Donald Trump is not the only chaos agent
Big Tech CEOs congratulate Donald Trump during his second term and are looking for ways to help mitigate a possible rise of the Chinese import tariff
On Wednesday, the chief executives of the leading Big Tech companies congratulated the President-elect. Even though they have sparred with Donald Trump before, the companies that employ them were quick to get behind him as their companies face a fresh four years of operating under an influential politician.
Big Tech might expect more from Trump in his second term, because of his actions during his last presidency and his comments on the campaign trail.
And now, with Elon Musk as his biggest supporter, “this might be a moment in which there’s a picking of favorites amongst the big tech players,” says Betsy Cooper, director of the Aspen Policy Academy.
One of the most closely-watched Trump proposals among the tech crowd has been his proposed import tariff, which could have a massive impact on both tech companies and consumer spending. Last year, Trump floated the idea of a 10 percent universal tariff and later proposed an additional 60 percent tariff on imports from China and up to 100 percent tariff on goods from Mexico.
Apple might be less vulnerable than an initial reading of these tariffs might suggest, equity research firm Bernstein said in a bullish note released Wednesday, because of the company’s ability to absorb higher tariffs. Apple has a variety of products produced in various parts of Asia, like Vietnam.
Backchannel’s Big Idea Revisited: Why the iPhone Is Bigger than Donald Trump, and What Happened After the November US Elections
Eight years ago, the November US election results profoundly shocked the small staff at Backchannel, the boutique tech publication I headed. The editor had posted on our chat that it seemed tone-deaf to work on a technology story. I wrote a column to answer that impulse on a plane from New York to San Francisco. The technological revolution we were living through was still the main storyline of the time, regardless of how big this event was. Disruptive politicians, even destructive ones, may come and go—or refuse to go. But the chip, the network, the mobile device, and all they entailed were changing humanity, and maybe what it will mean to be human. Our job was to chronicle that epic transformation, no matter who was politically in charge. My column title was “The iPhone Is Bigger than Donald Trump.”
Trump was re-elected president this week. oh hell, I won’t go through the litany of what would seem to be slam-dunk disqualifiers. To most voters it doesn’t matter because you’ve heard it all. It’s an unbelievable story, and the next few years will undoubtedly be the stuff of history. It may be not in a good way. It was a bad way for a country to celebrate its continued values on America’s 250th birthday. The spirit of unity motivates me to use the “Maybe” option, since loser should be humble and who knows what’s ahead.
Yet I’m not budging from the thought I had in 2016. As Stewart Brand once said, “Human nature doesn’t change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly.” The biggest impact on our species will come from the activity of technology and science. Hundreds of years later, future generations (and possibly Ray Kurzweil) will look back at this time and identify it as the period when microchips and neural net software changed everything. And who was that strongman with the funny hair who crashed the country that used to occupy real estate in the Western Hemisphere? I no longer run a publication and instead represent but a single voice in a much larger staff. (For WIRED’s institutional view, please note the words of my boss, which I endorse.) So, speaking for myself, I emphatically reprise my 2016 statement of purpose, with a slight tweak: Artificial intelligence is bigger than Donald Trump.
Of course journalists must cover Trump’s second presidency vigorously, with relentless demands for accountability. In the short term—for some of us codgers it may be all of our remaining term!—what happens in our community and country will have a bigger influence on our daily lives than the latest version of Claude, ChatGPT, or even Apple Intelligence. Tim Apple, I’m sorry. If your reproductive rights are taken away or you are deported due to our president’s policies, the knowledge of artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computers will not make up for it.
That’s why, the day after Donald Trump got reelected, I visited an AI company and interviewed one of its leaders and a top engineer. Yes, on the walk back to the office I thought about the election results and got depressed all over again. But I will finish the article about that company, and then do another, sticking to the tech beat for as long as my broken heart keeps beating. Even though it is the biggest story in town, Artificial Intelligence is still the main topic.
