Trump's Trials - Big tech gets ready for Trump's return

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Trump has tapped Silicon Valley insiders to lead AI policy. There's talk of a "Manhattan Project" for military AI. Advocates are worried the risks and misuse of the technology will grow under Trump. And, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg announced the end of fact-checking on his social media platforms. Industry watchers say it's another sign Silicon Valley is trying to get in President-elect Trump's good graces. Support NPR and hear every episode sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's Trump's Terms from NPR. I'm Scott Detro. We will have really great strong people. Donald Trump is unstoppable. Make America healthy again. The future is going to be amazing. Each episode, we bring you NPR's latest coverage of the incoming Trump administration and the people who will run it. From cabinet secretaries to political advisors, NPR is following their agenda and their path to power to bring you stories like the ones in this

episode. Those stories start right after this. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Fresh Air, up first. NPR News Now, Planet Money, Ted Radio Hour, Thru Line, the NPR politics podcast, code switch, embedded books we love, wild card, are just some of the podcasts you can enjoy sponsor free with NPR Plus. Get all sorts of perks across more than 20 podcasts with the bundle option. Learn more at plus.npr.org. The Indicator is a podcast where daily economic news

is about what matters to you. Workers have been feeling the sting of inflation. So as a new administration promises action on the cost of living, taxes, and home prices, The S&P 500 biggest post-election day spike ever. Follow all the big changes and what they mean for you. Make America affordable again. Listen to The Indicator, the daily economics podcast from NPR. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have outlined their plans to slash the federal workforce

with the help of a team of quote, small government crusaders. What's in store for federal workers and how are they planning for change? This January 1A's.gov series guides you through various government agencies and the people working for you. Listen to the 1A podcast from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. What will happen with the artificial intelligence industry under President-elect Trump? Well, many tech leaders want to know. Some of them are hoping that billionaire Elon Musk, serving as a close Trump advisor, will boost the AI sector. For more, we're joined by NPR's Bobby Allen. Hi, Bobby.

Hey, Mary Louise. A big picture, what you watching for in terms of what the Trump team might bring for AI companies? Yeah, you know, from a very high level, it's expected to be a change in tone, right? The Biden administration took a somewhat antagonistic approach to AI with executive orders and rules aimed at beefing up safety measures. But Trump says he is finding AI advisors from within the AI and tech sector. People like David Sachs, he's a former PayPal executive and longtime venture capitalist. Trump is making him the White House's AI czar.

That's someone who can set priorities for AI policy and help shape what federal rules could look like for AI. And Sriram Krishnan, he's another longtime venture capitalist who has invested in AI companies and Trump is tapping him as an AI Advisor so these two top picks Mary Louise really show that the people who will be shaping AI policies are AI believers and and individuals who have Invested in AI companies so Trump's AI policy, you know, is going to be heavily influenced by industry types. Okay, so fewer rules, fewer regulations. What might that actually look like in practice?

Well Congress has never passed a piece of AI legislation. So there are no federal rules in the US right now regulating the AI industry. But the Biden administration has exerted force in other ways. One key way has been through the Federal Trade Commission. It has opened investigations into nearly every big tech company. A lot of these companies are expected to be interested in purchasing smaller, very innovative AI companies in Trump's term. And the Biden administration has not been a fan of such mergers. They made larger companies, you know, they make larger companies even larger, but you

know, that could soon change. I talked to John Villasenor, he's a law and public policy professor at UCLA, and he says expect to see a lot more AI companies being gobbled up by the likes of Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI. There's going to be certainly a much greater willingness for larger established companies to make offers to buy up and coming AI startups. There's been a bit of a chill in the air

under the Biden administration's FTC. So I think that'll likely be a lot less aggressively forced under the Trump administration. And you know, critics of consolidation in the tech industry say it can lead to less competition so that the quality of products could potentially get worse over time and prices for consumers could go up. Bobby, go back to Elon Musk, who as we know is playing an outsized role in Trump's transition. Do we know if he's likely to play an outsized role in AI policy once they actually get to the White House?

