- The social media platforms in general, are shifting to the right.

You knew that Zuckerberg was heading in that direction.

You knew that they would tack towards Trump.

You did not know they would rewrite their entire policy handbook and that they would do it at a snap.

(easy music) - Hello, and welcome to "GZERO World," I'm Ian Bremmer.

And today with Trump's return to the White House, we are taking a hard look at an industry with an outsized role in the economy, politics, and media: Big Tech.

Trump 2.0 will mean massive changes in the government's relationship with tech companies in ways that could affect everything from AI development to what types of content social media users see online.

Since Trump's first term, the technology landscape has shifted dramatically.

AI is today booming.

Meta and Google are fighting antitrust battles.

Elon Musk turned Twitter into X. TikTok exploded in popularity.

Now faces an impending ban.

So far, technology leaders are betting that President Trump will be good for their business.

But will his next term be the deregulation and innovation bonanza that they're hoping for?

What does Big Tech stand to gain and lose from a second Trump presidency?

I'm sitting down with technology journalist and CEO of "The Atlantic," Nick Thompson.

Don't worry, I've also got your Puppet Regime.

- Donald.

- Oh, hello, Vladimir.

How's it going in Russia?

- Good, good.

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer 1] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Announcer 2] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint, (triumphant music) and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer 1] And by Cox Enterprises, is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, clean tech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... (easy music) (upbeat music) - What a difference a new term makes, at least when it comes to Big Tech and the Trump administration.

- The first term, everybody was fighting me.

In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.

- Trump had a contentious relationship with the technology industry in his first administration, no question.

He accused social media platforms of silencing conservative voices and hauled CEOs to testify before Congress.

But what about now?

- As you know, I had Sundar from Google, but I also had Sergei.

Tim Cook was here.

We do have Jeff Bezos, Amazon coming in.

We have a lot of great executives coming in.

The top executives, the top bankers, they're all calling, and honestly, in the first, I don't know what it was.

It's like a complete opposite.

- [Ian] Big tech has wasted no time cozying up to the next administration.

A parade of technology royalty has visited Mar-a-Lago, also including OpenAI's, Sam Altman, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, and Softbank's Masayoshi Son.

Meta also announced that they would end their fact-checking program.

They used to call it moderation, now it's censorship and focused on promoting free speech.

- The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech.

- Why the sudden change of heart?

The industry knows which side of their bread is buttered, especially now that Trump's inner circle is full of technology power players, people like Elon Musk, a man who's so influential, he's earned the nickname, shadow president, biotech entrepreneur, Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency with Musk.

Also, David Sacks, who'll advise Trump on AI and crypto policy.

Trump ally Peter Thiel also helped staff the administration with Silicon Valley alums, ensuring the tech world's fingerprints are everywhere.

So what's on the wishlist for Big Tech under Trump 2.0?

Start with AI deregulation.

Trump has pledged to scrap Biden-era policies that curb AI risks and tighten federal oversight.

Silicon Valley wants fewer rules and looser copyright laws, critical for training the next wave of AI.

Crypto is also riding high.

The president-elect has promised to make the US a global crypto powerhouse, complete with a national bitcoin stockpile and an advisory council.

The crypto crowd is euphoric, hoping Trump's policies will pave the way for a decentralized boom.

But it's not all roses for Big Technology.

Trump's tariff plans, like his 60% threat on Chinese goods, could spell trouble for companies like Apple, which rely heavily on Chinese manufacturing.

And there's Trump's grudge against Section 230, the law that shields social platforms from liability over user content.

Coupled with a more hawkish FTC under Andrew Ferguson, Big Tech is hardly in the clear.

So despite all the optimism, Trump 2.0 may not lead to the windfall Big Tech is hoping for.

Trump is of course known for changing his position if he feels like he's not getting a great deal.

Policy can be made and unmade at the speed of a tweet or an X or a Truth.

For now, tech leaders are dining at the table, but with Trump, the honeymoon could end as fast as it began.

Here to help me break down Trump's relationship with the tech world and what his second term will mean for technology companies, the future of media and beyond, CEO of "The Atlantic," Nick Thompson.

