Tech’s billionaire fraternity has been cosying up to Donald Trump in the hopes that this time around, the “America-first” president-elect will treat them with less disdain than his first time at the helm. They hope that his stated “pro-business” stance will decrease scrutiny on their practices, amid a number of ongoing legal battles that had previously aimed to limit their powers.
Consider: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Trump’s response to being shot at was “badass”; this week, he congratulated his “decisive victory” on his X competitor, Threads. (Trump has previously called Facebook the “enemy of the people”, and threatened to put him in prison if he steered his social media platforms against him.) Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos, after being called “Jeff Bozo” by the former president, wrote on Elon Musk-owned X), “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory.” He also killed an endorsement for Trump rival Harris at the paper that he owns, the Washington Post. Musk himself has rallied and canvassed for Trump, as analysts speculate the billionaire will play a key role in the Trump administration. The CEOs of Google, OpenAI, Apple and Microsoft all also chimed in.
They all have something to gain — money and power — from a more favourable, hands-off administration. For fashion, beauty and retail, this could have mixed results: Amazon, Google and Meta are less likely to be disrupted over concerns of possibly monopolistic behaviour; TikTok might stay in the game; and cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence businesses might enjoy tailwinds. But this also means that risk-averse brands could have to perform their own due diligence in terms of consumer protections in the absence of governmental oversight. Instead of trusting tech providers to proactively protect consumers, especially in terms of topics such as data privacy, they’ll have to maintain their own guardrails.
The focus of the Trump campaign was “on ‘America first” and improving the financial economy of the US, so these [big tech] companies are now going to support administrations that lead to more quote-unquote freedom in terms of scaling their businesses,” says Shermin Lakha, Lvlup Legal founder and managing attorney. “The bigger tech companies are focused on scaling and growing.” She anticipates fewer consumer protections in terms of data and data privacy, and potentially more reliance on AI. This could also lead to more acquisitions by big tech companies, who might have been bolstered to “take our data and use it the way they want to benefit their own pockets,” she adds.
To be clear, Trump often changes his mind. Some statements already contradict his first term in office, in areas such as AI and antitrust. As fashion braces for impact, experts and brands can parse a few predictions.
Antitrust and big tech
There are a number of ongoing cases against Google, Meta and Amazon from the the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Broadly speaking, the government’s lawsuits accuse the tech giants of anti-competitive behaviour: Amazon’s case, which alleges it favoured its own products over marketplace sellers, is set to go to trial in 2026. Google, already determined to be a monopoly by the DOJ, could be facing a breakup after allegations that it tried to control the online advertising market and its role in online search. And Meta is still fighting a 2020 FTC lawsuit that alleges its acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and Whatsapp (while it was still known as Facebook) were monopolistic.
Amazon has warned that it would ultimately harm consumers if it doesn’t get a favourable outcome, while a potential Google breakup could bifurcate the online advertising space. Google has also argued that the DOJ’s proposals could create security risks for consumers, hold back American innovation and would “break” Chrome and Android. A Meta breakup could destabilise any business integrations across Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, and could complicate Zuckerberg’s big plan to integrate Meta AI throughout the ecosystem. Meta argues that it still faces many competitors, and its acquisitions have ultimately benefitted consumers.
But they also might face a more agreeable tenor, under the new administration. "Trump s largely pro-business agenda would likely result in a less combative FTC,” write Emarketer’s Jeremy Goldman and Daniel Konstantinovic in a recent research report — even though his first term was critical of Google, Meta and Amazon, and the DOJ brought its search monopoly complaint against Google under his first administration. They note that Vice President-elect JD Vance, however, could try to argue for a tougher approach, as he said in July that Google should be broken up.
Additionally, the FTC is overseen by commissioner Lina Kahn, who was nominated in 2021 by President Joe Biden. Her stance has historically been aimed at limiting the power of potentially monopolistic business, leading to these cases and more like it (like the one currently preventing Tapestry’s merger of Capri Holdings). Trump donor Musk has been highly critical of her, and typically new administrations appoint people from their own parties in this role. In short, her job is on the line.