Yeah, yeah. Well, on top of heavy hitter companies that he runs like Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has his own AI company called XAI. So he does have a vested interest in policies that could spur more growth for the AI industry. And he wants federal policies to advance the development of autonomous vehicles. And Tesla could have a large role in that. And Musk has talked about the need to onshore the production of semiconductor chips used to power AI systems.

To onshore them, so meaning making them in the US as opposed to Taiwan where they're mostly made now? That's exactly right. 90% of the most advanced ones are made there. And now there is bipartisan support for more chip production in the U.S. That was the whole push of the CHIPS Act, which Congress passed. It pumped billions into making the U.S. more competitive globally in the chip sector. But a lot has to be done in order to go toe-to-toe with Taiwan.

And AI is just highly, highly dependent, Mary Louise, on these cutting edge chips that the Trump administration, soon to be at least, is hoping to make more of in the US. And PR's Bubby Ellen. Thanks, Bubby. Thanks, Mary Louise. You're listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. I'm Scott Detro. And what you just heard was not the only big news we have to share today about the incoming

Trump administration. Here's another story from NPR's latest coverage. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Steve Inskeep. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram is positioning itself for a new administration. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who once banned President-elect Donald Trump from Facebook for his role in the January 6th attack, now says he favors more free speech, and he's ending a fact-checking feature that was designed to slow down the spread of false information.

Metta's move comes as Republicans on their way into power talk of a crackdown on tech companies. And Pierce Bobby Allen is covering this. Bobby, good morning. Hey, there, Steve. Okay, so what was Metta doing and what are they going to be doing now? Well, it used to be that posts that were flagged by enough users underwent a fact-checking process by third-party professional fact-checkers.

And when they were done, the post got a label. Now that is over. In its place is what's known as a community note system. This was inspired by how it works on Elon Musk's X. The fact-checking process is crowdsourced to regular users. And when the users reach some kind of consensus, a note is added to the post. That's big change one. Second big change, Steve, restrictions will be lifted on topics like immigration and gender identity.

Currently, these protections are in place to curb hate speech. Now they are dismantled. In an Instagram video announcement, Zuckerberg says, Metta's speech policing has become too aggressive. And we've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. And to say this is a big reversal is an understatement. After the 2016 presidential election, Zuckerberg himself came up with this fact-checking system.

It followed revelations, of course, that Russia exploited Facebook to divide the country and boost the Trump campaign. Now Zuckerberg is abandoning the very fact-checking system that he helped create. Bobby, when he says he's responding to the recent elections, that's very close to saying that he's adjusting policies for Trump. He didn't say so explicitly, but yes Zuckerberg's framing is quite notable. In his video, he said speech is being censored on Metta's platforms. It's an allegation Republicans have made for years and until now an allegation he has fought against. Now he is

leaving some limits in place, ones on speech that encourage crimes like terrorism, child sexual exploitation, and scams, but more lax rules also follow several other developments. Steve, okay, Metta donating a million dollars to Trump's inaugural fund, Metta tapping Republican lobbyist Joel Kaplan to be Metta's global affairs officer, and putting Trump supporter Dana White, the president of the ultimate fighting championship on Metta's board of directors. So taken all together, I called up Metta observer Brendan Nyhan. He's a political scientist at Dartmouth College.

And here is how he sees it. Metta clearly perceives a great deal of political risk of being targeted. And the way Zuckerberg presented the announcements and its timing was obviously intended to play to a Republican audience. If we assume that Zuckerberg is acting out of business reasons here, what is the business case for currying favor with the president-elect? Couple reasons. Trump has been attacking Zuckerberg for years. Trump believes Zuckerberg's measures in 2020 to combat disinformation and bolster reliable election information was a type of election interference. Trump even threatened to throw Zuckerberg in prison if Metta did the same in 2024. On top of that, federal agencies have been investigating Metta over whether it has used

its dominance to hurt competitors. And one big case Metta is facing was brought by the Federal Trade Commission back in 2020, so during Trump's first term. And that case is set to go to trial in April. NPR's Bobby Allen, thanks for your reporting. Thanks, Steve. Before we wrap up, a reminder, you can find more coverage of the incoming Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon.

And thanks as always to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025? We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. This message comes from the Kresge Foundation.

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