Nick Thompson, great to have you back on "GZERO World."

- Delighted to be here, Ian.

- So much to discuss in the world of technology and media and politics.

And I mean, I guess the most interesting thing, in the immediate sense, has been watching so many big technology players find different ways to try to say, "We are aligned with this new group."

What's been most surprising to you?

- I mean, the most surprising was the complete about face from Meta.

And you knew that Zuckerberg was heading in that direction.

You knew that they would tack towards Trump.

You did not know that their head of public policy would turn over.

You did not know they would get rid of all of their fact checkers.

You did not know they would rewrite their entire policy handbook, and that they would do it at a snap.

- How much of this do you think is actually, Zuckerberg is much more comfortable in an environment where they don't have to be responsible, - Yeah.

- for fact checking?

And would much rather just, it's cheaper for him, right?

Less political problems for him, no?

- I don't know if it's cheaper for him.

I mean because you have to look, the reason they started doing it was to try to lessen the political problems, right?

If you do it, you end up having less bad stuff on your platform.

Bad stuff on your platform causes problems.

So I don't- - Cause legal problems.

- Causes legal problems, causes political problems.

I also don't know if it's cheaper, because they make their money from advertising.

You create a more toxic platform, advertisers like that less.

So I don't actually know if he's making money, or if it aligns with what's easier for him.

- Interesting, do you think he has a true north on this issue, or is it just I need to be aligned with whatever the political winds are blowing?

- I do think his true north is shifting in the Trump direction.

He does seem to be moving politically in kind of a more Trumpian, anti-woke direction.

But I think it's mostly about the wins.

I think if Trump were not president, you would not be seeing that.

I don't know that.

I just think that.

- So Trump's about to actually take office, though he's been frankly acting as president for quite several weeks now.

Where do you think technology policy is substantively likely to be noticeably different in this administration?

- Couple areas.

Number one, mergers and acquisition, right?

So the Biden administration was extremely tough on mergers and acquisitions.

Lina Khan, FTC, you'll see a huge change there.

- JD Vance, notwithstanding, - JD Vance is notwithstanding- - who liked her, doesn't matter.

- Liked her, that position will be outweighed.

Secondly, cryptocurrency regulation, you'll see massive, you know, massive loosening of crypto regulations.

You'll see, you know, you're already seeing, you know, price of coins go up, questions whether that bubble bursts, whether there's problems there, but you will see at least in the short run, change there.

You'll probably see the same similar policies on AI and China.

I don't think you'll see a major break there.

And then the big question will be how much the policy shifts towards specifically favoring Elon versus, you know, what's good for the American tech industry in general.

- What does it mean, broadly speaking, for the social media environment, for a broader shift in the lines of where X is today, assuming this continues?

How do you think it affects society, that we are going to have a very different set of norms being followed by the businesses that are driving how we communicate with each other?

- I think that the social media platforms in general, are shifting to the right.

The balance between toxicity and safety, toxicity aligned with positive things like free speech, it's shifting in that direction.

You are seeing a shift, I think it matters less than one might think for two reasons.

Most importantly, social media is less important than it was five years ago.

It's bifurcated, it's dispersed.

Conversations happen across platforms.

Probably the most interesting conversations that most people have are now in group chats.

They're no longer on big, public platforms.

And secondly, there's going to be some counter movement in other directions.

For example, Bluesky, and so you have a whole bunch of people shifting onto Bluesky.

And what's happening, is as communities split, there will be less and less one town square where people discuss issues of consequence.

- Is it good or bad that we lose a town square?

I think about, you know, the days of network television.

- Yeah.

- When American citizens felt like they got their information in a town square.

We all had a conversation.

I get that group chats can be much less toxic, they'll be much more engaged.

On the other hand, they will be much more fragmented, they'll be more atomized.

People will not be as connected to their fellow people.

- It's true, my ideal world, as you know, will be one where there was a social media platform optimized for curiosity engagement to reach people with different opinions, and such a town square would be amazing.

You'd have great political discourse.

The worst scenario, of course, is a completely toxic town square, where everybody's forced to be there.

