CNN
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If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: President-elect Donald Trump plans to boost the cryptocurrency sector while continuing a sweeping antitrust crackdown on Big Tech giants like Amazon, Meta and Google.
This combination appears to reward Trump’s richest and most influential Silicon Valley donors, some of whom have specifically called for less regulation of crypto and a weakening of the power of large tech monopolies.
In short, it’s the venture capitalist’s technology agenda.
On Wednesday, Trump announced plans to nominate Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission and Gail Slater to head the Justice Department’s antitrust division, two key appointments that will heavily influence his administration’s relationship with the industry technological.
Atkins is a crypto advocate and co-chair of the Token Alliance at the Digital Chamber, a major blockchain trade association. Slater, an economic adviser to Vice President-elect JD Vance, served in the first Trump White House. Earlier in his career, Slater spent more than a decade working on antitrust investigations and technology policy as a staffer at the Federal Trade Commission.
Trump’s choices here may be more obscure than some of his previous, more high-profile choices, such as former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general or former Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. But they could have a huge impact – not only on the price of bitcoin, which surpassed $100,000 on Wednesday in anticipation of a cryptocurrency-friendly administration, but also on the future of the digital economy as a whole .
“It is in fact a kind of industrial policy, with some areas subject to greater scrutiny and others lighter, based on a particular vision of how to direct the market,” he said. said Gene Kimmelman, a former DOJ antitrust official.
In announcing his choices this week, Trump signaled a move away from the strict cryptocurrency regulation favored by President Joe Biden’s SEC chairman, Gary Gensler. And he indicated that big tech platforms will continue to face increased scrutiny from U.S. antitrust regulators, under Slater’s leadership.
“Tech giants have been on a rampage for years,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “stifling competition in our most innovative industry and, as we all know, using their market power to suppress the rights of so many. of Americans, as well as those of others. from Little Tech! I was proud to fight these abuses during my first term, and our Justice Department’s antitrust team will continue this work under Gail’s leadership.
Trump’s deliberate nod to “Little Tech” will likely appeal to influential tech investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who during the campaign elevated the term and donated millions to a pro-Trump super PAC.
Trump’s casual use of the phrase shows the significant, and perhaps growing, influence that some venture capital players now appear to enjoy in Trump’s orbit – reflected also by Vance’s experience as a former venture capitalist and the efforts of Peter Thiel, the right. tech billionaire and co-founder of PayPal, went to promote Vance’s entry into politics.
In July, Andreessen and Horowitz — founders of the popular tech investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z — outlined a “small tech agenda” that attacked regulatory oversight of crypto-related companies, claiming that tech monopolies stifled the startup ecosystem and called for “a whole-of-government agenda” to promote American technological supremacy.
“Little Tech is our term for technology startups, as opposed to legacy Big Tech companies,” they wrote. “We believe bad government policies are now the No. 1 threat to Little Tech. »
Their criticism stemmed from a self-proclaimed manifesto published the previous year, in which Andreessen denounced “regulatory capture” by large monopolies. He also identified a long list of “enemies” of human progress, including corporate social responsibility, risk management, trust and security, technology ethics and sustainability.
Those who subscribe to these “zombie ideas” “suffer from resentment – a mixture of resentment, bitterness and witch’s rage that drives them to adhere to erroneous values,” Andreessen wrote. “We think we need to help them get out of the maze of pain they have imposed on themselves. »
Andreessen’s prescription? Let free markets create more technology, because technology can cure all of society’s ills, as long as the shortsighted get out of its way.
“We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology,” Andreessen wrote.
Now, Trump appears poised to achieve exactly what Andreessen asked for: no regulation for one of the tech industry’s shiniest objects and the threat of new antitrust problems for the most dominant tech platforms.
There is little doubt among antitrust experts that Slater would pick up where Biden’s DOJ left off in tech competition lawsuits. Slater would inherit two ongoing monopoly cases against Google; a monopoly case against Apple; a monopoly case against LiveNation, the parent company of Ticketmaster; and a monopoly case against Visa. It was the first Trump DOJ to sue Google in 2020 over allegations that it monopolized the online search market, a monumental claim that a federal judge agreed with in a blockbuster ruling this summer.
“I expect significant continuity with the program started by (the first Trump administration) and continued by the Biden administration, particularly for large technology companies,” said William Kovacic, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission . Kovacic described Slater as “a superb candidate” who is “a highly respected expert on competition law and policy.”
Kimmelman agreed, saying Slater has “excellent credentials and experience in antitrust enforcement” who “will bring a very serious enforcement mindset.”
The fact that his administration starts talking tough on big tech could pay dividends for Trump later, Kimmelman added, depending on the extent to which Trump tries to use the Justice Department as a weapon against his enemies. , as it has undertaken to do, or as a center for the exchange of information. political favors, breaking with long-standing norms.
“The unpredictable factor in antitrust will be the extent to which the White House directly intervenes in enforcement matters,” Kimmelman said. “We can expect corporate CEOs to curry favor with the White House as best they can, in hopes of getting better regulatory and enforcement treatment. Time will tell how this turns out.
Atkins is widely expected to pursue the types of pro-crypto policies he spent his time promoting as a private citizen. Last year, for example, Atkins argued in a podcast that if the SEC took a more “accommodative” approach to crypto companies and exchanges, it would be easier for Americans to use these platforms , which could reduce the use of foreign companies. exchanges or using complicated and potentially risky workarounds to access them.
Trump himself embraced crypto, even though he called it a “scam.” In addition to courting the crypto industry and crypto-friendly megadonors, Trump now owns his own stake in the digital assets sector. In September, he and his family launched a cryptocurrency business. In 2022, it also raised eyebrows by attempting to sell virtual trading cards, an apparent attempt to cash in on the short-lived popularity of non-fungible tokens.
Atkins is a former SEC commissioner who worked at the agency for six years under President George W. Bush.
His appointment was applauded Wednesday by another a16z partner, Chris Dixon.
“Congratulations to Paul Atkins on his appointment as SEC Chairman. We are very optimistic about the opportunities under Mr. Atkin’s leadership to accelerate progress and enable crypto to thrive in the United States,” Dixon wrote on X, punctuating his post with an American flag emoji.
