Big Tech companies gear up for major policy changes under Donald Trump
Trump's relationships with Big Tech CEOs, like Musk and Bezos, signal a business-friendly approach. Under his administration, deregulation and a potentially pro-tech FTC chair could spur M&A activity. His stance on social media censorship, with FCC's Brendan Carr likely appointed, suggests tighter scrutiny of Big Tech
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New Delhi: US President-elect Donald Trump has strong relationships with Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk and has talked about positive relationships with Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos and Meta Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Other support from Silicon Valley comes from the disdain for Lina Khan, Biden’s strong anti-trust FTC chair who has been very hard on Big Tech, according to a report by Counterpoint Research. “With a potentially more business-friendly FTC chair during the Trump administration, and likely deregulation in the financial industry, we expect more M&A activity by Big Tech,” the report mentioned.
Trump’s support from social media companies is not as prominent due to his repeated claims that their sites are biased against conservatives. Now that Trump is elected, Brendan Carr, a member of the FCC, would likely be named FCC chairman.
“Carr has proposed to deploy an agency against censorship by Big Tech in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. What that would specifically entail is unclear but as the FCC chairman, Carr’s actions could include halting mergers of media companies and regulating social media,” the report said.
When it comes to TikTok, a Trump presidency provides some sense of relief as Trump campaigned on TikTok-friendly rhetoric and suggested that he may repeal the sell-off legislation, already passed by the Senate.
It is likely that he would reserve that action and use it as leverage in unrelated China negotiations. According to the report, as we foresee a generally more relaxed climate for Big Tech under a Trump administration, the regulatory environment will diverge from other jurisdictions, most notably the EU, whose powerful European Commissioner for Competition has been a thorn in the side of US Big Tech companies.
High-profile tax and anti-trust cases have been brought against the likes of Apple, Amazon, Qualcomm, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Mastercard. In fact, in September 2019, Trump described Commissioner Margrethe Vestager as the EU’s “tax lady” who “hates the US, perhaps worse than any person I have ever met. Regulatory differences, in addition to potential tariffs on the EU, could further inflame tensions between the US and the 27-member bloc,” the report stressed.
