Fickle Loyalties of Tech Oligarchs Intensifies the Dire Need for US Data Privacy, Competition, and AI Legislation

Ben Winters is the Director of AI and Data Privacy at the Consumer Federation of America.

The trend of tech oligarchs going to any length to kiss the ring of President Donald Trump in hopes of securing some advantage (fill in the blank: dropping the antitrust lawsuit against you, killing any tech-related legislation at the federal level, paving the roads for new data center installation with federal land and tax breaks) makes it even more urgent to pass privacy, competition, and AI laws in US states and at the federal level.

Simply put, there is nothing stopping companies from changing data practices and content policies, sharing information on perceived enemies, or cooperating more than in the past with government requests and investigations. Without the privacy rules the US so sorely lacks, in particular, there’s little protection against the indiscriminate collection of data by companies and governments alike. Tech companies have shown this willingness to change policies and abandon previously stated morals too many times.

The latest and arguably most dangerous strain of this started with Elon Musk, who bought Twitter, turned it into X, and then started to tweak the algorithms that present content to users to increase the likelihood they see his own content, serve ads primarily related to Republican candidates or issues, and in general, drop the standards for both ads and content so much that more scam and engagement bait is shown to people, despite years of effort to try to improve the online experience. Musk fired most of the site’s trust and safety team, reduced the amount of content moderation staff, and moved the company's headquarters from California to Texas. All of these moves led to a noticeable degradation in the quality of experience on the platform. It led to millions of users fleeing X for Bluesky, another platform that replicates much of what Twitter offered but as yet without the scale.

Last month, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta would make many of the same moves Musk did – dismantle fact-checking operations, move content moderation operations to Texas to reduce perceptions of political bias, and embrace ‘free speech.’ The language he’s using mimics past statements by Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and figures in the Trump administration – and it comes as Zuckerberg is traveling to Mar-A-Lago and the Capitol, meeting with and donating to Trump to make his dedication crystal clear in every way. Despite the obvious echos in behavior, there are significant differences between Meta and X – Meta has a lot more users, has been around a lot longer, owns other major platforms including Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, offers widely used services like Marketplace and a suite of games and virtual reality products, and literally provides critical internet infrastructure in many countries.

Perhaps a less likely convert to Trump’s circle is Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. His incentive is clearly laid out in the company’s “AI in America” document: establish vague “rules of the road” and best practices in place of real privacy or AI laws, create special economic zones to “significantly speed up the permitting processes” for the development of infrastructure outside of existing environmental rules, and divert federal resources to accelerate the building of data centers. Altman isn’t yet “in the tent” like Zuckerberg or sleeping in the Capitol and wrecking federal agencies like Musk, but he’s certain Trump “will be incredible for the country in many ways!” He proudly stood with Trump in the Oval Office on the first full day of his administration to help announce “Project Stargate,” which uses state power to help his company, and conveniently announced ChatGPT for government agencies as well as the development of more national security capabilities after getting closer to decision-makers.

Of course – while illustrating loyalty to a President who craves it is motivating much of this, these moves illustrate the fragile nature of our technology ecosystem without strong regulations in place focusing on competition, privacy and security, and controls on how people can acquire and exploit user data to build and deploy AII tools. Undoubtedly, the relaxed oversight will lead to increased scams on social media platforms, compromising people’s privacy and security. The constant change in policies around data collection and content moderation also confuses people and limits their ability to have any control over their data. These moves are illustrative of an anti-competitive environment – something currently being litigated in federal court with Google, Amazon, Meta, and more. Actions like Meta’s about-face on fact-checking, misinformation, hate, and harassment are examples of the current mindset in Silicon Valley: they can do anything and get away with it.

In the past few years, federal privacy legislation moved closer to advancing than it ever has, and there has been strong proposed legislation to rein in data collection for AI use as well as excellent antitrust litigation. In both states and at the federal level, it’s clearer than ever that the US needs strong baseline rules to fall back on when those who control our data change on a whim or chase power wherever, whenever, and however. Without the most basic constraints, there is little to protect regular people from the whims of the oligarchs and their partners in the White House and on Capitol Hill.