Big Tech under Trump 2.0 | GZERO World with Ian Bremmer

Big Tech under Trump 2.0 | GZERO World with Ian Bremmer

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- The social media platforms in general are shifting to the right. You knew that Zuckerberg was heading in that direction. You knew that they would tack towards Trump. You did not know they would rewrite their entire policy handbook and that they would do it at a snap.

(light music) - Hello, and welcome to "GZERO World." I'm Ian Bremmer, and today, with Trump's return to the White House, we are taking a hard look at an industry with an outsized role in the economy, politics, and media, big tech. Trump 2.0 will mean massive changes in the government's relationship with tech companies in ways that could affect everything from AI development to what types of content social media users see online.

Since Trump's first term, the technology landscape has shifted dramatically. AI is today booming. Meta and Google are fighting antitrust battles.

Elon Musk turned Twitter into X. TikTok exploded in popularity, and now faces an impending ban. So far, technology leaders are betting that President Trump will be good for their business, but will his next term be the deregulation and innovation bonanza that they're hoping for? What does big tech stand to gain and lose from a second Trump presidency? I'm sitting down with technology journalist and CEO of "The Atlantic" Nick Thompson. (graphics whooshing) (upbeat music) - What a difference a new term makes, at least when it comes to Big Tech and the Trump administration. - In the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.

- Trump had a contentious relationship with the technology industry in his first administration, no question. He accused social media platforms of silencing conservative voices, and hauled CEOs to testify before Congress. Well, what about now? - As you know, I had Sundar from Google, but I also had Sergey. Tim Cook was here. We do have Jeff Bezos, Amazon coming in. We have a lot of great executives coming in.

The top executives, the top bankers, they're all calling, and honestly, in the first term, I don't know what it was. It's like a complete opposite. - [Ian] Big tech has wasted no time cozying up to the next administration. A parade of technology royalty has visited Mar-a-Lago, also including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, and SoftBank's Masayoshi Son. Meta also announced that they would end their fact-checking program.

They used to call it moderation. Now, it's censorship, and focused on promoting free speech. - The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. - Why the sudden change of heart? The industry knows which side of their bread is buttered, especially now that Trump's inner circle is full of technology power players, people like Elon Musk, a man who's so influential, he's earned the nickname shadow president, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency with Musk, also David Sacks, who will advise Trump on AI and crypto policy. Trump ally Peter Thiel also helped staff the administration with Silicon Valley alums, ensuring the tech world's fingerprints are everywhere. So what's on the wishlist for big tech under Trump 2.0?

Start with AI deregulation. Trump has pledged to scrap Biden-era policies that curb AI risks and tighten federal oversight. Silicon Valley wants fewer rules and looser copyright laws, critical for training the next wave of AI. Crypto is also riding high. The president-elect has promised to make the US a global crypto powerhouse, complete with a national Bitcoin stockpile and an advisory council. The crypto crowd is euphoric, hoping Trump's policies will pave the way for a decentralized boom.

But it's not all roses for big technology. Trump's tariff plans, like his 60% threat on Chinese goods, could spell trouble for companies like Apple, which rely heavily on Chinese manufacturing. And there's Trump's grudge against Section 230, the law that shields social platforms from liability over user content. Coupled with a more hawkish FTC under Andrew Ferguson, Big Tech is hardly in the clear. So despite all the optimism, Trump 2.0 may not lead to the windfall

Big Tech is hoping for. And Trump is, of course, known for changing his position if he feels like he's not getting a great deal. Policy can be made and unmade at the speed of a tweet, or an X, or a Truth. For now, tech leaders are dining at the table, but with Trump, the honeymoon could end as fast as it began.

Here to help me break down Trump's relationship with the tech world and what his second term will mean for technology companies, the future of media, and beyond, CEO of "The Atlantic," Nick Thompson. Nick Thompson, great to have you back on "GZERO World." - Delighted to be here, Ian. - So, so much to discuss in the world of technology, and media, and politics, and I mean, I guess the most interesting thing in the immediate sense has been watching so many big technology players find different ways to try to say, "We are aligned with this new group." What's been most surprising to you? - I mean, the most surprising was the complete about-face from Meta, and you knew that Zuckerberg was heading in that direction. You knew that they would tack towards Trump.

