• The tech industry is poised for change under Trump’s second presidency.
• AI regulation is likely to change under the Trump administration, but major antitrust cases are unlikely to be affected.
• From tariffs to visas, here’s how Trump’s presidency could impact Big Tech.

Donald Trump won the presidency — and the tech world is waiting to see what his administration will mean on important issues like artificial intelligence regulations, immigration, antitrust issues, mergers and acquisitions, and more.

Trump promised to form a different cabinet in the White House for the second time. Their advisors will likely include some of these. business leaders The person who supports the campaign is especially one of the most powerful names in the technology world: Elon Musk.

In his election night speech, Trump praised Musk, admiring his SpaceX rockets.

“Elon, he’s a great guy,” Trump said early Wednesday morning.

There’s a lot at stake for the industry at a time when so many companies are facing antitrust battles. H-1B visas could be affected as immigration is on the minds of many voters, experts said, a potential blow to tech companies facing staffing shortages amid an AI hiring frenzy.

Here’s how Trump’s second term could impact Big Tech.

On the campaign trail, Trump threatened investigation if re-elected

Although Trump has shown closeness to a major tech leader, Musk, he has others in his sights.

While on the campaign trail, Trump threatened retaliation against some tech companies, including jailing Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg.

During his campaign, he threatened to imprison “election fraudsters.” Including Zuckerberg – who has a long history with the president; It is unclear whether Trump will follow through on his threats.

Trump too He heavily criticized Google throughout his campaignHe called the tech giant “rigged” for not publishing positive stories about him, said the company was “very bad” for him, and suggested he would “do something” about his power.

In September, Trump escalated his dispute with the company by saying: Threatens to order Justice Department to sue Google He is at “maximum levels” in his second term. He accused the technology giant of engaging in illegal behavior and interfering with elections with the stories it showed on its search results page.

The Justice Department generally operates independently of the president; During the campaign, Trump said the criminal justice system was being weaponized against him and threatened to do the same to his political rivals.

This norm-breaking change could mean more regulatory trouble for companies like Google if Trump keeps his promise.

Tariffs remain the biggest question mark

Barclays warned in September: The technology sector will be one of the hardest hit Under Trump’s far-reaching tariff plan.

“While the proposed new tariffs would have a modest direct negative impact on corporate earnings if implemented, the second-order effects of higher cost inflation and slowing economic growth would have an increasingly negative impact on corporate earnings, causing further pain,” the bank said.

Mark Lemley, professor and director of Stanford’s Law, Science and Technology Program, warned that Trump’s plan for massive tariffs on foreign goods could also hurt tech companies in his second term.

“The Trump administration will involve withdrawing the United States from the world and imposing huge tariffs,” Lemley told BI. “This is likely to have devastating consequences for domestic consumption as well as U.S. technology companies selling in foreign markets.”

Retail analysts told BI the industry is following the tariff issue extremely closely.

“You can look at it two ways,” said Neil Saunders of Global Data. “You can say it’s a negotiation strategy and you can say it’s not going to actually happen, or you can say it’s going to happen, maybe in a diluted form and not as violently.”

“This causes a lot of tension,” he added.

If Trump carries out his campaign proposals, it would mean significant changes to the way retailers do business.

“This would be a huge change in a lot of these companies’ cost structures,” said Chris Walton, a former Target executive.

Given the cost of rearranging supply chains, Walton said large retailers are still exploring their options and making simple adjustments rather than jumping into a new strategy too early.

‘Most of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked’ on antitrust

Antitrust lawsuits already ongoing for major Big Tech companies – incl. Apple, Google, MetaAnd Amazon But normally there isn’t much an incoming president can or would do to change these existing cases, George Hay, an antitrust expert and law professor at Cornell University, told Business Insider.

“Any attempt at the presidential level to influence the course of cases that have already been filed is very rare. They have a life of their own,” Hay told BI. “That’s up to the judge, the courts, and the attorneys handling the case. It’s extraordinarily unusual for the administration to become active.”

While most presidents don’t have any say in current cases, “Trump is a little bit more of a wild card,” Hay said.

But he added that he “cannot think of any reason to intervene in cases that have already been filed.” That would be quite an extraordinary thing.”

