Donald Trump was elected as new President of the United States, defeating his rival, Kamala Harris, in the election. Since the results were announced, the businessman has begun to put together his future government team, including in his plans the the world's richest man, according to the Forbes list, Elon Musk. So what are their plans? Read on, because we’ll tell you all about them here at Euroinnova.
Following this decision, many began to come up with their own theories about what will happen regarding the AI and its regulation. The fact is that Elon Musk owns Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, companies linked to the world of technology across various sectors. For example, xAI It is positioning itself as the company set to compete with OpenAI and its chatbot, ChatGPT.
Here at Euroinnova, we’ll tell you more about Donald Trump’s plans for technology, alongside Elon Musk.
Elon Musk, Grok and an obsession with AI
When we talk about Elon Musk, we’re talking about the the world's richest man. His portfolio includes companies of the calibre of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the former Twitter, now known as X. The South African also was one of the founders of OpenAI, leaving the company due to differences with the other partners. Even so, it did not take him long to get back on his feet and set up a similar company, under the name xAI.
With xAI, Elon Musk managed to develop Grok, an AI very similar to ChatGPT. To achieve this, the tech entrepreneur had to build a massive infrastructure that cost billions of dollars. In fact, he created a supercomputer with 10,000 GPUs that would be capable of training AI models at an unprecedented speed.
Grok is accessible via Twitter to users who pay for the trial version and, essentially, offers the same features as ChatGPT or Gemini. According to Elon Musk himself, Grok is a much more accurate and revolutionary form of artificial intelligence; he asked some users to send him an X-ray to demonstrate its capabilities.
DOGE, Trump’s plans for Elon Musk
Donald Trump cleared up all the rumours and provided some information in one of his speeches after his victory. Elon Musk will not be part of the government, but he will be part of the Department of Government Efficiency it wishes to set up. Essentially, this body will operate externally through a partnership with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
And what will their role be? To provide advice from outside the Government, with the with the aim of driving forward large-scale structural reform and to instil a business-oriented approach in the White House. Another point to bear in mind is that this will not be a permanent role, but an 18-month assignment, through which they aim to reduce US government spending by 2 trillion dollars.
Elon Musk would be accompanied by Vivek Ramaswamy, who has previously expressed his intention to abolish a number of federal agencies, such as the Department of Education, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Internal Revenue Service. Donald Trump is therefore relying on the world’s richest man for advice and to optimise the country’s resources. Will they also discuss technology issues?
X’s leadership: the best example to follow
To understand Elon Musk’s obsession with optimisation, let’s go back to October 2022, when he took over the social media platform Twitter for $44,000 million. One of the first decisions he made was to reduce the workforce from around 8,000 to 1,500, followed by a move away from content moderation policies and the lifting of certain bans, including that on Donald Trump.
Elon Musk has subsequently sought to monetise various aspects of X, particularly after many advertisers left the social media platform due to changes to its free speech policies. For example, It turned the blue brands into a subscription model. Later, he introduced gold and silver marks for official accounts, as a fraudulent account could pass itself off as genuine by purchasing the blue cheque.
Finally, it also incentivised users by offering them the chance to monetise their content, but this led to the social network be flooded with bots who were in constant contact. In short, Musk has certainly not gone unnoticed by X, leading him to act as an adviser to the President of the United States in an attempt to reduce the excessive bureaucracy that exists within the various government bodies.
The danger to AI: deregulation
This alliance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk is nothing new, as the tech entrepreneur funded a large part of the Republican candidate’s campaign. However, the rumour of a possible alliance within the government is indeed a cause for concern amongst a certain section of the population. The fact is that people are fighting every day to achieve a regulation of AI.
The regulations cover aspects such as the AI discrimination or the misinformation, such important issues in our society. Now, with Elon Musk serving as an adviser to Donald Trump, many are suggesting that there is likely to be a move towards deregulation in this sector, and others. During the Biden administration, for example, 15 tech companies were persuaded to commit to strengthening the the security of their AI systems.
However, this commitment was voluntary. Now, with Elon Musk and Donald Trump, this attempt to regulate AI may be held back, although these are merely theories. Similarly, the name of DOGE refers to the dog Shiba Inu, which Musk has already used to create the cryptocurrency Dogecoin.
Consequently, many commentators also suggest that there may be a move towards deregulation of cryptocurrencies. Who knows whether this will ease the regulatory pressure on companies by capitalising on their role within the Department of Government Efficiency or it will simply guide Donald Trump in optimising spending within the US government.
We’ll keep an eye on things!
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