What the 2024 Election Results Mean for Tech Policy

As the tech policy landscape begins to shift under the incoming administration, significant changes are expected in areas like broadband, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. Orchestra's Glen Echo Group, a leading tech-focused communications firm, breaks down the key categories and what stakeholders need to know about the priorities and challenges ahead. 

As the dust settles on the election and transition plans get underway, we are beginning to see how these shifts in power will realign the tech policy landscape. Unlike his first term, President-elect Donald Trump re-enters the White House with both a popular and electoral college mandate, as well as the likely Republican control of both chambers of Congress.‍

President-elect Trump has historically been prone to changing his positions and policy priorities, so what could this mean for tech? We looked at many of the technology-related issues before Congress and the next administration’s plans to alter the tech policy landscape.‍

Broadband

• FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is likely to be appointed as the next chairman of the Commission. He has been vocal on issues like spectrum auction authority, net neutrality, universal service reform, satellite broadband and even Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
• Prospects for reviving the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) remain unclear. While Vice President-elect JD Vance notably backed the ACP Extension Act during his time in the Senate, he will unlikely do so as Vice President.
• The FCC is anticipated to reverse the order to reinstate net neutrality fairly quickly
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the ranking member and likely chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has already advocated for a major shake-up of the troubled Universal Service Fund, calling to fund it through congressional appropriations rather than fees on telecom providers that are passed on to consumers.   

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• President-elect Trump has already promised to repeal the Biden administration's Executive Order on AI, followed by policies that limit regulation to compete with China on AI development and innovation 
• The first Trump administration issued its own Executive Order, “Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” that sought to reduce barriers to accessing AI technologies, especially the federal government, and those policies are expected to continue
• Following Trump Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance in 2020 coupled with recent Supreme Court decisions, the incoming administration is likely to place constraints on government agency efforts to regulate AI
• Congress is expected to remain gridlocked on any significant AI legislation, but it may be folded into free speech and content moderation efforts (Trump owns social media company Truth Social) around censorship suspicions‍

Cybersecurity

• Protecting America’s intellectual property and government information against  adversarial governments will remain a priority for the Trump administration
• In response to China’s suspected espionage campaign targeting President-elect Trump, Vice President-elect Vance and other Trump-Vance campaign officials, as well as Chinese-affiliated hacks of U.S. telecommunications networks, the next administration will make key cybersecurity roles a priority

Content Moderation 

• President-elect Trump and his supporters in Congress have advocated for removing Section 230 content moderation protections – going as far as threatening to veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) during his first term if the legislation didn’t repeal Section 230
• In a recent video statement, President-elect Trump called for Congress to send him a bill repealing Section 230 once he is inaugurated 
• As the likely next FCC Chairman, Commissioner Carr could issue an order for the Commission to reinterpret Section 230 to limit social media platforms’ immunity, as he described in Project 2025
• Trump has signaled that he will try to halt the potential U.S. ban of TikTok, which faces a deadline to find a non-China-based owner early next year

Crypto

• Crypto companies heavily invested at least $130 million in the 2024 election in support of President-elect Trump, and he is expected to eliminate regulations on the digital currency and fire SEC Chairman Gary – making the U.S. the global center of cryptocurrencies

Competition and Antitrust

• The incoming Trump administration will hit the brakes overall on antitrust – but for tech, it could be a mixed bag, even without FTC Chair Lina Khan and Assistant AG Jonathan Kanter
• Vice President-elect Vance and many Silicon Valley supporters of the Trump-Vance campaign have expressed the need for more stringent regulations on the size of American Big Tech companies, and Vice President-elect Vance has praised Chairwoman Khan for doing “a pretty good job”
• In his first term, President-elect Trump’s antitrust enforcers filed one of the cases against Google and Meta and began the investigation resulting in the case against Apple, so it is a complicated environment for the incoming administration should it appear to contradict actions taken in Trump’s first term
• The change of control in the Senate provides President-elect Trump with a smooth runway to get his nominees quickly approved to federal government roles focused on competition and antitrust