Tech and the GOP - A New Chapter Emerges
A look at how Silicon Valley might engage with a potential Republican administration (and House/Senate)
Last week, I talked to someone about scenario planning and how the outcomes of the elections in the US and globally might affect their business. We discussed how to plan for chaos, the unexpected, and various risks (and opportunities).
At the time of that conversation, we were mainly talking about whether or not Biden would remain on the Democratic ticket. Then, Saturday’s horrific shooting took place, and Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate.
It’s hard to know exactly how the attempted assassination event will impact the election. It’s always eerie to me how sometimes you know something will be historic, but it takes a while to figure out exactly how. I felt that after Trump’s surprise win in 2016 and when Facebook announced it had found the Russian IRA ads. It took weeks, months, and years for those impacts to unfold (and frankly, they still are).
There’s a long way to go until November, and the fight for control over the White House, Senate, and House will remain close. Much of it will come down to which side can turn out their voters versus how many swing voters can be swayed. If you need a gut check about why those confident in what will happen in November shouldn’t be, check out Kristin Soltis Anderson’s latest newsletter.
For tech companies, the politics of all of this goes beyond how they decide to handle content on their own platforms. They must consider the regulatory, political, and reputational implications of one party or the other taking control. And, it’s not just the Party in control, but who within the Party will have the most influence.
But Silicon Valley influences our politics, too - as Jessica Lessin points out. Perhaps even more so this cycle than before. Silicon Valley was once seen as very liberal (even though it’s always had a strong Libertarian streak.) Now, you are seeing more execs cozying up to former President Trump. Musk endorsed and donated to Trump after the shooting. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have told staff they plan to donate to PACs supporting Trump. Musk has said the same. Musk and others also pushed Vance with Trump. Trump also went on the influential All In Podcast in late June, and David Sacks spoke Monday night at the convention. Many tech CEOs put out statements Saturday. While this might seem like a new development, it’s not completely new. What’s new is how out in the open these executives are being about their engagement with Trump. Tech companies engaging with Republicans is not.
Tech has always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the GOP. I have more in this brief history of tech and elections. Still, some tense moments include the Googlebombing controversies in the early 2000s (where if you searched “miserable failure,” the Bush White House website would be the first result), tech workers helping Obama in 2008 and 2012, the trending topics controversy of 2016, the backlash against Trump’s win, and countless accusations of censorship leading to the investigations today led by Rep. Jim Jordan.
Those are the lowlights. Much of the rhetoric and actions against tech vis-a-vis conent moderration will continue in a Republican administration, as indicated on the party platform. Conversely, Republicans tend to be more business-friendly and less likely to regulate than the Democrats. However, since Vance was announced there has been a plethora of stories about how he has supported Lina Khan’s anti-trust work at the FTC. It’s still too soon to know how much influence Vance will have on tech policy (let’s remember he’s just being picked as VP, which doesn’t mean Trump is going to listen to him on all things tech) and if he’ll sing the same tune as a VP candidate rather than a United States Senator.
Moreover, Republicans are more concerned about America falling behind China—especially on innovations like AI—and will be inclined to help American tech companies move fast and stay ahead. Take a look at this draft executive order that Trump allies are supposedly drafting to launch a series of Manhattan projects for AI and examine “burdensome" regulations. This is also the only other tech-related item on the party platform. (Side note here similar to the point I made on Vance. Folks who think that Trump is automatically going to do whatever any Trump-aligned group is working on or even people he brings into his administration need to remember how volatile Trump’s decision-making is. Could they influence it? Absolutely. Should we take it as a given? No.)
This means that while Republicans' taking control will have political and reputational risks vis-a-vis content moderation, it could still be good for business overall.
This presents a delicate balancing act for tech executives - especially their public policy teams. When engaging with both parties, they all have different ideas on how a company should handle content, especially political content. Here are the various aspects of this that companies will be thinking about with both parties (in no particular order):
Building/maintaining relationships with political figures … and their staff. I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen any stories yet about tech companies’ presence at the conventions. In 2012 and 2016, you saw big and prominent activations. In 2020, everything was virtual, but this year, companies and their execs are on the ground to do this type of relationship maintenance. But they are doing it more under the radar to avoid getting slammed for being at either.
