Tech giants have found common ground with Trump’s pro-innovation agenda, as the administration issues directives relaxing regulations and dropping lawsuits against the industry.
The millions that US tech companies invested in currying favor with Donald Trump have seemingly paid off, as the new administration issued a flurry of directives relaxing regulations and dropping lawsuits against the industry. Crypto, AI, and social media companies, many of which made donations to Trump, are all expecting to benefit.
Donald Trump is an American businessman, television personality, and politician.
Born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics.
Trump's business career began in real estate development, eventually leading to his ownership of the Miss Universe Organization and the Trump Organization.
He gained popularity through his reality TV show 'The Apprentice' before entering politics.
In 2016, Trump won the presidential election as the Republican candidate, serving as the 45th President of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
At the center of the administration’s moves is Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. Over the past week, federal agencies under the president’s authority dropped legal fights against his rocket company and the US’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange. The White House also issued a ‘deregulatory initiative’ aimed at loosening tech-sector regulation by empowering Musk‘s Doge.
Elon Musk is a South African-born entrepreneur, inventor, and business magnate.
He is best known for founding SpaceX, a private space exploration company, and Tesla, Inc., an electric vehicle manufacturer.
Musk has also co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing implantable brain–machine interfaces, and The Boring Company, which aims to reduce traffic congestion in cities through high-speed tunnel construction.
With a net worth of over $200 billion, Musk is one of the richest people in the world.
Musk is the CEO of several tech companies that have been sued by federal agencies in recent years. He poured nearly $300m into the president’s re-election campaign and now heads the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which is tasked with cutting federal spending and regulations.
The administration’s moves fall into a pattern of friendliness towards the tech industry and its billionaire leaders. On Friday, Coinbase said the Securities and Exchange Commission had communicated plans to dismiss its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange. The same day, the justice department announced that it was dropping its discrimination case against Musk‘s SpaceX.
Trump is also cutting regulatory safeguards on artificial intelligence, which Silicon Valley CEOs have long said are overly burdensome. The body charged with testing the safety of cutting-edge AI models is bracing for layoffs after probationary employees received notice Wednesday. Two weeks ago, the White House rolled back an executive order by Joe Biden meant to ensure AI safety.
In addition to Musk, several other tech CEOs have also found favor with Trump, including Apple‘s Tim Cook, Amazon‘s Jeff Bezos, Google‘s Sundar Pichai, Meta‘s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI‘s Sam Altman, and TikTok‘s Shou Zi Chew. They all donated $1m to Trump‘s inaugural committee and have had closed-door meetings with the president.
A month before the SEC dropped its suit against Coinbase, the crypto company donated $1m to Trump‘s inaugural fund, a move many tech companies and their CEOs made to cozy up to Trump. The crypto industry writ large supported a wide swath of Republican candidates, and Trump‘s re-election sparked a rally in crypto prices.
Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Wednesday aimed at cutting back on regulations. The order, called a ‘deregulatory initiative’ in a White House press release, directly echoes Musk and Doge‘s stated mission to cut federal spending and regulations – and could greatly benefit the tech industry.
The order will ‘commence the deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state‘, the order reads. ‘Ending federal overreach and restoring the constitutional separation of powers.‘ The order dictates that Doge, along with the director of the office of management and budget, will ‘rescind unlawful regulations‘ by going through a review process that examines ‘all regulations‘.
