Pattern Matching
Biden Has a Chance to Reshape Tech. Will He?
Two schools of thought on the new administration
For all of Donald Trump’s railing against Amazon’s “monopoly,” social media “censorship,” and Section 230 protections for internet companies, his administration did very little to take on the technology industry. Its most notable acts were the repeal of net neutrality, sanctions on Chinese tech firms, and the launch of antitrust investigations and lawsuits against U.S. tech giants, which will be left to the Biden administration to pursue. Trump also moved late in his term to restrict H-1B visas; the fate of those rules will be in Joe Biden’s hands as well.
Despite their occasional dust-ups with Trump, the largest U.S. tech firms reaped tremendous gains under his watch. They emerge from his presidency bigger, stronger, and more powerful than ever, flourishing even amid a pandemic that has battered much of the economy.
Trump’s predecessor was arguably even better for Silicon Valley: Barack Obama viewed tech giants as allies rather than adversaries, and his administration greenlit mergers that vastly expanded their reach while cheerleading their disruption of old industries and norms and limiting privacy enforcement to wrist slaps.
