Most US tech industry employees continue to vote Democratic, even as some of its most prominent leaders are making pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago and are donating millions to Trump’s inaugural fund. How did we get here? Like much of our present moment, it all goes back to 2015, when Trump descended an escalator and declared his campaign for president.
Trump’s surprising victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 sent Democrats into a tailspin. Democratic politicians responded to the party’s defeat by turning against the tech industry and pinning society’s problems on corporate greed. While scapegoating private industry generated effective soundbites, it ignored the reality that tech drives forward US economic growth.
Thanks to tech, everyone can access university libraries at their fingertips or get anything delivered to their door in two days. Tech innovators are now applying artificial intelligence to help students read and turn driverless cars into a reality. Even though most Americans are tech optimists, tech pessimism has been an entrenched element of the Democratic platform since 2016.
Based on his first term, we have a good sense of what will drive Trump’s approach to tech policy this term: the president’s personal grievance agenda. The second term president is likely to approach major policy issues – online speech, competition policy, and China – through a lens of what best supports his own interests.
For a president who governs from ego instead of ideology, it is all about playing nice. That is why tech CEOs angle for face time. Trump is eager to reward his friends – even more than he is to antagonize his geopolitical rivals.
Democratic politicians carried their tech pessimism into 2020, and that led to a frustrating era for Silicon Valley under President Biden. The Biden administration was more anti-industry than pro-competition. It failed to support Airbnb’s challenges to the hotel industry, to support crypto and fintech’s challenges to Wall Street, to support satellite internet to challenge telecom incumbents, and to support fair use and Section 230 to help startups in artificial intelligence and social networking.
Instead, Biden promoted increased regulation. Tech leaders have reason to be angry about the last four years, and that adds context to their embrace of Trump. But the returning president’s win does not necessarily ensure smooth sailing ahead.
Trump’s first term was not known for promoting technological innovation, and he is unlikely to adopt a broad innovation agenda in the White House. For Silicon Valley, Trump’s lack of ideology when it comes to tech represents a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, Trump 2.0 looks set to reverse some of Biden’s aggressive actions such as anti-crypto lawsuits at the Securities and Exchange Commission and anti-fintech rulemaking at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.
On the other hand, Trump is unlikely to abandon the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission antitrust cases against Big Tech – several of which began under his first term. That is not because Trump cares about antitrust as an issue but because these lawsuits give him leverage over the companies to get favorable treatment on his censorship concerns.
Ultimately, Trump governs and regulates based largely on whether he views a company as being nice to him. That explains why CEOs are eager to start off his term on the right foot.
Adam Kovacevich is founder and CEO of the center-left tech industry coalition Chamber of Progress. Adam has worked at the intersection of tech and politics for 20 years, leading public policy at Google and Lime and serving as a Democratic Hill aide.
Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions expressed on Bandwidth are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
