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What Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks mean for AI
Donald Trump isn’t finished nominating his presidential Cabinet — and some of his top candidates might have a tricky time getting confirmed, even by a Republican-controlled Senate. Still, Trump’s early picks already offer signs about how he might direct his federal government’s approach to artificial intelligence.
Duane Pozza, a former Federal Trade Commission assistant director in the first Trump administration who is now a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein, said the government’s approach to AI is at an “inflection point,” and Trump has big decisions to make about how much of Joe Biden’s AI legacy he wants to undo. “The next administration will decide whether to roll back any part of the executive order,” he said, referring to Biden’s sweeping executive order on AI from October 2023, “and how to best implement policies to support AI innovation for US global competition.”
Antitrust the process
Trump’s selection of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz could also have implications for AI. Gaetz’s nomination has drawn intense bipartisan scrutiny over his professional inexperience and brash demeanor, and allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use that were the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation, the findings of which have not yet been released. If confirmed, Gaetz could carry out Trump’s prosecutorial whims by targeting the president’s enemies in Silicon Valley — over the years there have been many, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
But the Justice Department is also one of two antitrust authorities in the United States alongside the Federal Trade Commission. And while we don’t know who Trump will pick to succeed Lina Khan as chair of the FTC — she might resign, but she can technically stay under a successor is confirmed — Gaetz, along with Vice President JD Vance, has signaled sympathies for Khan’s tough-on-tech outlook in the past and even suggested she should stay on under Trump.
Benjamin Sirota, a former Justice Department antitrust prosecutor and current partner at the law firm Kobre & Kim, said the lines between traditional Democratic and Republican stances in antitrust law have blurred. He expects Trump will usher in “a retrenchment from some of the most aggressive policies and priorities of the current regime, but not a wholesale retreat.”
“We could see Trump enforcers seek to rapidly resolve large, pending digital monopolization cases,” especially if they’re looking to cut costs, said Diana Moss, vice president at the Progressive Policy Institute, alluding to cases filed against Google and Amazon under Biden. While she said Trump’s antitrust chiefs may single out disfavored companies, she otherwise expects a return to more traditional methods of determining market power than Khan’s Neo-Brandeisian principles, which look beyond price increases toward broader standards of consumer harm.
With federal investigations into AI companies having started under Biden, it’s unclear whether Trump might target political enemies. One potential target is OpenAI, whose CEO, Sam Altman, is a consistent Democratic Party donor and whose relationship with Microsoft is already reportedly the subject of a federal antitrust investigation.
Keeping China at bay
Trump and Biden both have aggressive stances toward China, so there should be some continuity in litigating the ongoing trade war. The focus under Biden has been pouring funds into chip companies building manufacturing facilities in the United States while enacting export controls to limit China’s ability to get powerful US-made chips.
Hanna Dohmen, a research analyst at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, expects the administration to “continue using the expansive international trade toolbox to restrict China's ability to buy, make, and access AI chips.”
“The Trump administration likely will not try to roll back the CHIPS and Science Act because there is bipartisan support for onshoring semiconductor manufacturing,” she added, noting that the administration is more likely to favor deregulation and tax credits in the future rather than additional CHIPS Act spending.
There are more unknowns than knowns
Plans for the second Trump administration are still coming together, but the proposed Cabinet is full of outsiders without deep track records on artificial intelligence. Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick to helm the Environmental Protection Agency, said it’s his focus to “make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world,” likely through deregulatory efforts at a time when liberals and climate change activists are deeply concerned by the energy consumption of data servers needed for AI.
Brendan Carr, a Federal Communications Commission member who Trump has nominated to chair the bipartisan agency, has been particularly aggressive toward social media companies, which have long depended on artificial intelligence for content moderation efforts. And much of the government’s involvement with AI will fall under the jurisdiction of Pete Hegseth, a Fox News anchor nominated for defense secretary, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, nominee for director of national intelligence, neither of whom have fleshed out their positions on AI.
But of course, the real influence behind Trump’s AI decision-making — at least while the two are still cozy — may be Elon Musk, who has been tapped to run something called the Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, alongside businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and has Trump’s ear.
Musk has been deeply critical of government regulation over the years, frequently feuding with agencies including the Securities and Exchange Committee and the FTC. And while Musk has expressed public concerns about the risks of AI, once calling for a pause on AI development, he has also built his own AI company called xAI that developed the chatbot Grok. Musk has supported California’s proposed AI safety bill but also sued to block the state’s deepfake law. If Musk becomes an influential member of Trump’s team, even outside of a formal Cabinet post, the government’s AI policy may be, well, whatever Elon wants it to be.Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva greets UN General-Secretary Antonio Guterres ahead of the G20 summit, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Nov. 16, 2024.