“She is one of the first people who is going to go right away,” Lakha says. “Right now, the FTC, under Biden, has more of a watchdog approach. A lot of the antitrust cases are going to be potentially decided differently.” In terms of brands and advertisers, this could ultimately mean more access to consumer data. “Fashion companies are still always looking to advertise on social media and the way they do that is through the data, and with the tech companies a lot of their intellectual property is through data.”
This doesn’t mean consumers will look the other way; many have become more sophisticated about data privacy and have begun taking advantage of tools that enable them to limit what companies can see and track. And they also might not be thrilled with tech’s public declarations toward Trump; already, Bezos’s decision to kill the Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris has resulted in subscription cancellations and calls to boycott Amazon.
Social media and TikTok
Trump has had an interesting relationship with TikTok, having called for a ban from the China-owned app during his first term. Biden agreed, and a law that requires TikTok to sell to a US-owned company, or face a US ban, is slated to go into effect on 19 January, which is one day before the new administration is inaugurated. For brands and creators, a ban would likely disrupt a robust influencer and marketing economy.
TikTok has been appealing, and it might try to wait until the new administration, because Trump has been successfully lobbied by Bytedance investor (and Trump donor) Jeff Yass (Bytedance owns TikTok) to change his mind on the anti-TikTok stance — even while he props himself up as an anti-China strong man. Emarketer reports that Trump still might face “pressure from Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for a Republican administration that calls for TikTok’s ban, though he has tried to distance himself from it. The question remains how much political capital Trump would be willing to use to prevent a ban that Republicans already voted in favour of.”
While the law is already in place, TikTok could continue to influence Trump’s leniency, The Information reports, given that it has already influenced his prior stance.
How does this affect TikTok’s rival, Meta? While Zuckerberg is busy praising Trump, the president-elect has recently said that “without TikTok, you are going to make Facebook bigger. And I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.”
He also might be swayed by what appeals to his voters, Lahka says. According to a May report from Emarketer, only 28 per cent of US adults report trusting TikTok, and more than half said they distrust it. Emarketer reports that Trump is also likely to be more lenient in terms of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which holds social media and tech platforms responsible for the content that people post. The expectation is that this could result in less stringent content moderation (as already seen on X, formerly Twitter). Brands should post and advertise accordingly; “this shift may raise brand safety concerns for advertisers, potentially driving some to platforms with stricter controls,” write Emarketer’s Goldman and Konstantinovic.
AI
When it comes to the race to innovate and regulate artificial intelligence, Biden’s policies on AI often picked up where Trump’s had left off, calling for jobs protections, safety standards and mindful US-led innovation. Trump has recently said he would reverse Biden’s executive order on AI, arguing that it slows innovation.
Again, this could have been influenced by Musk, whose startup xAI competes with OpenAI. The administration s future perspective is likely to incorporate that influence, being more about protecting business interests than consumer interests. “The focus on AI is really one of the reasons why Elon Musk was such a supporter. There is going to be a lot more research on AI and the larger companies will have more capabilities in terms of privacy and data in the US,” Lahka says.
This would again put the onus on brands to be more cautious of their AI tech providers, rather than not relying on big tech to create parameters for them. This might ultimately slow down experimentation and innovation for risk-averse brands hoping to avoid a bad PR moment, algorithmic discrimination or other untoward breaches of trust, especially as consumers have become more aware of AI in recent years. “[With safeguards in place], enterprises will adopt AI much faster and will make more money; VCs or investors think it will slow innovation, but it’s exactly the opposite: it will increase adoption,” Sahil Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of AI risk detection company Enkrypt Ai, recently told Vogue Business.
Crypto
Trump has reversed course and become a vocal supporter of the crypto industry, in part thanks to financial contributions from those who could benefit from favourable policies. This has led to many across fashion and Web3 to support him, including Web3 fashion entrepreneur Gmoney — whose 9dcc brand aimed to be the first major Web3-first fashion brand — and Louis Vuitton Web3 collaborator and Rug Radio founder Farokh Sarmad, who interviewed Trump at Mar-a-Lago in September.
Again, this could lead to less scrutiny and more tailwinds on businesses who might previously have faced oversight from the Biden administration. For brands, this could lead to a rise in the value of cryptocurrencies, leading to a resurgence in NFT collectibles and the community that monetises them. But will crypto still be cool among the fashion crowd? Like most decisions in this imminent era, that remains to be seen.
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