The real winners from Trump's ‘AI action plan'? Tech companies
The message was clear – the tech regulatory environment that was once the focus of federal lawmakers is no longer.
'I've been watching for many years,' Trump continued. 'I've watched regulation. I've been a victim of regulation.'
As Trump spoke to the crowd, he addressed them as 'the group of smart ones … the brain power'. In front of him were tech leaders, venture capitalists and billionaires, including Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang and Palantir's chief technology officer Shyam Sankar. The Hill and Valley Forum, an influential tech industry interest group, co-hosted the confab, along with the Silicon Valley All-in Podcast, which is hosted by White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks.
Dubbed 'Winning the AI Race', the forum was an opportunity for the president to deliver what he called the 'AI action plan', which aims to loosen restrictions on the development and deployment of artificial intelligence.
The cornerstone of that plan are three executive orders that Trump said will turn the US into an 'AI export powerhouse' and roll back some of the rules put in place by the Biden administration, which included guardrails around safe and secure AI development.
'Winning the AI race will demand a new spirit of patriotism and national loyalty in Silicon Valley – and long beyond Silicon Valley,' Trump said.
One executive order targets what the White House calls 'woke' AI and requires any company receiving federal funding to maintain AI models free from 'ideological dogmas such as DEI'. But the other two focus on deregulation, a major demand of American tech leaders who have taken an increasingly bullish stand on government oversight.
One of those promotes the export of 'American AI' to other countries and the other eases environmental rules and expedites federal permitting for power-hungry data centers.
To get to this moment, tech companies have been forging a friendly relationship with Trump. The CEOs of Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Apple donated to the president's inauguration fund and met with him at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, has become a close ally of Trump, and Nvidia's Huang has also cozied up with the president with promises of investing $500bn in AI infrastructure in the US over the next four years.
'The reality is that big tech companies are still spending tens of millions of dollars to curry favor with lawmakers and shape tech legislation,' said Alix Fraser, the vice-president of advocacy for the nonprofit Issue One.
In a report released on Tuesday, Issue One looked at lobbying spending in 2025 and found that the tech industry has spent record-breaking sums. Eight of the largest tech companies spent a combined $36m – that's an average of about $320,000 per day when Congress is in session, according to Issue One.
Meta spent the most, $13.8m, and has hired 86 lobbyists this year, according to the report. And Nvidia and OpenAI saw the biggest increases, with Nvidia spending 388% more than the same time last year, and OpenAI spending 44% more.
In the lead-up to Trump's unveiling of his AI plan, more than 100 prominent labor, environmental, civil rights and academic groups countered the president and signed a 'People's AI action plan'. In a statement, the groups stressed the need for 'relief from the tech monopolies' that they say 'sacrifice the interests of everyday people for their own profits'.
'We can't let big tech and big oil lobbyists write the rules for AI and our economy at the expense of our freedom and equality, workers and families' wellbeing, even the air we breathe and the water we drink – all of which are affected by the unrestrained and unaccountable rollout of AI,' the groups wrote.
Meanwhile, tech companies and industry groups celebrated the executive orders. Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Meta, Palantir, Nvidia, Anthropic, xAI and others praised the plan. James Czerniawski, the head of emerging technology policy at the Consumer Choice Center, a pro-business lobbying group, heralded Trump's AI plan as a 'bold vision'.
'This is a world of difference from the hostile regulatory approach of the Biden administration,' Czerniawski concluded.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
Microsoft's annual cloud revenue hits $75B, profit beats expectations
Microsoft said Wednesday that annual revenue for its flagship Azure cloud computing platform has surpassed $75 billion, up 34% from a year earlier. The Azure cloud business has been a centerpiece of Microsoft's efforts to shift its focus to artificial intelligence, but until Wednesday the company hadn't disclosed how much money it makes. The revelation came in the software giant's end-of-year earnings report. The company also said its fiscal fourth-quarter profit was $34.3 billion, or $3.65 per share, beating analyst expectations for $3.37 per share. It posted revenue of $76.4 billion in the April-June period, up 18% from last year. Analysts polled by FactSet Research had been looking for revenue of $73.86 billion. Microsoft launched Azure more than a decade ago, but the product has increasingly become intertwined with its AI ambitions, as the company looks to sell its AI chatbot and other tools to big business customers that are also reliant on its core online services. But building the infrastructure to power cloud and AI technology is expensive, and Microsoft has looked for savings elsewhere. It has announced layoffs of about 15,000 workers this year even as its profits have soared. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told employees last week the layoffs were 'weighing heavily' on him but also positioned them as an opportunity to reimagine the company's mission for an AI era. Still, the overall workforce numbers haven't changed. The company said it employed 228,000 full-time employees as of June 30, the exact same amount it reported a year ago, though slightly more of them are now U.S.-based and fewer of them are in product support roles or consulting services. Promises of a leaner approach have been welcomed on Wall Street, especially as Microsoft and other tech giants are trying to justify huge amounts of capital spending to pay for the data centers, chips and other components required to power AI technology. Google said after releasing its earnings last week it would raise its budget for capital expenditures by an additional $10 billion to $85 billion. Microsoft is expected to outline similar guidance soon. Microsoft didn't disclose Wednesday to what extent sweeping U.S. tariffs are affecting its revenue, but its annual report lists tariffs among a number of risks the company faces. 'Increased geopolitical instabilities and changing U.S. administration priorities create an unpredictable trade landscape,' the company said. It also said the "volatility of U.S. tariffs has triggered economic uncertainty and could impact cloud and devices supply chain cost competitiveness."
