Linus Larsson: Trump's red carpet for the AI giants is no longer obvious

A few years ago, it looked like an unlikely marriage: Donald Trump's right-wing populist movement and the tech companies deeply rooted in liberal California. But as it began to look increasingly likely that he would win in 2024, CEOs started kissing his ring.

It paid dividends.

Since taking office, Donald Trump has made the AI ​​boom his issue. The US will win over China. Nothing can stop it. No regulation of data center construction, no caution in the face of dangers that the technology brings. That has caused the AI ​​companies to rush to the stock market and the new companies, such as Anthropic and Open AI, are aiming for giant IPOs.

But after the Democrats officially crushed the Republicans in the election, there may be different tones. That's at least part of the explanation for this week's stock market rout, although tech stocks rallied somewhat on Friday.

Take Texas for example, the state with more planned data centers than any other. Republican Governor Greg Abbott had indeed taken an initiative to slow down construction, but as the Wall Street Journal writes, the market interpreted it mostly as a game for the gallery. Now he lost to Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who has promised to extend the stoppage until AI regulation is in place. Democrats who have made their opposition to data center construction a campaign issue also won in Nevada, Ohio and Georgia.

Around the country, people have also been allowed to vote on local restrictions on data center construction. In at least 444 ballots, voters want to limit data center construction. Only one has given the go-ahead, according to a compilation from a consulting company. The opposition is great not only among left-wing voters - even a majority of Republicans say no to new data centers in their neighborhoods, according to the Washington Post.

As recently as September, Trump invited the tech giants' executives to a two-hour lunch at the White House. There, the president can be seen sitting with Nvidia's CEO on one side and Elon Musk on the other. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg was there, as were Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya Nadella. There they got plenty of time to tell the president why they should be allowed to build data centers and develop increasingly powerful AI without burdensome regulation.