How Silicon Valley turned Trump into a fellow broligarch

Hello and welcome to the latest 2025 issue of organizer. If you are not a edge Subscriber, get off the naughty list 2026 by Subscribe here. And if you are a edge Subscriber — Well, dang, that’s really nice of you.

Last week, I appeared on Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC to talk about my reporting on President Donald Trump’s attempt to block states from setting their own AI laws. I rarely get to appear on the radio, but I love doing it for one unique reason. On news channels, you have 90 seconds to make your point, and that’s all you get. In podcasting, you fall into a rhythm in a room of your peers for an hour, and while it can be fun, it comes with the risk of becoming an insider. But in radio, listeners call in every day, asking questions and telling you exactly how the thing you’re reporting on impacts their lives. It makes you start thinking about what’s happening outside of the weird little bubble of Washington that your reporting comes from.

In this case, a woman called to ask whether congress had begun working on any laws addressing “digital twins,” a generative AI model that mimics human behavior and is used by companies in customer-facing interactions and, more broadly, agentic AI, which fills in — fairly inexpensively — work previously performed by human employees. I had to quickly rack my brain to see if I was going to encounter any state or federal bills, bills, drafts, or anything directly related to the use of digital twins, and I couldn’t. (Colorado’s anti-bias laws are the closest, but they address the use of AI in hiring decisions — not what happens afterward.)

Over the past year, I’ve written a lot about the tech industry’s version of the political drama in Washington: companies skirting lobbyist restrictions by “donating” to Trump “nonprofits,” MAGA internet influencers directing White House policy decisions, Elon Musk being dragged into the soap opera-like power plays of Trump World, and billionaires winning one gold statue at a time. But the story I find myself returning to again and again is the politics of AI — specifically, the industry’s attempts to quickly shift policy to its advantage, in a way that challenges the precious norms that have kept the US government together. True, technology companies have signed huge checks to elected officials, promised to keep them in office, created their own political action committees, and prepared to spend unlimited amounts of money targeting candidates who promise unfavorable regulation of AI. But this is a natural How to play the political game.

What is unusual is their aggressive and rapid attempt to completely reshape the law – or rather, remove any law that would place limits on them. They tried to convince Congress to prevent states from writing their own AI laws, without proposing any federal law to replace them; When those attempts failed, they convinced the president to sign an executive order that would punish states that tried to impose their own laws. They have attempted to take over the Library of Congress in order to change copyright enforcement and intellectual property protection and have put forward several theories for a federal takeover: Perhaps the FCC’s authority over communications could give the feds the ability to regulate artificial intelligence? And they have convinced enough people in Washington that they need to remove these laws in order to compete against China in the AI ​​race.

They rarely propose anything that proactively addresses the direct, real, and increasing human cost of AI. Many polls show bipartisan tension over AI, jobs are being lost to AI at a rapid pace, and every day, a new story seems to emerge about how psychologically damaging generative AI has been to its users — especially younger ones. That’s not to mention the environmental impact of data centers, the weaponization of AI by hostile actors (yes, China is one of those), and for those looking even further, the “deadly” position that AI poses an existential risk.

When I first joined in February — one month after Big Tech CEOs watched Trump take the oath of office, and weeks after Elon Musk began decimating the federal workforce — I laid out my thesis on EdgePolitical coverage: Technology changes human behavior, and human behavior shapes politics. At the time, I expected that Trump would represent the wave of populist discontent, largely aimed at Big Tech, that had put him back in office, and that he would represent their interests.

But less than a year later, the tables appear to have turned: Trump voters are confronted with the abstract, unknowable, and unchecked power of artificial intelligence affecting their lives in proportions they could never have imagined — and the president is only too happy to help its billionaire creators take matters into their own hands.

And now, more holiday season break.

organizer He will be out for the next two weeks due to the holidays, so it’s only fitting that he returns on January 6th. In the meantime, here’s the legal position on the letter from Die hard Writer Stephen D’Souza:

In the spirit of this year’s Merriam-Webster word: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.