In the next five years we may see some of the things we’ve never seen in tech. We are likely to see the speed of innovation that we’ve never seen before. All of that will have a lot to do with new Elon Musk power. The most important question is, what’s in it for Elon Musk.

He recently supported a controversial bill in California that would have required developers of the most advanced AI models to “mitigate the risk of catastrophic harms.”

Musk posted on X about the bill, which was later vetoed by Governor of California Gavin Newsom, that AI should be regulated “just as we regulate any product/technology that is a potential risk to the public”. Indeed, Musk was one of the people behind the infamous 2023 letter calling for an industry-wide “pause” on giant AI experiments. He also sued OpenAI, which he helped found, for allegedly prioritising commercial ambitions over the public interest.

And yet, none of this has stopped Musk from racing ahead with development of his own AI startup, xAI. Unlike OpenAI, xAI’s chatbot, Grok, is open-sourced, an indication that Musk may encourage the Trump White House to embrace open-source development of AI over the closed approaches favoured by competitors like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.

On electric vehicles (EVs)

Under the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule limiting future vehicle tailpipe emissions to ensure that, by 2032, the majority of vehicles sold are either electric or hybrid.

Trump has vowed to undo this rule—which he erroneously refers to as an “EV mandate”—on Day One. Musk, for one, has seemed not to be bothered by that news. The Tesla CEO has, in the past, argued against government subsidies both for EV purchases and for charging infrastructure and has said that they benefit Tesla’s competitors more than Tesla.

But it is possible that Musk could sway the Trump administration when it comes to restrictions on self-driving vehicles, including an ongoing investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) into Tesla’s “full self-driving” technology.

On a recent earnings call, Musk said one of his top priorities under a possible “department of government efficiency” would be to create a federal approval system for autonomous vehicles.

On boadband

Musk’s satellite internet service, Starlink, has had a complicated history with the federal government. Under the Biden administration, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) denied Starlink nearly $1 billion (R18bn) in subsidies that it had previously been awarded to serve rural homes and businesses. The FCC argued that Starlink could not meet the service speeds required to receive the grants. Musk has said the FCC revoked the awards “illegally.”

At the same time, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is charged with doling out $48bn in broadband infrastructure grants approved under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, has said that Starlink service may be necessary to close connectivity gaps in the hardest to reach places.

With Trump as president, it seems likely that whatever barriers stood in the way of Starlink deployment until now will be lowered substantially.

On online content moderation

Perhaps the issue that connects Trump and Musk more than any other is the topic of online speech. Restoring “free speech” to Twitter was, after all, the main reason Musk gave for acquiring the platform in 2022. Trump, meanwhile, spent his first term as president castigating tech giants for supposed censorship and calling for the breakup of big tech.

At the time, Trump’s proposed solution to the problem was repealing Section 230, the law that protects online platforms from legal liability for the things their users post. Such a change would be a legal disaster for X, as well as Truth Social, the online platform Trump launched in 2021. Not coincidentally, the former president was virtually silent about Section 230 this time around.

These are just some the things to watch from a Trump Presidency with Musk at the tech thinker.

* Wesley Diphoko is a technology analyst and Editor-In-Chief of FastCompany (SA) magazine.

** FastCompany (SA) will be sharing more insights about this new development in tech.

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