You did not know that their head of public policy would turn over. You did not know they would get rid of all of their fact-checkers. You did not know they would rewrite their entire policy handbook and that they would do it at a snap.

- How much of this do you think is actually Zuckerberg is much more comfortable in an environment where they don't have to be responsible- - Yeah. - For fact-checking, and would much rather just, it's cheaper for him, right? Less political problems for him, no? - No, I don't know if it's cheaper for him, I mean, because you have to look ... The reason they started doing it was to try to lessen the political problems, right? If you do it, you end up having less bad stuff on your platform. Bad stuff on your platform causes problems, so- - [Ian] Causes legal problems.

- Causes legal problems, causes political problems. I also don't know if it's cheaper, because they make their money from advertising. You create a more toxic platform, advertisers like that less. So I don't actually know if he's making money, or if it aligns with what's easier for him. - Interesting, do you think he has a true north on this issue, or is it just, "I need to be aligned "with whatever the political winds are blowing"? - I do think his true north is shifting in the Trump direction. He does seem to be moving politically in kind of a more Trumpian anti-woke direction, but I think it's mostly about the winds.

I think if Trump were not president, you would not be seeing that. I don't know that, I just think that. - So Trump's about to actually take office, though he's been frankly acting as president for quite several weeks now. Where do you think technology policy is substantively likely to be noticeably different in this administration? - Couple areas.

Number one, mergers and acquisition, right? So the Biden administration was extremely tough on mergers and acquisitions with Lina Khan, FTC. You'll see a huge change there. - J.D. Vance notwithstanding. - J.D. Vance- - Who liked her.

Doesn't matter. - Liked her, but he's not, that position will be outweighed. Secondly, cryptocurrency regulation, you'll see massive, you know, massive loosening of crypto regulations. You'll see, you know, you're already seeing, you know, price of coins go up. The question's whether that bubble bursts, whether there's problems there, but you will see at least in the short run change there. You'll probably see the same similar policies on AI in China.

I don't think you'll see a major break there. And then the big question will be how much the policy shifts towards specifically favoring Elon versus, you know, what's good for the American tech industry in general. - What does it mean broadly speaking for the social media environment for a broader shift in the lines of where X is today, assuming this continues, how do you think it affects society that we are going to have a very different set of norms being followed by the businesses that are driving how we communicate with each other? - I think that the social media platforms in general are shifting to the right. The balance between toxicity and safety, toxicity aligned with positive things, like free speech, it's shifting in that direction. You are seeing a shift.

I think it matters less than one might think for two reasons. Most importantly, social media is less important than it was five years ago. It's bifurcated, it's dispersed.

Conversations happen across platforms. Probably the most interesting conversations that most people have are now in group chats. They're no longer on big public platforms.

And secondly, there's going to be some counter movement in other directions, for example, Bluesky. And so, you have a whole bunch of people shifting onto Bluesky, and what's happening is as communities split, there will be less and less one town square where people discuss issues of consequence. - Is it good, or bad that we lose a town square? I think about, you know, the days of network television- - Yeah. - When American citizens felt like they got their information in a town square. We all had a conversation.

I get that group chats can be much less toxic, they'll be much more engaged. - Yeah. - On the other hand, they will be much more fragmented, they'll be more atomized. People will not be as connected to their fellow people. - It's true.

My ideal world, as you know, would be one where there was a social media platform optimized for curiosity, engagement, to reach people with different opinions, and such a town square would be amazing. You'd have great political discourse. The worst scenario, of course, is a completely toxic town square, where everybody's forced to be there.

So if you were to ask me to choose between every single person is on a toxic version of Twitter, X, versus completely dispersed social media, I would choose dispersed. In a ideal X, and maybe Musk will get there. Maybe there will be a way to make X feel welcoming to people. Maybe there'll be ways to re-optimize the algorithm. It does not seem to be going in that direction.

You can imagine the kind of town square where I would like American political discourse to happen. But given what's happened to the social platforms, I'm fine with it totally dispersing. - Seems like we are quickly moving, though, to AI, where we're going to engage a lot more with chatbots that are programmed, right, to know everything about our data on our smartphone, and talks with us just the way we want to be talked to. - Right. - I mean, if we're working, moving towards customization, society isn't doing it.