So if you were to ask me to choose between every single person is on a toxic version of Twitter X versus completely dispersed social media, I would choose dispersed.

In a ideal X, and maybe Musk will get there, maybe there will be a way to make X feel welcoming to people.

Maybe there'll be ways to reoptimize the algorithm.

It does not seem to be going in that direction.

You can imagine the kind of town square where I would like American political discourse to happen.

But given what's happened to the social platforms, I'm fine with it totally dispersing.

- I mean, I have to say, I find that the idea of Community Notes, whether on X or on Meta, generally speaking, if you had people that were known to be actual people, engaging to do some fact checking, that seems to me a place where citizen media is actually potentially useful.

Crowdsourcing does get you to better information, generally speaking.

You can guess how many jelly beans are in a jar.

You should be able to get to what is BS on a given post.

But it doesn't seem to be playing out that way - Well so, yes, Crowdsourcing's wonderful.

Wikipedia is the best example, right?

It's amazing.

Community Notes works pretty well, but it doesn't work as well as it could.

And there's some structural issues with it.

One, it's slow.

Twitter moves really quickly.

Community Notes is slow.

So a erroneous tweet can circulate halfway around the world before- - Before Community Notes gets it pants on.

(Nick laughs) Oh, I like that analogy.

- That was good, right?

- A little Churchill.

There you go.

- Secondly, Community Notes depends upon there being, like your example of jelly bean, you'd have everybody be independent of each other, right?

You need to have people coming from this diverse political views in order to have good Community Notes.

The problem with Twitter is that as the ideology of the average user shifts, you're gonna get more biased Community Notes, and you won't get as good Community Notes.

You have slow, biased Community Notes.

My view on Community Notes, it should be a supplement, right?

The core thing is the algorithm.

It's all this stuff upstream of that, right?

This is the problem of what Facebook has done.

They said, "Ah you know, we can get rid of the fact checkers, we can get rid of all these rules and we'll have Community Notes, so great."

The problem is, it's very small number of posts get Community Notes, happens too slowly, and you need to have diverse opinions for it to work.

So it's a good thing.

It's not enough.

- Seems like we are quickly moving though to AI, where we're going to engage a lot with more chatbots that are programmed, right, to know everything about our data on our smartphone, and talks with us just the way we wanna be talked to.

I mean, if we're moving towards customization, society isn't doing it.

Is that the ultimate atomization that we are unavoidably heading towards?

- I don't think we're unavoidably headed towards that.

It is the dystopian future.

It's the dystopian future where you no longer know if you're talking to a person or you're talking to a bot, where the bot knows more about you than you know about yourself, and where the bot, which you know, does not love you, but does want your money, you know, actually knows how to communicate in such a way that you feel love, give money, and the bot, you know, gets what it wants.

That's the worst future.

The scariest thing that happened in social media in the last two weeks.

It wasn't Facebook saying, "We're gonna get rid of the fact check, and we're get rid of the algorithm," or you know, Musk, whatever the hell he's doing on X.

The scariest thing was that Facebook appeared to be running some kind of a test where they created fake characters for social media who would interact with you, right?

And so they shut down the test.

Who knows what's gonna happen?

But it was really like, as though they were testing Westworld, right?

And suddenly you will have a social media platform where you have all these like, really beautiful people who are very engaged with you, liking your posts and sending you comments.

And you can imagine that being super engaging.

And so you can imagine this incredible dystopian future where right now it's bad enough.

Our kids are spending all their time on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, whatever.

We all know the studies and the effects.

Imagine that they're just in this world, populated by billions, trillions of like, perfectly-designed characters who are perfectly engaged, and have the sort of simulation of being human.

That's the AI dystopia.

- So who right now, I mean, is getting AI closer to right?

- You look at where AI innovation is happening.

It's not happening in Europe.

- At all.

- I mean it's still, (laughs) it's happening in California, right?

I mean now is it getting AI right?

Who knows?

But you know, there are... That's where the innovation's happening in China.

Remarkable, right?

Like, look at DeepSeek.

Look at the recent innovations in large language models in China.

It's developing pretty similar to the way that you and I wrote about six or seven years ago, where these are the two places where it's happening.

