What Does Trump’s Deregulation Mean for the Tech Sector?

Donald Trump has already taken significant action to bring about deregulation in the United States across several industries, including technology and artificial intelligence.

In January this year, the President launched his ‘10-to-1 Deregulation Initiative’ through an Executive Order, requiring that whenever an agency promulgates a new rule, regulation, or guidance, it must identify at least 10 existing ones to be repealed. Let’s take a look at exactly what this means for the tech industry. 

Out With the Old

President Trump has done away with his predecessor Joe Biden’s policies that demanded the developers of AI conduct safety tests and share the results with the government if their systems posed a threat to national security, public safety, or the economy. 

On January 23, the President issued an executive order intending to ‘remove barriers to American leadership’ in AI, demanding that an ‘action plan’ to maintain the United States ‘global AI dominance’ be produced within 180 days. 

Such a plan may well touch on important topics within the world of AI, like cybersecurity, the displacement of workers, and deepfakes. 

A federal plan for artificial intelligence might mean tension in states that already have their own AI regulations, according to Wipfli. 

The Trump administration also recently launched a scheme whereby members of the public can submit ideas for deregulating the government through a form on the internet. 

A press release from the General Services Administration said that the form is looking for “taxpayers’ ideas to cut stifling federal regulations”. 

The theme is clear: President Trump wants to cut regulations. In a very idiosyncratic press release, the White House has said as much, writing: “President Trump will halt the job-killing and inflation-driving regulatory blitz of the Biden Administration.”

While big business – including, of course, big tech – can perhaps be expected to back deregulation in theory, President Trump has also brought on a wave of tariffs, which have already had a serious impact. 

The ‘T’ Word

Stocks in tech companies have been on something of a rollercoaster ride – largely trending downwards – since President Trump’s inauguration on January 20. 

Apple, Salesforce, Tesla, Nvidia, and Google owner Alphabet Inc are all in the red. It is likely not the rosy picture of deregulation and prosperity that Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and the like had dreamed of when the tech billionaires stood by President Trump at his inauguration.

The ‘Magnificent Seven’ of big tech – Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, and Meta – have seen a combined market value of $4.2T wiped off since President Trump’s inauguration, AP News reports. 

President Trump’s trade war culminated on April 2 in his unveiling of wide-ranging reciprocal tariffs, which have taken something of a toll on the tech sector’s supply chains.

While there have been some temporary reprieves from the Trump administration, the “mass confusion” created by the “constant news flow” out of the White House has led to uncertainty and chaos for businesses trying to plan their supply chains, industry, and demand, according to Dan Ives, Wedbush Securities analyst. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also slashed global growth forecasts for this year and the following year amid President Trump’s trade war. In its recent World Economic Outlook, the Fund said: “The swift escalation of trade tensions and extremely high levels of policy uncertainty are expected to have a significant impact on global economic activity.”

The New York Times reported that a “person familiar with the matter” told them that President Trump wanted deregulation to take place early in his second term so the effects would be seen while he was still in the White House.

The outlet also reported that two people “familiar with the matter” claimed that Elon Musk developed an AI tool meant to comb through the Code of Federal Regulations – which totals more than 100,000 pages – to find outdated or legally vulnerable rules. 

‘Free From Ideological Bias’ 

Amid President Trump’s executive order blitz in January was one intended to revoke previous government policies, which supposedly “act as barriers to American AI innovation”.

This apparently means that, in order to keep the United States the global leader in artificial intelligence, the country should “develop AI systems that are free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas”. 

Joe Biden’s administration has previously issued a policy saying that U.S. federal agencies must show their AI tools are not harming the public, or cease using them. 

The Trump administration said that Biden’s order “established unnecessarily burdensome requirements for companies developing and deploying AI”, which would supposedly “stifle private sector innovation”.  

The nonprofit organization, Americans for Responsible Innovation, said in a statement that President Trump has “made it clear from day one that his top priority on AI is out-innovating the rest of the world”.

Final Thoughts 

The world has felt the repercussions of President Trump’s sweeping tariffs, but it is still early days for his administration, so the full effect of his efforts to deregulate the United States, including the tech sector, remains to be felt. 

If the source quoted earlier is right about President Trump wanting to bring about deregulation early in his term so the full effects can be felt, he may yet get his wish, whatever those effects may be.