Is that the ultimate atomization that we are unavoidably heading towards? - I don't think we're unavoidably headed towards that. It is the dystopian future. It's the dystopian future, where you no longer know if you're talking to a person, or you're talking to a bot, or the bot knows more about you than you know about yourself, and where the bot, which, you know, does not love you, but does want your money, you know, actually knows how to communicate in such a way that you feel love, give money, and the bot, you know, gets what it wants. That's the worst future. The scariest thing that happened in social media in the last two weeks- - Mm-hmm? - It wasn't Facebook saying, "We're going to get rid of the fact-checking, "and we'll get rid of the algorithm," or, you know, Musk doing whatever the hell he's doing on X. The scariest thing was that Facebook appeared to be running some kind of a test, where they created fake characters for social media who would interact with you, right? And so, they shut down the test.

Who knows what's going to happen, but it was really like as though they were testing "Westworld," right? And suddenly, you will have a social media platform where you have all these like really beautiful people who are very engaged with you, liking your posts and sending you comments, and you can imagine that being super engaging. And so, you can imagine this incredible dystopian future where right now it's bad enough. Our kids are spending all their time on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, whatever. We all know the studies and the effects. Imagine that they're just in this world populated by billions, trillions of like perfectly designed characters who are perfectly engaged and have the sort of simulation of being human. That's the AI dystopia.

- So who right now, I mean, is getting AI closer to right? - You look at where AI innovation is happening. It's not happening in Europe- - At all. - I mean, it's still, it's happening in California, right? I mean, now, is it getting AI right? Who knows, but, you know, there are, that's where the innovation's happening, in China. Remarkable, right? Like look at DeepSeek. Look at the recent innovations in large language models in China. It's developing pretty similar to the way that you and I wrote about six or seven years ago, where these are the two places where it's happening.

- These are also the two places that are really not talking about how to engage with each other on that. There was very, very nascent start of that conversation in the past year- - Yeah. - That probably won't continue with the incoming administration. Do you think an AI arms race between the Americans and Chinese is right now likely? - It is likely, and it's unfortunate.

So right at the end of Biden's term, you know, here we are at the very end of it, they've released this 175 pages of regulations on AI, and I haven't had time to fully digest whether the regulatory burden outweighs the benefits, but what I do know is this. The entire brainpower of the Biden administration, to the extent it was thinking about AI, was not thinking about existential risk, was not thinking about how to limit bots, was not thinking about how it would change the economy of the US and how to help the transition. It was focused on how to prevent AI from getting to China. - How to contain China. - Optimizing on totally the wrong vector, right? Now, should we optimize to contain China? Sure.

Are there downstream benefits of that? Yes. If I were choosing, if I were Joe Biden and I were choosing which of these big AI questions, you can only choose one, and you're going to write a regulatory framework to optimize for that, would I choose fighting China, or- - Was- - I would not do that. - [Ian] What would you pick? - I would pick on helping the US economy prepare for the turmoil that's going to come as AI starts to change major industries. How do you upskill, how do you educate, how do you prepare, how do you integrate? What can the US government do on that front? I might even choose, you know, how to limit the existential risks, right? Like there are lots of things, I might choose how to make sure there's a competitive market. I just would not choose blocking China as my number one priority. - Where's the early stage displacement that you're starting to see happening right now? - So one of the things that we see in media is we see a huge decline in the number of people searching for something in Google and then coming to our sites, right? And that's a problem for us, fewer readers, right? We're fine, we're compensating for it.

We're doing, you know, more subscribers this week at "The Atlantic" than almost any other week because we got really good at paid marketing, we figured out these other things, and we were able to survive with extremely few users from Google. But it means that this whole economy that has been built on search engines sending people to your site is going to change dramatically, because the search engines are just going to answer the questions, right? And so, suddenly, you're going to see a huge shift in the economy. Now, will it be net good for consumers? Maybe, maybe those answers will be better.

Certainly, they'll be simpler. Certainly, there'll be less friction. But suddenly, you'll start to see a lot of businesses saying, "Wait a second, "we used to get 1,000 people a month from Google.