- These are also the two places that are really not talking about how to engage with each other on that.

There was very, very nascent start of that conversation in the past year.

That probably won't continue with the incoming administration.

Do you think an AI arms race between the Americans and Chinese is right now likely?

- It is likely, and it's unfortunate.

So right at the end of Biden's term, you know, here we are at the very end of it, they've released this 175 pages of regulations on AI.

And I haven't had time to fully digest whether the regulatory burden outweighs the benefits.

But what I do know is this, the entire brain power of the Biden administration, to the extent it was thinking about AI, was not thinking about existential risk, was not thinking about how to limit bots, was not thinking about how it would change the economy of the US and how to help the transition.

It was focused on how to prevent AI from getting to China.

- [Ian] How to contain China.

- Optimizing totally the wrong vector, right?

Now should we optimize to contain China?

Sure.

Are there downstream benefits of that?

Yes.

If I were choosing, if I were Joe Biden, and I were choosing which of these big AI questions, you can only choose one and you're gonna write a regulatory framework to optimize for that.

Would I choose fighting China?

- Was.

- I would not do that.

I would.

- What would you pick?

- I would pick on helping the US economy prepare for the turmoil that's gonna come as AI starts to change major industries.

How do you upscale, how do you educate, how do you prepare, how do you integrate?

What can the US government do on that front?

I might even choose, you know, how to limit the existential risks, right?

Like, there are lots of things, I might choose how to make sure there's a competitive market.

I just would not choose blocking China as my number one priority.

- Where's the early stage displacement that you're starting to see happening right now?

- So one of the things that we see in media, is we see a huge decline in the number of people searching for something in Google and then coming to our sites, right?

And that's a problem for us.

Fewer readers, right?

We're fine, we're compensating for it.

We're doing, you know, more subscribers this week at "The Atlantic" than almost any other week, because we got really good at paid marketing.

We figured out these other things, and we were able to survive with extremely few users from Google.

But it means that this whole economy that has been built on search engines, sending people to your site, is gonna change dramatically, because the search engines are just gonna answer the questions, right?

And so suddenly you're gonna see a huge shift in the economy.

Now will it be net good for consumers?

Maybe.

Maybe those answers will be better, certainly they'll be simpler, certainly there'll be less friction.

But suddenly you'll start to see a lot of businesses saying, "Wait a second, we used to get 1,000 people a month from Google, now we're getting 500, now we're getting 100."

So I think you're gonna see a number of businesses having to pivot very quickly.

- We haven't talked about Elon.

Before we close we should do that.

He's gonna be in the White House.

He's by far the most powerful advisor to Trump.

He's becoming the military industrial complex in the United States in some degree.

And of course he also owns a piece of the public square, and he's saying, "We are the media."

He doesn't mean you and me, - Definitely does not.

- when he says that.

So what do you think are the most important implications of the Elonification of the technology/public square space?

- I mean, I think one of the most amazing things about his purchase of Twitter X is that he has lost huge percentage of the value.

Like, if you were to sell X as an independent entity, worth a fraction, right?

Look at the advertising.

And yet he's completely won.

Like, the amount of value he has created for his other companies, for his own personal brand, the data he's taken to change his AI, it's just extraordinary.

I don't think anybody would've predicted it.

And so the way to look at his public square is that it's not really a public square that he's designed as a public square.

It's a public square that he has designed to further his other interests, which are so much more important.

And so that's how you have to look at X.

It's a tool for him to gain influence for whatever he wants to do in German politics.

And whatever he wants to do in German politics, ties back in some ways to his own personal beliefs, but also possibly to his business interests at SpaceX, Tesla, and everywhere else.

He's an extremely complicated person to follow.

The most interesting thing to watch will be what the European Union does to him.

I mean, he's not popular there, and they're not- - They're taking a breath as you know.

- Yeah.

- They're saying, "We need to reconsider this, because actually, you know, regulating him or penalizing him, has broader implications, directly for our relationship with the new president."

- I know.

- They're saying that directly.

- It's an extremely complicated game theory, 'cause they would like him to stop, but they also don't wanna upset Trump.

