investment restrictions to counter China’s efforts in critical electronic components.

The president-elect recently attacked the Chips and Science Act of 2022, a landmark bipartisan law that accelerates investments from companies including Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the latter of which was announced during Trump’s first term.

He suggested that tariffs against foreign chip makers would be more effective than direct support for revitalizing U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, raising concerns in the industry that his administration may seek to change provisions of the Prime Chip Act. This increases pressure on Biden administration officials who are seeking to reach binding agreements with companies before the president leaves office.

On the international front, Trump has pledged to impose comprehensive tariffs on Chinese exports, and is likely to increase tariffs on older generation chips, which Biden raised to 50%. He may also tighten export restrictions on advanced semiconductors, a Biden measure with roots in Trump’s first administration, though diplomats and industry lobbyists are bracing for a range of possibilities given the transactional nature of Trump’s foreign policy.

Perhaps the biggest question is how Trump will deal with Taiwan, the beating heart of the global chip industry. He claimed Taiwan “stole” America’s semiconductor business and said the island should pay more for its security. The risks are enormous: A Chinese invasion of Taiwan — where more than 90% of advanced chips are produced — would be a $10 trillion blow to the global economy, according to Bloomberg Economics estimates.

2024 Bloomberg LP Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.