I never thought I’d find myself agreeing with the longtime Trump associate and election denier Steve Bannon. But last month, he argued that the Silicon Valley “broligarchs” are cozying up to the newly elected president because they “want essentially a bailout.”
Of course, Mr. Bannon has his own agenda, as he is battling the tech bros for President Trump’s attention and favor. But Mr. Bannon has also spotted something real. Stuck between the soaring costs of complying with global regulations and the astronomical costs of the race for A.I. dominance, our largest tech companies are likely turning to the Trump administration to try to lock in their advantages.
I think that’s why Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, poured so much money into Mr. Trump’s campaign and is now serving as a shadow president. I think that’s also why major tech executives showed up at the inauguration. It could be why OpenAI’s chief, Sam Altman, joined a news conference in the White House the day after the inauguration. It may also explain why the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said in December that he was spending about half his time at Mar-a-Lago.
Silicon Valley faces numerous regulatory threats, as governments around the world gradually respond to the havoc Big Tech has caused. In the European Union, Google has been fined $8.6 billion in the past decade. Apple is liable for a $13.5 billion tax bill in Ireland after losing a court case. And Meta was recently fined about $830 million by the E.U. The European Commission will soon levy a fine in the millions against X.
Closer to home, antitrust actions against the biggest tech titans are winding their way through the courts, and U.S. states are stepping into the federal regulatory void with dozens of new protections for youth, for workers and for our data. This year, eight new state privacy laws will go into effect, and the California Privacy Protection Agency has already begun its enforcement actions, which allows it to impose fines of nearly $8,000 per intentional violation. That could reach into the millions or even billions of dollars.
Silicon Valley’s supposed lead in artificial intelligence — oft-touted as the future of technology in which a trillion dollars could be invested — seemed to evaporate recently when a Chinese startup claimed to have produced a product of equivalent quality for a fraction of the price. Microsoft and OpenAI’s subsequent discounting of prices did not inspire confidence. Mr. Altman even speculated about giving its models away free, jeopardizing the billions the industry hopes to get from customer sales.
Little wonder the tech titans are increasingly seeking help from the U.S. government. In 2023, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz asked the copyright office to reduce the barriers to entry for A.I. by ruling that A.I. training data is a “productive, non-exploitive use” of copyrighted material. Meta reportedly lobbied for the TikTok ban — which was the biggest threat to its social networks, Facebook and Instagram. And I’m guessing that Silicon Valley was probably behind the generous handout the Biden administration gave it in the final days: an executive order granting access to federal lands to build A.I. data centers.
Then there’s the possibility of rich military contracts. Last year, OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic changed their policies to make it easier to sell their A.I. for military purposes. Google reversed its stance on defense contracts a few years earlier, over the objections of employees. This week, Google also dropped its pledge not to use A.I. for weapons or surveillance. And Mr. Musk’s SpaceX has more than $11 billion in contracts with NASA.
It used to be that Silicon Valley didn’t need favors from the U.S. government. Its innovations — like the iPhone and Google search — were so amazing that they were able to win in the marketplace, as long as the government didn’t get in the way.
But now, decades into the digital revolution, the tech titans are more fragile than they’ve ever been. Sure, they seem like scary bullies, with Mr. Musk prying his way into government computer systems and threatening to shut down federal agencies, Congress investigating Mr. Andreessen’s crypto complaints against big banks, and Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, suggesting to E.U. regulators that Mr. Trump will help him roll back their onerous regulations.
But as my mother told me in elementary school, most bullies are cowards.
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