Washington – The Greater technology companies and his CEOs donated millions to the inauguration of the President Donald Trumporganized parties and dinners in their honor and allowed him to announce and receive credit for new multibillionaire manufacturing projects. But less than three months after the president’s second term, Trump hardly returned his luxurious gestures with favors.
The comprehensive rates he imposed last week will squeeze the supply chain of the iPhone da Apple () and make much more expensive for Amazon (), Meta (), Google () e Microsoft () Build supercomputers to feed artificial intelligence.
The president cut federal funding for research on emerging technologies such as AI and quantum computing. His repression of immigration has incited fears that he will cut the ducts for technology talents.
The Trump administration has also signaled that it will continue an aggressive regulatory stance to control the power of the largest technology companies, starting next week with a historical antitrust trial to dismember the Facebook owner, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Since the inauguration of the president, the combined market value of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft has dropped 22%to $ 10 trillion. And the Nasdaq index, of high technology, retreated 21%.
“Single Hand Way”
Trump efforts are far from industry approach in their first government when many technology leaders were openly hostile to the president. With a turnaround and flattery, executives hoped that this time Trump could show more technology, including it in their efforts to dereguarment sectors such as energy and cars.
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Instead, genuflection {reverence that consists of placing one knees on the ground]of the leading Silicon Valley leaders can be a wrong reading of how to succeed at Trump’s Washington, according to Democratic and Republican policies experts.
The relationship that technology executives have with the president has been a “one-way road,” said Gigi Sohn, a senior counselor of the Biden Government Federal Communications Commission. “They give him everything, and he promises nothing, which in this case is a good thing.”
This did not stop them from trying. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg’s CEO of the goal was at the White House to try to persuade the government to resolve the federal trade process against the company. Technology leaders, including Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, have also visited the White House in recent weeks.
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Companies said they want to get involved with Trump in a variety of issues and are analyzing the long -term effects of their policies. Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon refused to comment. The White House also did not respond to a request for comment.
From hostility to support
Hostilities between the technology and Trump industry date from at least 2016, when several technology executives endorsed Hillary Clinton to president and donated to their campaign. After Trump was elected, technology leaders criticized the president’s prohibition of immigration to Muslims and their skepticism about Covid-19 vaccines.
Trump’s first government adopted a tough regulatory stance on the sector, with antitrust actions against Google and the goal. He criticized social media and other Internet giants for censoring him and accumulating a lot of power. He also blamed the platforms for contributing to his electoral defeat in 2020.
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The public tone of the technology industry about Trump changed abruptly last year after it was injured in an attempted murder.
Following, Zuckerberg called him “tough.” Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, praised Trump for “grace under fire.” Elon Musk, who leads the Spacex rocket company, Tesla’s electric car manufacturer and social X platform, endosou Trump and donated $ 300 million to her campaign.
After the election, Apple CEO Tim Cook, next to Meta, Google and Amazon, donated $ 1 million each for inauguration. Several of the executives made trips to Mar-lago, Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida. And in possession, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Cook and Pichai appeared on the dais next to members of the cabinet.
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“If you look at the inauguration, look at the people on that stage – here was who is a world who was totally against me the first time,” Trump recently said in an interview with Clay Travis, from Outkick, a sports and news site owned by Fox.
There were some benefits. Musk is now a close advisor to the president, and critics say his business will probably gather rewards of his proximity. Trump also signed executive orders by postponing the sale or ban on Tiktok, as required by a law passed last year for security concerns about the Chinese application company of the application, Bytedance.
Despite cutting off his federal funding, Trump opened his doors to a slight continuous regulatory touch on AI, which he said to be his main priority to beat China in a race for global technological leadership. Last month, Google, Microsoft, Goal, and other technology giants sent suggestions, asking the government to get off the way.
And US regulators almost totally dismantled a governmental repression of years to the cryptocurrency industry, a volatile sector full of fraud, blows and theft. This benefits companies such as the risk capital company Andreessen Horowitz, a large investor in space.
But technology companies still face increasing pressures under the current Trump government.
The new leaders appointed to the Justice Department and the FTC showed no signs of retreating into a series of antitrust processes moved against Google, Meta, Amazon and Apple.
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
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