Hay said that while current antitrust litigation is unlikely to change much, Trump may take a less aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement than Vice President Kamala Harris.

Additionally, Hay said “most of the fruit has already been picked,” meaning there aren’t many new antitrust lawsuits that could be filed against the biggest tech companies.

One factor that could change things is who Trump appoints as Deputy Attorney General to head the antitrust division.

If Trump appoints an experienced practicing attorney, “even if that attorney is relatively conservative, I don’t think things would change much,” Hay said.

“The changes we’ve seen throughout history happened when Republicans appointed an academic,” Hay added. “You’re seeing some radical changes here.”

However, Hay said that overall, not much change is expected on the antitrust front during Trump’s second administration.

“So if I had very strong views on antitrust, I could sleep well at night no matter who was appointed,” Hay said. “Because this is a system where the laws, the courts, the people, and most of the people, most of the courts, and most of the laws will not change.”

Republicans have historically been ‘more amenable to unification’

While Hay expects “more large mergers will be proposed under Trump,” Morningstar senior equity research analyst Dan Romanoff suggested Trump is less likely to oppose large deals.

More aggressive merger rules were implemented in 2023 under President Joe Biden; Now, under Trump, “they will go away and be replaced,” Hay said.

Still, the new rules won’t have much impact on the biggest tech companies, Hay said.

Anna Rathbun, CBIZ’s chief investment officer, told Business Insider that M&A activity has been low over the past two years due to low interest rates, not because of the Biden administration’s hostile stance.

Trump said that the idea that Republicans are business-friendly may stem from “short-term memory” and noted that the first Trump administration filed a lawsuit against Trump. prevent merger Between AT&T and Time Warner.

While a Republican administration is generally seen as more business-friendly, Walton said it may not be that simple under Trump.

“Whatever the flavor of the month is in terms of where the administration wants to focus or who it wants to benefit can wax and wane,” he said.

Restricting H1-B visas could hurt America’s competitive advantage

Trump has made a broad crackdown on immigrants a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, and now that he’s president, that could impact the United States. technology sector with understaffing They’re relying on H1-B visas as the AI ​​hiring wars continue.

Rathbun told BI that national security concerns about the two current wars are very different from how Trump wanted to restrict H1-Bs in his first term. But at the same time, “we have a shortage of workers,” he added.

Experts fear that the United States could lose its competitive edge on the world stage if H1-Bs are restricted under the second Trump administration.

“You shouldn’t ban chip exports and then export skilled labor altogether,” Rathbun said. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

James Brundage, Ernst & Young’s global and Americas technology industry leader, added that any company that relies on overseas hiring will face challenges in the coming years.

Three of the world’s five largest companies have immigrant CEOs, he said. He added that although the United States has been a leader in technology for decades, “you can see how that could slow down.”

Saunders and Walton said pressures for high-skilled immigrant talent could complicate their businesses as retailers such as Walmart and Target increasingly turn to technology.

Some think Trump may not be able to maintain his rhetoric after taking office in January.

Valerie Wirtschafter of the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy, Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative told BI she thinks the Trump administration will prioritize U.S. leadership and “maintaining that leadership at all costs.”

If bringing in talent through H1-B visas keeps the United States competitive even if it conflicts with Trump’s campaign promises, “I think they’ll find a way to compromise or ignore some of those campaign promises, too.”

Trump’s promise to rescind Biden’s AI order could be ‘double-edged’

Trump didn’t give many specific details about what AI policies he would pursue, but he did call the technology “too dangerous” After releasing AI-generated “Swifties for Trump” images.

“Our instinct is that Trump will be more interventionist and Harris will be more interventionist,” Romanoff said of AI regulation.

All Trump has is Promised to rescind Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligenceOutlining policies for AI governance, promoting competition and addressing AI-enabled threats. Trump said the order challenged freedom of expression.

Wirtschafter told BI that reversing Biden’s order would be a complicated situation for tech companies.

“Of course I think it’s kind of a double-edged idea that less regulation, less reporting, less bureaucratic hurdles to get through, that’s all good and great,” Wirtschafter said.

But rescinding the order might be “a little uncomfortable,” he added: “Some of these companies want some sort of road map for this technology, and the more harmonized it can be, the better.”