Trump looms large over G20 Summit
What’s on the menu? Outgoing US President Joe Biden, together withUK PM Keir Starmer, are pushing for additional aid to Ukraine amid Russia’s latest missile barrage and North Korea’s troop deployment in Russia. As for Russian President Vladimir Putin, he made a point of skipping the gathering, sending Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov instead.
On climate change, with COP29 climate talks deadlocked in Azerbaijan, UN Chief Antonio Guterres called on the G20, responsible for 80% of global emissions, to step up. But the fly in the ointment may be Trump ally and climate skeptic, Argentinian President Javier Milei. French President Emmanuel Macronmet with Milei ahead of the summit in an effort to get Argentina to uphold the Paris Agreement, which the US is expected to exit again under Trump.
A spicy start. Brazil’s first lady, “Janja” Lula da Silva, sparked headlines at a G20 social event Saturdaywhen she quipped, “I’m not afraid of you, f**k you, Elon Musk,” while giving a talk on social media regulation. Brazil suspended Musk’s X platform earlier this year for ignoring court orders to block accounts accused of spreading fake news and hate messages. Musk responded online by predicting that her husband, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, would lose the upcoming Brazilian election.
For more on what’s expected from the G20 summit, check out our Q&A with Eurasia Group expert Julia Thomsonhere.Trump’s Team of … Reprisals?
Trump team … Assemble!
Usually, obsession with team building is reserved for the world of sports, not politics. There are Hollywood movies about NFL draft day, and the trade deadlines in basketball, hockey, and baseball command all-day TV specials. But those seem trivial compared to the global obsession with Trump Team 2.0. Who is on it, and what does it mean for the next four years?
Cabinet-building has long been crucial for both the success of a presidency and for the direction of the United States. From the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump, the team often tells the tale of power.
After narrowly winning the election of 1860, Lincoln knew the United States was lurching toward civil war. He needed a united team to take on the emerging secessionist Confederacy, but he didn’t choose loyalists. Instead, he made a radical choice to bring in his chief opponents like William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates. In her bestselling book, Doris Kearns Goodwin called this a “Team of Rivals.”
Initially, it looked like a rookie mistake. Seward tried to sabotage Lincoln, leaking false announcements about a surrender of Fort Sumter, the place where, soon after, the first shots of the Civil War were fired.
But Lincoln asserted his leadership without alienating his team, and Seward soon became one of his closest confidants. Co-opting and including his chief opponents is roundly hailed as one of Lincoln’s finest strategies.
If Lincoln put together a team of rivals, Trump has assembled a team of reprisals. This is a group of ardent MAGA loyalists, not rivals — as Ian Bremmer pointed out in our GZERO video. Their job is to radically transform every part of government, from trade policy to foreign policy. There are three goals: reformation, reduction, and reprisal. And that last point is critical. The foundational promise Trump made to voters was to smash “the enemies within.” And that is exactly what this team is built to do.
Here is a starter menu:
- The Deep State: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been appointed to actively find “efficiencies” and dismantle large swaths of the government. “You’re fired” will be the watchwords.
- The Military: Pete Hegseth, the veteran and Fox News commentator, is headed for the secretary of defense job, where he has long said he would fire all generals who support programs like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
- The Border: Tom Homan, the nominated “border czar,” has warned all illegal aliens to get ready for mass deportation, while South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will be Trump’s Homeland Security chief working alongside Homan.
- The Department of Education: Trump has promised to close this down completely to stop the so-called “woke agenda.”
- The Environmental Protection Agency: Expect former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to gut EPA regulations. He has already signaled his priorities, with a social media post saying he will “restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.” The EPA might have to change its initials to the DBD, for Drill, Baby, Drill. Still, there are some signs of resistance here. Even the CEO of ExxonMobil pushed back, saying, “I don’t think the challenge or the need to address global emissions is going to go away.”
- Trade: China hawk Sen. Marco Rubio will be the secretary of state, likely overseeing a world of high tariffs that will trigger trade wars alongside the existing wars already raging.
- The Legal System: Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general is taking the most incoming. Gaetz believes he and Trump are victims of Democratic “lawfare,” and he’s ready to hit back. “The hammer of Justice is coming,” declared Elon Musk on X, lest anyone think there will be no reprisals.