"Now, we're getting 500. "Now, we're getting 100." So I think you're going to see a number of businesses having to pivot very quickly. - We haven't talked about Elon. Before we close, we should do that. He's going to be in the White House.

He's by far the most powerful advisor to Trump. He's becoming the military industrial complex in the United States in some degree. And of course, he also owns a piece of the public square, and he's saying, "We are the media." He doesn't mean you and me- - Definitely does not. - Right, when he says that. So what do you think are the most important implications of the Elon-ification of the technology/public square space? - I mean, I think one of the most amazing things about his purchase of Twitter/X, is that he has lost huge percentage of the value.

Like if you were to sell X as an independent entity, worth a fraction, right? Look at the advertising, and yet, he's completely won. Like the amount of value he has created for his other companies, for his own personal brand- - Massive. - The data he's taken to change his AI, it's just extraordinary. I don't think anybody would've predicted it.

And so, the way to look at his public square is that it's not really a public square that he's designed as a public square. It's a public square that he has designed to further his other interests, which are so much more important. And so, that's how you have to look at X. It's a tool for him to gain influence for whatever he wants to do in German politics, and whatever he wants to do in German politics ties back in some ways to his own personal beliefs, but also possibly to his business interests at SpaceX, Tesla, and everywhere else.

He's an extremely complicated person to follow. The most interesting thing to watch will be what the European Union does to him. I mean, they're not, he's not popular there, and they're not- - They're taking a breath, as you know. - Yeah-

- They're saying, "We need to reconsider this, "because actually, you know, regulating him, "or penalizing him has broader implications "directly for our relationship "with the new president." - I know. - They're saying that directly. - It's an extremely complicated game theory, because they would like him to stop, but they also don't want to upset Trump. So Musk has a very complicated balance, where he has to maintain his alliance with Trump. Obviously, it's going to be an uneasy alliance, because they both want to be the alpha, but they both get so much from each other.

They're also both highly erratic, so who knows what could blow it up. And they're going to be trying to balance their interests, and Europe is going to be trying to figure out, "Well, if we do this to Elon, what do we get from Trump?" It's going to be extremely complicated. - Is America stronger overall because of Elon's role in the administration? - There are ways that it's beneficial. Elon certainly cares deeply about some of the most important issues. Like no matter, he cares a ton about climate change. He cares a ton about space exploration.

He cares a ton about innovation, right? And so, having a voice who is as smart as Elon is as close to the president when there aren't that many advisors, and Elon has also played a role in ... So, Trump's new AI advisor, Sriram Krishnan, very good guy. Like we are very lucky in the Trump administration to have someone like that as an AI advisor.

Would that have happened- - Without Elon, no. - Without Elon? Almost certainly not. - Yeah. - So you get a lot of benefits. Now, on the other hand, you get the chaos that comes with him. You get the geopolitics that come with him.

You're going to get some distortion, right? Are we going to regulate AI and ... or OpenAI, and Anthropic, and the other AI companies the right way, or are we going to regulate them in the way that is most advantageous to Grok, right? I don't know. We might end up with really inefficient regulations, because they're all skewed towards Musk companies. So even within just the tech perspective, you could get a real biasing because of Musk's closeness to Trump. So there's positives and there're negatives.

I do think in general Trump's technology policy will probably be better for America because of Musk than it would be without him. But Musk will also create so much additional chaos. Then again, like maybe a negative number times a negative number is a positive, maybe a chaos, you know, magnet times a chaos magnet makes calm- - I was completely with you in your answer until that last one small bit. Like no, too many, negative times negative geopolitically ends up just breaking stuff that you don't want to have break- - I mean, that's what I worry about. - But the rest of it is very balanced, and I think that's, it's- - Yeah.

- Useful to hear from you on this- - Yeah. - And many other issues. Nick Thompson. - Ian Bremmer, it's always a pleasure to chat with you. - Thanks, man. (graphics whooshing) (light electronic music) That's our show this week.

Come back next week. And if you like what you've seen, or even if you don't, but you think that you should be the next US technologies czar we can help you with that, if you take a moment to sign up for our most excellent morning newsletter, appropriately titled GZERO Daily.

2025-01-22 05:44

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