Training/support of politicians using the platform. This is another thing most companies still do; they aren’t as vocal about it. Still, a company has to figure out who it provides training and support for, what that looks like (I doubt any are embedding themselves with campaigns like we once did), how transparent it is, etc.
Restrictions/actions against politician accounts. Most platforms are incredibly nervous, looking like they are helping one politician over another. January 6th and the subsequent Trump deplatforming complicated all of that. We’ve now seen that almost all of the platforms allow him back on, and Meta announced last week that the additional restrictions they had were lifted. In explaining why, Nick Clegg said, “In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for president on the same basis.” Despite letting him back on, it doesn’t mean he - or any other candidate - won’t go too far as to where we’ll be having this conversation again.
Amplification of politics (and news) to users. Meta has been the main platform under the microscope for its decision to reduce the amount of news and politics in people’s feeds. They’ve also been the most vocal about it, but others like TikTok have tried to take the stance that they are an entertainment platform first. However, as I always say, you can run, but you can’t hide from politics, so this will always be a dance the companies have to engage in.
Policies around political ads. The fall of 2019 was the last great debate about online political advertising. This was the time when some platforms decided to ban political ads, some decided to allow them with more restrictions, and some had no rules at all. If you are a platform with ads and are somewhere voters are, campaigns and others will want to advertise there.
Content/product policies in general. What do you allow or not allow? What do you label? What is spammy behavior versus just run-of-the-mill campaigning? Politics seeps into so much of content and product policy.
Corporate PAC donations. Most companies have their own PAC that they use to make donations to parties and candidates. This is another thing most try to keep under the radar as much as possible, but they are trying to make strategic bets about which candidates will be focused on their issues and thus should be donated to.
Product access. This isn’t necessarily new but has been more at the forefront with many new AI tools. In the past, we always had to ensure that when a new product was still being rolled out, all politicians got access simultaneously. We also wanted to make sure there weren’t any huge product releases near the election where there would be either a disruption for the candidates or unequal access. For companies building AI tools, many have decided not to allow political use while everyone tries to figure out how to do so safely and responsibly.
Employee’s involvement/volunteering on campaigns. Employees are allowed to donate and volunteer for campaigns to do things like make phone calls and knock on doors. Where it gets tricky is if employees are asked to be on advisory boards, help develop policies, or do work that directly relates to their job (such as running Facebook or Google ads). I had to dig deep into this before the 2020 election, and each state has its own rules. California is pretty permissive in what companies must let employees do in their free time. Optically, though, it can cause problems if more employees are going to help one campaign over the other.
Executives engagement - and potential endorsements - of candidates. The same can be said of execs. Musk, in particular, is making some pretty bold political moves in favor of Trump that are not going to help them with Democrats - regardless of who wins. Even if it’s not this time, at some point, each party does come back in power, and they have long memories. I wouldn’t be surprised if more execs get pressure to come out in favor of one candidate or the other. Lessin, in her tweet, alluded to how the tech left is going to need to do some soul-searching and rebuilding. This is something most of the execs are going to be loathe to do for fear of being caught in the political crossfire, but some may find they have to take a calculated risk.
Politics is messy - but it’s also the reality for any corporation, not just tech. What happens in Washington has global impacts and can drastically impact business performance. When the outcomes are so uncertain, they can paralyze some people from doing anything. However, they are often eventually forced to engage and make decisions on how they want to do so.
I’m curious to see how this all unfolds. Right now, the trends are toward Trump, but that can change. You don’t want to swing too far one way or the other (or at least that’s the conventional wisdom). Perhaps that will still be true. Perhaps things are changing, and we’ll see more companies and their executives take a stand. What is certain is that we won’t know the impacts of those choices for some time.
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