Indeed, Musk has seemingly hunted down anything that represents a no to the tech industry. DOGE has gone from agency to agency, trying to cut, fire, or dismantle anything that seems frivolous, anti-tech, or a remnant of the regulatory state. In remarks last week to the World Governments Summit in Dubai, Musk sounded like a demolition worker with one job on his mind: destroy everything in his path. “I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave a lot of them behind,” he said. “If we don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back.”
One longtime Silicon Valley insider who’s worked in the tech industry for three decades expressed cautious optimism that Musk’s chaotic action will eventually yield a plan for boosting the tech sector. “The only growth industry we have in this country outside of Hollywood is technology. It is the vector of all future competitiveness and edge for this country. It’s also what we need for everything from our military to our health and food,” they said. “To have an antagonistic approach to technology is not conducive to the long-term health of this country. And sadly that was the approach the previous administration was using, instead of having a longer-term, pragmatic view. I want to know what the plan is. What’s the long-term plan? The left didn’t have it, the right doesn’t have it. Chaos is not the answer.”
In typical Silicon Valley fashion, the plan will be figured out later. But for now, it seems, it’s just a cheerleading rally as the tech elite watches Musk and Trump remove every obstacle in their way. The emphasis appears to be on speed and disruption rather than careful consideration of consequences, mirroring the industry’s notorious “move fast and break things” philosophy. This approach to governance is similar to how many tech companies operate: Act first, solve problems later, and worry about the fallout only when it becomes unavoidable.
But as the longtime Silicon Valley insider noted, while the American tech industry celebrates its newfound freedom from regulation, we may be missing the bigger picture. Instead of arguing about tech, they said, we should be focused on China, our biggest competitor. “The Chinese have a singular AI policy, which is to make AI great, and what’s our policy? It’s ‘How big is my valuation?’” the insider said.
A myopic focus on short-term gains and internal power struggles might distract from the real challenges ahead, the insider added, as China executes a coordinated national strategy on artificial intelligence. All the while American tech leaders revel in their deregulatory victories. The contrast between China’s focused approach and Silicon Valley’s celebration of chaos could have long-term implications for America’s technological competitiveness. Such concerns are particularly acute in the space and defense sectors, where the intersection of national security and innovation has become increasingly critical.
Ashlee Vance—editor in chief of Core Memory, a popular tech site and newsletter—who has long written about Silicon Valley and has authored two best-selling books, one on Musk and the other on the new space race, told me he’s been surprised by how industry insiders have reacted to Trump 2.0. He told me a lot of people in Silicon Valley view the government as having long overstepped, and the recent cuts by the Trump administration are a necessary correction to what they view as years of grift and misallocated spending.
People in the defense and space industries have a prevailing sentiment that the government has mishandled those sectors for years, and the Trump-Musk bulldozing alliance presents an opportunity for a reset. But not everyone is elated, Vance said: “One guy I spoke to told me, ‘I’m not a resistance guy at all, and I like some of the stuff Trump is trying to do, but this also scares the hell out of me.’”
After all, while 45 and 47 may act differently when it comes to tech, he’s still the same person, and we all know how quickly that can spin out of control.