As the dust settles on the 2024 US presidential election, tech leaders are congratulating Trump.
On November 6th local time, after Republican presidential candidate Trump secured a victory in the 2024 US presidential election, the CEOs of major American tech giants such as Meta, Apple, and Google publicly congratulated Trump and expressed their hope to cooperate with him.
Among them, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg referred to Trump's election victory as a "decisive victory" and stated that he looks forward to working with the US government under Trump's leadership. Zuckerberg posted on Threads, a social platform under Meta, saying, "As a country, we have enormous opportunities ahead of us
However, in the comment section of this post, a large number of users expressed dissatisfaction with Zuckerberg's compromise attitude.
The feud between Zuckerberg and Trump has a long history. During the 2020 election, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donated over $400 million to non-profit organizations. Due to Zuckerberg's close ties with the Democratic Party at the time, many Republican members expressed dissatisfaction with his move.
In 2021, after the Capitol Hill riots, Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms blocked Trump's social media accounts. On July 10th of this year, Trump directly criticized Zuckerberg on his social media platform "Truth Society": "I can only say that if I am elected president, we will pursue election fraudsters with unprecedented force, and they will be sent to prison and imprisoned for a long time
Two days after Trump made these comments, Facebook and Instagram unblocked Trump's account. In August of this year, Zuckerberg also announced that in order to maintain political neutrality, he would no longer donate to support the management of the US election.
Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon, also has a subtle relationship with Trump, and the two have repeatedly criticized each other during Trump's first term. Since the beginning of this year, their relationship has shown some easing. After Trump's assassination attempt in July this year, Bezos also praised his "courage under fire".
After Trump secured the election victory, Bezos celebrated on the X (formerly Twitter) platform, calling it an "extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory". Andy Jassy, who succeeded Bezos as CEO of Amazon in 2021, also congratulated Trump.
Bezos is still the owner of The Washington Post. At the end of October this year, just before the US presidential election, The Washington Post issued a statement stating that the newspaper would not support any presidential candidate in the 2024 US presidential election. This is the first time in over 30 years that the newspaper has given up taking sides in the US election, and it has been questioned whether Bezos is using this to please Trump, causing 250000 readers to cancel their subscriptions in a short period of time. Subsequently, Bezos published a column on the website of The Washington Post defending the newspaper's decision not to take sides, stating that endorsement of candidates would "create biased views".
At present, the technology entrepreneur who has gained the most from Trump's victory is none other than one of Trump's key allies, Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Previously, foreign media reported that Musk donated nearly $120 million to Trump's campaign. On November 6th local time, in his victory speech, Trump praised Musk as a "rising star" and "super genius", and emphasized the achievements of Musk's SpaceX "Starship" spacecraft.
On the morning of the 6th, Musk also posted a congratulatory message on the X platform, saying that "America has once again ushered in the morning", accompanied by a picture of himself saluting the American flag in the sunrise of New York. This sentence comes from the campaign slogan of US President Reagan in 1984.
On the 6th, Tesla's stock price surged nearly 15% to close at $288.53 per share, reaching a new high since July 2023. The total market value of the company reached 926.2 billion US dollars, an increase of over 100 billion US dollars from the previous day.
Foreign media believe that Musk is most likely to benefit from SpaceX, which has already won over $15 billion in government contracts. For Tesla, Trump said in August that he supports electric cars, "I have to support it because Musk supports me
However, a few days before the election, Musk said on the X platform, "I want to clarify one thing, I have never asked Trump for any benefits, and he has never offered me any benefits
In addition, tech leaders such as Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell tweeted congratulations on Trump's victory on X platform, expressing their commitment to working with the government of the elected president.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also expressed on X platform that he hopes Trump will "achieve great success in his work," and wrote in a subsequent tweet, "Maintaining a leading position in developing AI with democratic values is crucial for the United States
Analysis suggests that after the new president takes office, he will need to decide whether to continue the crackdown on large technology companies launched by the US government during Biden's presidency. At present, it seems that Trump's inauguration may bring some turning points for these giants facing charges.
Previously, the US Department of Justice had sued Apple under antitrust laws, accusing the company of manipulating the smartphone market and stifling innovation. At the same time, the Ministry of Justice is actively investigating Google and considering splitting it up as part of antitrust remedies. Amazon and Meta are also facing antitrust lawsuits from the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.
The Wall Street Journal sees major US tech companies as winners of the "Trump deal," stating that tech leaders including Musk hope Trump will introduce favorable policies. Except for Tesla, which surged sharply, Nvidia rose over 4% on the 6th, Microsoft rose over 2%, Amazon and Google rose nearly 4%, Apple fell 0.33%, and Meta fell 0.07%.
Gene Munster, co-founder of Deepwater Asset Management, also stated that Trump's inauguration is "undoubtedly a good thing for large tech companies". In addition to antitrust lawsuits that may be withdrawn, these large companies will also be able to more easily complete acquisitions of small tech companies and continue to grow their strength.
In addition, in terms of AI (artificial intelligence), Trump is expected to provide more freedom for businesses to develop. Previously, the Republican Party's "2024 Republican Platform" stated that Trump would "repeal Biden's executive order that hindered AI innovation," referring to the "executive order on safe, reliable, and trustworthy development and use of AI" signed and promulgated by Biden in October last year. In some right-wing policy circles, security is seen as synonymous with censorship, "said Gregory Allen, director of the Wadwani AI Center under the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the United States