Silicon Valley bracing for Democratic takeover of Congress and likely hearings on Trump and AI

Silicon Valley bracing for Democratic takeover of Congress and likely hearings on Trump and AI Big Tech likely to face much greater oversight and accountability if Democrats regain control of Congress next week, strategists predict - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Already a member? Log in Silicon Valley is bracing itself for a Democrat investigation into Big Tech’s relationship with President Donald Trump, if the party does well in the midterm elections as expected, a report says. Some of the industry’s biggest players have ingratiated themselves with the Republican and his administration – paying court at Mar-a-Lago and making generous donations to his pet building projects. But now they could face consequences for going all-in on Trump and face accusations of allowing artificial intelligence to advance unchecked. California Democratic strategist Cooper Teboe told The Hill that the software giants have “done nothing to prevent themselves from being the villain of the 2028 storyline” and therefore have no one to blame but themselves if the political landscape suddenly shifts next month. “I suspect they have a significant number of investigations coming their way on the official side and on the political side,” he added, predicting that Democrats will start off “p***ed and looking for someone to go after.” While Silicon Valley was once assumed to be left-leaning, a recent Politico poll found that a majority of Americans now assume the tech bosses are conservatives. “How could they not?” Teboe said in response to the survey’s results. “Like, these guys are standing behind the president every chance they get. They’ve made no effort to be a bipartisan force prior to the last month when they realized how f***ed they were.” Tech bosses including Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai all appeared together at Trump’s inauguration in January 2025 and recently reunited with him for a White House summit on AI. “I suspect that as Democrats look to reshape the party, which we sorely need to do, a very significant part of that is going to be around AI,” Teboe said. Trump has been an enthusiastic cheerleader for AI, which he prefers to refer to as “Super Intelligence,” and has rubbished concerns about the technology’s apocalyptic potential – which even industry leaders like Musk, Open AI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei have acknowledged – saying his only fear is China being allowed to gain a competitive edge. Georgia Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff offered a taste of things to come when he told MS NOW anchor Lawrence O’Donnell last month that the challenges posed by the rise of AI required “wise and capable leadership,” not Trump’s brash positivity, and said he hoped to see the Big Tech bosses testifying before Congress “immediately.” His colleagues in the upper chamber – Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Van Hollen, of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maryland respectively – released a report earlier this month into the impact of data centers, required to meet AI’s needs, on consumer costs. New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone Jr, ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has since announced an expanded investigation into AI-powered surveillance pricing. Brandon Rios, co-leader of the congressional investigations team at the law firm DLA Piper, told The Hill there was a growing “bipartisan consensus” about the issues associated with AI and data centers and said he expected to see some “odd bedfellows” as Democrats and Republicans come together to push back on behalf of the people of their states. “It’s never good politics to have high utility prices or a lack of water in an area,” Rios said, alluding to the strain data centers can place on local utilities as a possible unifying theme. One area Democrats are likely to push for is federal AI safety legislation, which, even if they are able to push it through the House and Senate, could face a veto from Trump when it lands on his desk. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments