On Monday, the crypto-president of America takes office. Bearing in mind that I've said several times he will be the crypto-President it is interesting that, in the last few weeks, he will be more than this. He will be the Big Tech President. Here is why.
We live in such interesting times. Digitalisation has creeped into every part of our everyday lives. Turn off the Wi-Fi, remove the smartphone, and life becomes meaningless (for some). Equally, our lives are dominated by a small number of major players. Amazon, Alibaba, Meta, Tencent are just a few of the names that come to mind when we think of Big Tech. These firms offer commerce and chat, and dominate our way of working and thinking. Having said that, they have vulnerabilities.
Some years ago, I blogged about how the Microsoft senate committee investigation weighted heavily on today’s tech entrepreneurs. It’s the reason why America’s Big Tech firms spend millions on lobbyists in Washington.
According to The Washington Post, the seven largest US tech companies – Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Bytedance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook), Microsoft and X/Tesla - spent nearly $70 million lobbying the U.S. government in 2021, up almost ten percent on the year before. That figure rose to over $100 million in 2024. After all, you have to keep Big Gov onside to be a Big Tech (take note Jack Ma).
This is why the shallow principles of the Big Tech leaders are now being identified, tracked and traced. For example, Mark Zuckerberg used to be a raging democrat and yet now is a clear republican … or is he? Maybe he’s just looking after Meta’s interests by following the mood music of the majority.
Add to the Zuck the Musk + the Andreessen and others, and you get the drift. Big Tech wants Big Gov to be on their side and, the best way to do that is to get to the Big Man, namely Donald Trump.
That’s why Marc Andreessen has swung from being a top-tier democrat donor to Trump’s good buddy.
The most telling statement came from Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook and author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe. Mr. McNamee says that, “in cosying up to Trump, Zuckerberg is hoping to gain protection from regulators globally, while redirecting US regulators towards his biggest challenger, TikTok.”
This is not the only threat, but Zuckerberg is running in fear of overseas regulators – particularly the EU – cracking down on his empire. In his three-hour in-depth interview with Joe Rogan last week, Zuckerberg made clear that the US should protect US Big Tech from the threat of EU regulators. He complained that the EU had forced US tech companies operating in Europe to pay “more than $30 billion” in penalties for legal violations over the past two decades. He argued that the European Commission's application of competition rules is "like a tariff" on American tech companies, and that Joe Biden's administration had failed to deal with the situation (read more here).
The bottom-line is that Musk and Zuckerberg are promoting libertarian free speech values, and are cosying up to Donald Trump to make these things happen. It is why Trump is the crypto-President but, more than this, massive ramifications on the financial industry. Bearing in mind that fintech and crypto are the big two trends reshaping financial services, we are about to have four years of a US collegiate who will all work together to reshape America and, as a consequence, the rest of the world into a free markets, free speech, free exchange libertarian leader of the world.
Some would say that’s a good thing, but Glass-Steagall’s reforms of the 1990s thought the same and look where that got us.
#just saying
Postscript: Talking of Big Tech and Big Gov, have you seen this?
Isn't it amazing what AI can do these days?
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