To Trump supporters — and that means the majority of voters — this is exactly what they wanted. Expect them to follow through on everything you heard on the campaign trail. As folks used to say, take Trump and his team both seriously and literally.
The president-elect has long claimed he is the victim of multiple attacks from the establishment because he promised to “drain the swamp” and, unlike in 2016, he’s wasting no time assembling a team to fight back. Of the many things to expect from Donald Trump, reprisals are at the top of the list.
How to cover the Trump team fairly?
Covering this transition in a meaningful, insightful way requires genuine balance and adherence to fairness. In the current climate of hyper-polarization, anything but praise for the president-elect can be cast as “woke” bias from the “lamestream” media. On the other hand, anything positive about Trump is often cast as supplicant cozying up to a kleptocracy.
Neither is helpful.
The key is not to focus on the fertilized fears on social media but on the real actions of the Trump team. What will they actually do? Who is benefiting from the radical change?
What will be the impact of their policies on the economy, rights, security, climate, and social coherence?
Each question will have a specific answer, and tracking them with facts and credibility will be key over the next four years. In an environment where distrust and disinformation are weaponized, straight talk and nonpartisan insight will become more valuable than ever.
This is just the beginning of the second Trump era, and it will be significantly more transformative than the first. Trump’s Team of Reprisals is ready to do exactly what they promised on the campaign trail, best summed up in three words: fight, fight fight.
Lissa Smith poses with lawn signs in support of Kamala Harris, and a pillow someone threw in her yard after several signs, previously displayed on her lawn, were taken outside her home in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Oct. 27, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Yard sign thefts rise in US, Canada’s defense pledges meet spending limit targets, Cocaine grapes cross border, Musk skips sweepstakes hearing, Who supports Trump’s tariff proposal?
10: About 10% of Americans put up signs supporting a presidential candidate on their property, according to one expert’s estimate. And with polarization and enmity between supporters of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris reaching fever pitch on the eve of the vote, people are turning to high-tech solutions such as cameras and tracking devices to prevent rising incidents of theft and vandalism of the signs.
2: To meet its stated goal of bringing defense spending up to 2% of GDP, Canada will have to nearly double its defense spending by 2033. But doing so could run afoul of new budget targets that aim to bind the government to reduce the national deficit-to-GDP ratio to below 1% within three years.
600: A case of vines and lines, you might say. Canadian authorities this month seized more than 600 kilograms of cocaine stashed in a shipment of grapes. The interdiction occurred earlier this month at the Ambassador Bridge, which links Windsor to Detroit. That amount of product would fetch more than $13 million on the streets.
1 million: Elon Muskskipped a hearing on Thursday about the legality of the sweepstakes in which he awards $1 million each day to someone who signs his online free speech and gun-rights petition. The Justice Department recently sent a letter to the billionaire warning him that giveaways like this might violate election laws. The case will now move to a federal court.
33: A new poll shows 33% percent of Americans support Donald Trump’s proposal to impose a 20% tariff on all imports, while 43% are opposed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, two-thirds of Trump voters like the idea, compared to barely one in 10 Harris supporters. When asked about specific countries, Canada comes out looking pretty good: Just 16% of Trump voters and 6% of Harris voters want to put tariffs on their northern neighbors.
FILE PHOTO: Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, who supports Republican presidential nominee former U.S. President Donald Trump, gestures as he speaks about voting during an America PAC Town Hall in Folsom, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 17, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Musk doles out millions, Turkey talks Typhoon jets, Kenya delays high-level impeachment, Boeing makes progress with strikers
1 million: Elon Musk said Sunday that his political action committee supporting the Trump campaign, America PAC, will give $1 million to one registered voter in Pennsylvania every day until the election in a lottery among petition signers. The petition merely affirms support for the First and Second Amendments but also allows the PAC to gather voter data. Musk has donated $75 million to the PAC so far.
40: Despite strained ties, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan thanked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his efforts to push through a sale of 40 Eurofighter Typhoon jets when the two met on Saturday. He also expressed eagerness to increase trade with Berlin, which has the largest population of ethnic Turks in Europe, who make up an important expat voting bloc for Erdogan.
7: Kenya’s High Court on Friday suspended a resolution to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua for at least seven days, meaning he will remain in office until at least Oct. 24. Parliament had already approved Gachagua’s replacement, Kithure Kindiki, but the court said it needs time to decide whether the impeachment was lawful.
