What Trump's victory means for the IT industry: Antitrust regulations calm down except for Google, and AI advances accelerate

By Gage Skidmore

Following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 US presidential election , many media outlets are analyzing the future impact of this election. Here we have picked out some of the topics related to the IT industry.

What Donald Trump's Second Term May Mean for Big Tech
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2024/11/06/what-donald-trumps-second-term-may-mean-for-big-tech/

Elon Musk went all-in to elect Trump. What a second Trump presidency could mean for big tech - Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-11-06/harris-trump-won-heres-what-that-could-mean-for-big-tech

What Trump's victory could mean for AI regulation | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/06/what-trumps-victory-could-mean-for-ai-regulation/

Trump 2.0 will have a massive impact on Big Tech, AI, chips and more—in Silicon Valley and beyond | Fortune
https://fortune.com/2024/11/06/trump-2-0-will-have-a-massive-impact-on-big-tech-ai-chips-and-more-in-silicon-valley-and-beyond/

What Trump's election win means for Google antitrust cases -- and the tech industry
https://nypost.com/2024/11/06/business/what-trumps-election-win-means-for-google-antitrust-cases-and-the-tech-industry/

What Donald Trump's election win means for Silicon Valley - Fast Company
https://www.fastcompany.com/91221787/what-donald-trumps-election-win-means-for-silicon-valley

The other winner of the presidential election is Elon Musk
Elon Musk, head of SpaceX, Tesla, and X (formerly Twitter), strongly supported Trump in this election campaign, and spent more than $130 million (about 20 billion yen) on this election campaign, including supporting Trump and offering cash prizes to voters.

Elon Musk announces he will donate 150 million yen to everyone who votes, but some point out that this is illegal - GIGAZINE

Trump spent a lot of time in his victory speech thanking Musk and stating that he highly praised SpaceX's Starlink. He also said during the election campaign that he would 'establish a new government efficiency commission and appoint Musk as chairman.'

'A new star has been born. It's Elon,' Donald Trump said in his victory speech after the US presidential election, praising Elon Musk - GIGAZINE

◆ Antitrust enforcement becomes less stringent
Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), is an antitrust lawyer who has been aggressively cracking down on digital platforms based on a new interpretation of antitrust law that sees them as engaging in anticompetitive market domination through their low-price strategies.

Trump is likely to fire Khan and potentially become more restrictive.

However, since the FTC filed a lawsuit against Google for its monopoly on the search market during the first Trump administration, it is possible that the second Trump administration will pursue a path to breaking up Google. In an interview in October 2024, he did not explicitly say that he would 'break up' Google, but he did say that he would 'do something.'

◆ TikTok is alive and well
During the first Trump administration, Trump signed an executive order banning TikTok for national security reasons and forced ByteDance, the Chinese IT company that operates TikTok, to sell the app.

TikTok criticizes 'Presidential order banning TikTok', may take legal action - GIGAZINE

However, Trump has since significantly changed his stance and is now seen as being in favor of expanding TikTok in the United States to compete with Google and Meta.

◆ The evolution of AI is accelerating
President Biden issued an executive order on AI in 2023 aimed at 'ensuring that companies develop AI responsibly.'

President Biden issues executive order on AI, legal regulations to make AI safe, secure and trustworthy - GIGAZINE

Trump believes the executive order 'stifles innovation' and has pledged to repeal it. It is expected that further deregulation will be implemented in other IT-related fields as well.