So Musk has a very complicated balance, where he has to maintain his alliance with Trump.

Obviously it's gonna be an uneasy alliance 'cause they both wanna be the alpha, but they both get so much from each other.

They're also both highly erratic, so who knows what could blow it up.

And they're going to be trying to balance their interest.

And Europe is gonna be trying to figure out, well if we do this to Elon, what do we get from Trump?

It's gonna be extremely complicated.

- Is America stronger overall because of Elon's role in the administration?

- There are ways that it's beneficial.

Elon certainly cares deeply about some of the most important issues.

Like, he cares a ton about climate change.

He cares a ton about space exploration.

He cares a ton about innovation, right?

And so having a voice who is as smart as Elon is, as close to the president when there aren't that many advisors.

And Elon has also played a role in, so Trump's new AI advisor, Sriram Krishnan, very good guy.

Like, we are very lucky in the Trump administration to have someone like that as an AI advisor.

Would that have happened- - Without Elon?

No.

- Without Elon?

Almost certainly not.

So you get a lot of benefits.

Now on the other hand, you get the chaos that comes with him.

You get the geopolitics that comes with him.

You're gonna get some distortion, right?

Are we going to regulate OpenAI and Anthropic in the other AI companies the right way, or are we going to regulate them in the way that is most advantageous to Grok, right?

I don't know.

We might end up with really inefficient regulations, 'cause they're all skewed towards Musk companies.

So even within just the tech perspective, you could get a real biasing because of Musk's closeness to Trump.

So there's positives and there're negatives.

I do think in general, Trump's technology policy will probably be better for America, because of Musk than it would be without him.

But Musk will also create so much additional chaos.

Then again, like maybe a negative number times a negative number is a positive.

Maybe a chaos, you know, magnet times a chaos magnet makes calm.

- I was completely with you in your answer until that last one small bit.

(Nick laughing) Like, no too many, negative times negative, geopolitically, ends up just breaking stuff that you don't wanna have break.

- I mean, that's- - But don't worry about it.

But the rest of it is very balanced, and I think it's useful to hear from you on this and many other issues.

Nick Thompson.

- Ian Bremmer, it's always a pleasure to chat with you.

- Thanks man.

(techno music) And now we move from the cutting edge world of technology to one that's a bit more analog, powered by felt and wire and hands.

I've got your Puppet Regime.

(phone ringing) - Hello?

- Donald.

- Oh, hello, Vladimir.

How's it going in Russia?

- Good, good.

Ah, hey listen, I've been looking at some stuff you've been saying lately.

- Did you see the video of me talking with Obama at the Carter funeral?

- Hilarious, Donald, and I love funerals.

But you know some of other things, like, about Panama Canal and Greenland, and- - I can't believe we ever gave the canal away.

What a very sad and weak move.

- Well, tell me about it.

It's how I feel about Khrushchev and Crimea.

- Uh, yeah, whatever.

Did you see Greenland wants to be part of the United States?

It's like the Eastern Ukrainians or whatever.

- Huh, yeah.

See that's kind of point.

I mean it's- - What's the problem?

- Well, I mean it's just you're stealing my material, invading neighboring countries, just because you can.

That's, that's my thing.

- Oh, is it now?

- Yeah.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- Well, what are you gonna do about it?

- You leave me no option.

I am now backing Canada.

- You're what?

- Canada.

I am backing it.

We will now call it Crussia.

- Well, I'm gonna call it Cranada.

- Cranada?

What's Cranada?

That's not even a mix of USA and Canada.

What are you- - Well, I'm gonna say it.

Big, beautiful Cranada.

Cranada.

- Crussia.

- Cranada.

- Crussia.

- Wait, wait, wait.

Shouldn't we ask the Cranadians what they think about all of this?

(both laughing) - Uh, you really got me.

You really got me.

♪ Puppet Regime ♪ - That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

If you like what you see, or even if you don't, but you think that you should be the next US technology czar, why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com?

(gentle music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (easy music) - [Announcer 1] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Announcer 2] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer 1] And by, Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, clean tech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and.... (upbeat music) (bright music)