President Donald Trump was adjacent to the inauguration ceremony by Technology Titans Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Sundal Pichai, with CEOs of nearby Apple and Tiktok, who were on Earth Not just a handful of the wealthiest men, but in some combination, by executives who oversee the platforms in which virtually every American is involved.
For the president, whose rise, fall and comebacks are all intertwined with his innate ability to attract attention online and on television, those executives could push down or further strengthen his political and financial position. It holds the key to possible algorithms and policy coordination. Second, Trump could influence emerging technology policies in ways that are favorable or disadvantageous to executives and their businesses, via pressure to follow domestic regulations and lawsuits against foreign governments.
The dynamics that flow from the right-handed shift in Silicon Valley after the Covid pandemic have the opportunity to restructure longstanding hostile relationships between Trump-era conservatives and large tech companies. Practices and threats to strip legal protections.
Conservatives see opportunities to advance technology priorities on many fronts that they may not have seen before. But they say they still have skepticism about the platform that changes in recent policies and photoshoots have not been softened. For example, Steve Bannon, a former top White House aide who has an influential presence under Trump, continues to oppose Trump and his cozy technology leaders and agenda.
R-Mo. Senator Josh Hawley of . These people are businessmen. Attention economy is their business, and these are their consumers. And I think they can see the election return and realize, “Oh, hey, this is where the majority of the majority are.” ”
Among other areas of the Senate, Holy, who challenged tech companies with antitrust and data policies, said their change doesn’t mean they’re right. These people are truly our greatest interest. They are truly the most important interest in the nation. ”
“No, I don’t think of it for a moment,” he added. “I am deeply concerned about their exclusive power. It hasn’t changed at all. The ability to turn right into control of news and information, control over our personal data – that hasn’t changed. … I think it’s good that they have now changed their approach to political speech through the election and Trump’s influence.
“Do I trust them to continue doing that? No, absolutely not,” he continued. “And we are not capable of using monopoly laws to suppress information, control the flow of news, and use people’s personal information without consent through antitrust laws. I think we should put the country in our position.”
Meanwhile, Democrats and liberal allies are trying to understand how to look back at technology momentum towards them, and what the new Trump Technology Alliance will do to everything from online information control to wealth inequality and nuts They are trying to express concern about what it means. The functions and bolts of the government itself.
“We called up technology leaders over a year ago to discuss the right-hand swing in Silicon Valley and its impact,” D-Calif, including districts that include Silicon Valley slices, said in a statement. Masu. “For Democrats to regain these leaders, it is important to prove that we are the party of future, innovation and entrepreneurship. If we fail too, we will be our vision “We miss the opportunity to leverage technology for personalized medicine, efficient energy use, and build wealth in marginalized communities.”
“They don’t want to get anything from me.”
For now, Republicans believe that the relationship is largely one-way. Tech companies are acquiescing to Trump without having to give much in return.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said last week that it would pay a $25 million settlement in a four-year-old lawsuit filed by Trump to suspend his accounts after January 6, 2021. . .
Other recent moves by Meta include adding Republicans and Trump allies to the board and policy teams, closing the fact-checking program and replacing it with a community-driven system similar to Musk promoted on X. I did. The 2024 election was despite Trump threatening him with a potential sentence some time ago.
However, the company opposes claims that it is boosting Trump with its algorithms.
Bezos’ Amazon has announced that it will release a documentary for Melania Trump through the Amazon Prime Platform, but Bezos himself spoke optimistically about Trump’s potential anti-regulation agenda in new terms.
Jeff Hauser, founder of the Progressive Revolving Door Project, said the tech executives who learned lessons from the counterpart masks of the election cycle are “not as politically influenced as owning a attention control platform.” He said.
“Musk’s spending over $2.5 million in the election may have been important in margins, but his manipulation of the Twitter algorithm probably changed American politics forever in just a few years.” Hauser said. “And I think Mark Zuckerberg and others are aware of similar capabilities.”
Hauser said that what technology leaders want is an artificial intelligence policy better than anything directly related to social media platforms.
“They are gambling about the possibility that this could be an economic and economic defining moment for AI, and they know that the administrative sector has a big role to play in that.” He said.
Speaking from the oval office hours after taking office, Trump said tech leaders would have nothing to get in exchange for their support.
“They won’t get anything from me,” Trump said. “I don’t need money, but I want to do well with the country. They are smart people and they create a lot of work.”
But over the next few days, Trump allowed Musk, who had donated more than $500 million to support his campaign, to be free to implement rapid change in federal agencies. It looks like it’s there. Technology leaders also supported an executive order aimed at loosening policies that “act as a barrier to American AI innovation.” Trump also overturned his previous position at Tiktok “because I had to use it,” and found it beneficial for his election victory, he told reporters. Ta.
“And Tiktok is primarily about children, young children,” Trump said when asked about the national security concerns that lawmakers from both parties have about the Chinese parent company. “If China is trying to get information about young children, I think there’s a bigger problem to be honest.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Still, Republican lobbyists said the idea that Trump “empowers the richest people in the world” was misguided.
The person added that what Trump gets is something he and the conservatives have fought for years. Republicans have long argued that these policies amount to censorship on various platforms. Now, their message grows the platform in an unrestrained way. It’s almost a defeat for Democrats who have been warning about the threat of disinformation for years.
The lobbyists gave real weight to content policy changes on previous Twitter X by helping Trump win last fall. Now, the others will take pages from the mask playbook, the person said.
“It’s mutually beneficial,” the lobbyist said. “They obviously made a lot of money and Trump won the election.
Conservatives who have been trying to shift their tech policy to the right for a long time or move forward with their causes as Trump has come to power and technology executives seem willing to play the ball, are now moving forward with climate progression I hope it is ripe. Last week, a coalition of conservative intellectuals announced an agenda that they believe should combine the interests of both social conservatives and technical rights to guide the rights of advance technological policy.
The agenda, entitled “The Future of Family: A New Technology Agenda for Rights,” states, “a new era of technological change… could replace humans and make families functionally and biologically unnecessary.” I stated.
“But this anti-human outcome is inevitable,” the author continued. “Conservatives must welcome dynamic innovation, but they must oppose the deployment of technologies that undermine human goods. We must make policies that raise families into major constituencies of technological advancement. It must be enacted. Our aim should be newly refunctionalized households of the 21st century.”
Brad Littlejohn, a fellow at the conservative think tank, Ethics and Public Policy Center, was a co-author of the platform. He said that Trump’s budding relationship with high-tech executives could lead to those companies ensuring “a regulatory regime that is very friendly to their attempts to support this attentional economy.” He said there is a concern.
But Little John advances the conservative tech agenda because of how the conversation has changed over many issues, from allowing children to call schools to social media addiction. He told me he was watching “An incredible opening right now.”
“There was a kind of tone of resignation on a lot of technical issues, right up to the last year or two,” Little John said. “Yeah, this is like this is happening, but what are you going to do about it? We can’t resist.” And then suddenly, people said, “Oh, wait, we’re It’s like “not.” ”
There have already been some notable changes and movements, but a senior Republican aide reported that he has not noticed much change in major social media platforms.
“From a attention economic perspective, I don’t feel anything,” the person said. “X is what it is. …I really don’t know what’s going on with Facebook. My Instagram is still pretty neutral.”
One of the biggest things Trump is getting from executives is that their platform is not directly evident in its perception of “legitimacy” and “this man runs the world.”
“In 2016, they were all reflexively anti-Trump,” the aide said. Now they are fully on the 180, but (they) have the same goal. ”
