Musk’s AI Nightmares Could Blunt Trump’s Tech Ambitions
The tech mogul’s zealous beliefs on AI doom could limit fast-and-loose policies for the industry.
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., and US President-elect Donald Trump.
Photographer: Justin Merriman/BloombergPresident-elect Donald Trump didn’t talk a great deal about artificial intelligence while on the campaign trail, which is odd. Voters liked the potential improvements he could bring to the economy and inflation, yet AI could displace many jobs and a third of Americans believe it will do more harm than good, according to Gallup. If Trump’s silence means he doesn’t care much about AI, that leaves the door open for policy to be steered by other key players in his administration, particularly Elon Musk.
AI has long been a major focus for Musk. He was an early investor in Google’s DeepMind, co-founded OpenAI and now runs xAI, which has raised more than $6 billion to build powerful AI models.