33,000: Troubled aircraft manufacturer Boeing reached a tentative deal that will send some 33,000 striking workers back to the assembly line after a five-week strike. The deal must be ratified by rank-and-file union members, who will vote Wednesday. They are looking at a 35% pay increase over four years but will not get their much-desired pension plan back after losing it in 2014.Elon Musk waves to the crowd before former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Oct. 5, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Musk becomes GOP mega-donor, Biden announces new military aid for Ukraine, Mysterious white blobs turn up on Canadian beaches, Archdiocese of LA to pay millions in childhood sexual abuse settlement
75 million: Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, gave $75 million to America PAC — a pro-Trump super PAC that he established back in May — across July and September, a campaign finance filing showed on Tuesday. This makes Musk, who endorsed former President Donald Trump in July and has since appeared on the campaign trail with him, a Republican mega-donor.
425 million: President Joe Biden announced a new $425 million military aid package for Ukraine on Wednesday and spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The package includes “additional air defense capability, air-to-ground munitions, armored vehicles, and critical munitions to meet Ukraine’s urgent needs,” the White House said, adding that Zelensky spoke with the president about his victory plan and “tasked their teams to engage in further consultations on next steps.”
40,000: In news that is both gross and captivating, mysterious white blobs are washing up on beaches in Newfoundland. So far, marine scientists seem stumped, and authorities are investigating the blobs’ origins and whether they’re safe to touch. A Facebook group of roughly 40,000 people, Beachcombers of Newfoundland and Labrador, helped bring attention to these blobs of unknown origin.
880 million: The Archdiocese of Los Angeles — the largest Catholic dioceses in the US — is paying $880 million in a childhood sexual abuse settlement involving over 1,300 claims, including some that go back to the 1940s. “I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart,” Archbishop José H. Gomez wrote in a letter. “My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing.”The Telegram logo.
Telegram and X back down
Score this one Nation-States 2, Tech Tycoons 0?
Pavel Durov, the CEO of the messaging app Telegram who was arrested recently in France on charges that his platform facilitated criminal activity and was refusing to help law enforcement investigate, has changed his tune.
After initially claiming it was “absurd” to hold a platform responsible for illicit content, Telegram now says it will share information with law enforcement “in response to valid legal requests.”
The about-face came just days after self-styled “free speech” crusader Elon Muskclimbed down in his battle with Brazil. To refresh: Last month, Musk rejected a Brazilian court order for X to deactivate certain disinformation accounts, refused to pay relevant fines, removed X’s local legal rep, and launched a meme war against Brazil’s controversial disinformation czar.
As a result, X was banned outright in the 200-million-strong country, and that seems to have turned the tables. Now, the company is reportedly ready to take down the accounts, reappoint a rep in Brazil, and pay fines.
Depending on your politics, you may see all of this as a victory for the nation-state (nearly undefeated since the Peace of Westphalia, as GZERO’s Matt Kendrick points out) or as a hit to free speech and privacy. What’s your view? Share with us here.
ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen is seen in this illustration photo taken in Milano, Italy, on February 21 2023
Hard Numbers: ChatGPTers double, Japan’s AI military, Google’s AI pop-ups, Magic money, Musk vs. Brazil
200 million: OpenAI says it now counts 200 million weekly users of ChatGPT, which has doubled in the past year. It also claims that 92% of Fortune 500 companies use its products for writing, coding, and organizational help.
59 billion: Japan’s military is having a recruitment problem. With only 10,000 of its citizens enlisting this year — half of its target — the government is investing $59 billion, a 7% yearly increase, to add additional capabilities including artificial intelligence. It’s spending $123 million alone on an AI surveillance system for its military bases.
17: A new report from the consultancy Authoritas found that Google is offering its AI Overviews — those pop-up AI-generated answers to users’ Googled questions — on 17% of user queries. The search engine company came under fire for its inaccurate AI-generated responses earlier this year and since then has reportedly reduced the frequency with which its suggested answers pop up.
320 million: The startup Magic, whose AI models generate computer code and automate software, raised $320 million in a funding round from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, among others. The San Francisco-based firm also announced a partnership with Google to build two new supercomputers on the tech giant’s cloud platform.
24: X is now shut down in Brazil, the escalation of a legal dispute between the company’s owner, Elon Musk, and the country’s top court. Musk has criticized Brazil for requesting the company remove certain accounts. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Friday gave Musk 24 hours to name a legal representative in the country or else face a national ban. Musk refused and, in response, posted an AI-generated image of de Moraes behind bars, writing, “One day, @Alexandre, this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words.”