What a second Trump presidency means for big US tech firms

When the US election result pushed shares in the artificial intelligence chip giant Nvidia to a record high and did the same to the price of bitcoin cryptocurrency, the market gave its verdict on what Trump redux means for at least parts of the technology world: a boom.

Stock in the electric vehicle (EV) company Tesla surged by nearly 15%, which must have cheered its boss, Elon Musk, whom Trump called a “super genius” on Wednesday.

But what about the people who do not own stock in Silicon Valley firms but do use their products? Tens of millions of users of Musk’s social media platform, X, will now have to decide if they are willing to post in a place owned by a figure who looks likely to be a central part of Trump’s administration.

Musk could be tasked with “making recommendations for drastic reforms” aimed at the efficiency and performance of “the entire federal government”, Trump has said. This could grant Musk huge power over the agencies that regulate his and other tech companies.

X had already become, according to the independent tech analyst Benedict Evans, “a coordinating site for misinformation” and many felt its amplification of false claims polluted the election. Might a Trump administration then do anything about misinformation on social media?

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