Miguel Afonso Caetano<p>"Civil society is deeply concerned over the crony capitalist, tributary-focused nature of this administration, especially as it relates to companies that control our access to the free flow of information. We have documented clear private sector winners, like Elon Musk’s Starlink and SpaceX, and how X and Musk amplify the administration’s messages. For instance, amid Trump’s attempt to negotiate a cease-fire between Ukraine and Russia—where Ukraine has been vilified—Musk amplified false claims that widespread outages at X were the result of Ukrainian attacks. Soon thereafter, President Trump returned the favor, claiming that consumer boycotts of Tesla are “illegal” and encouraged Americans to support the company.</p><p>The quid-pro-quo dynamic is not unique to Musk. During the previous Trump administration, Amazon lost high-profile contracts, for which it directly blamed the president. This time around, the company has reportedly made a series of overtures, including signing a $40 million deal to support a documentary from the first lady. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ decision to intervene in the Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris was also widely scrutinized, as it came on the heels of visits with then-candidate Trump. Most recently, President Trump reportedly pushed Bezos away from a stance that would display the extent to which tariffs changed the price of products on Amazon. As companies ingratiate themselves with this administration, we fear that policy stances are shifting to the detriment of privacy, security, and political freedom."</p><p><a href="https://www.newamerica.org/oti/blog/trumps-tech-governance-trumps-tech-governance-making-sense-of-the-first-100-days/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">newamerica.org/oti/blog/trumps</span><span class="invisible">-tech-governance-trumps-tech-governance-making-sense-of-the-first-100-days/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/USA" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>USA</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Trump" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Trump</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/TechPolicy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>TechPolicy</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/TechGovernance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>TechGovernance</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/DigitalGovernance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>DigitalGovernance</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/BigTech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>BigTech</span></a></p>