The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's most trusted advisors? His TV — and sometimes Melania
The President of the United States sits atop a vast apparatus of intelligence collection and information gathering that can harness the country's full technological and diplomatic might to bring him the latest and most accurate information on any given topic. He can request satellite photographs that show startling details of almost anywhere in the world that isn't covered. He can ask for 'signals intelligence' gleaned from surveillance of the world's telecommunications networks — or from the latest dispatches from spies located in far-flung spots where most Americans would not dare to tread. But as Donald Trump has shifted his positions on a pair of major foreign policy matters — the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza and America's support for Ukraine in their defense against Russia — he hasn't turned to his cabinet for counsel or really anyone in his administration for information. Instead, the president has been moved to action by two prime drivers: the same grim images of destruction and death on his television screen that have caused even the most strident of voices to acknowledge the stark human toll exacted by war in each region, and the counsel of perhaps his closest, if unofficial, advisor — first lady Melania Trump. In the case of Gaza, Trump came into office buoyed by the success of his hand-picked Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, in brokering a temporary ceasefire deal with the help of his counterpart from the outgoing Biden administration. But that ceasefire soon collapsed as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resumed his offensive against Hamas and choked off all humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave while driving the Gazan population into smaller and smaller territory. During Netanyahu's first visit to the White House in February, the president stoked fears of ethnic cleansing long held by pro-Palestinian groups when he suggested having the U.S. take control of Gaza and relocate the Gazan population to multiple smaller sites that would be constructed and funded by 'neighboring countries of great wealth' and located in 'other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts.' Over the next few months, he largely left Netanayahu to his own devices as the Israeli leader continued to prosecute the war as a way to placate extremist voices in his cabinet who threatened to destabilize his government if he accepted any manner of ceasefire agreement. But over the last few days, Trump has joined the chorus of leaders who are now loudly calling for Netanyahu to stop cutting off most aid to Gaza, citing disturbing images and stories of starvation that have broken through into even the most conservative of pro-Israel of news sources. During a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Monday, Trump said Israel bore a 'lot of responsibility' for what he described as 'real starvation' in the territory, directly contradicting Netanyahu's insistence that nothing of the sort has taken place. Trump added that the images and reports emerging from the enclave 'cannot be faked'. And when asked if he agreed with the Israeli leader's remarks about concerns of mass starvation in Gaza being overstated, he replied: "I don't know. I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry." It wasn't the first time the president had been moved to action by images of children in peril delivered by his favorite form of entertainment. Months into his first term, in April 2017, he addressed reporters about images of carnage from the now-defunct Assad regime's use of chemical weapons — Sarin nerve gas — against the town of Khan Sheikhun. 'I will tell you that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me – big impact,' Trump said while speaking in the White House's rose garden, just steps from the Oval Office. 'My attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much … You're now talking about a whole different level.' 'When you kill innocent children, innocent babies, babies, little babies, with a chemical gas that is so lethal – people were shocked to hear what gas it was. That crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line, many, many lines,' he added. Days later, he ordered a series of cruise missile strikes against targets in Syria, his first use of military force since assuming office three months earlier. Trump also appeared to reverse himself on a foreign policy matter earlier this month when he overrode top Pentagon officials who'd put a hold on American weapons shipments bound for Ukraine, citing images transmitted out of Kyiv in the aftermath of Russian drone attacks against civilian targets such as apartment buildings. A Trump administration official who spoke to The Independent on condition of anonymity said the president makes decisions based on what he believes to be the best information available to him at any given time and said his invocation of horrific televised images shows he cares about protecting children. 'He's a grandfather, he's a family man, and images of hurt or starving children anger him just as much as any in the country who has a heart,' they said. Trump's reversals on aid to Ukraine and on the need for Israel to allow more food into Gaza have another factor in common. In each case, the president has acknowledged the influence of First Lady Melania Trump in his decision-making process. When he ordered the Pentagon to resume shipping defensive weapons to Kyiv this month, he described a conversation he'd had with his Slovenian-born wife following a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I go home, I tell the first lady, 'I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation.' And she says, 'Oh really? Another city was just hit,'" he said. And on Tuesday as he returned to Washington aboard Air Force One, he told reporters that his wife thinks the situation in Gaza is 'terrible.' 'She sees the same pictures that you see, that we all see, and I think everybody, unless they're pretty cold hearted, or worse than that, nuts, there's nothing you can say other than it's terrible when you see the kids,' he said. Megan Mobbs, the daughter of Trump's Ukraine envoy General Keith Kellogg, told The Telegraph that when it comes to the First Lady, Trump 'deeply values her counsel.' 'They have a very, open, conversational relationship and she is one of his closest advisers,' said Mobbs, who currently lives in Kyiv running the RT Weatherman Foundation humanitarian mission. The former model's influence on the president might come as a surprise given that unlike most who've filled the unpaid, unofficial role of first lady, Mrs. Trump is understood to spend most of her time in New York, where she and the president's son, Barron Trump, attends NYU. The White House would not discuss the first lady's schedule or whereabouts, but a source close to the president cautioned against discounting her influence based on where she may or not be on any given day.
Economist
21 minutes ago
- Economist
What opponents of the EU-US trade deal get wrong
The critics were quick to jump in. Soon after the European Commission struck its trade deal with President Donald Trump on July 27th, it was being savaged in European capitals. François Bayrou, the French prime minister, called it a 'dark day when an alliance of free peoples, united to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submit'. Friedrich Merz, Germany's chancellor, worried about 'severe damage' to the German economy. Viktor Orban, Hungary's populist leader, twisted the knife, saying that Mr Trump 'ate Ursula von der Leyen for breakfast'.
