CES technology summit offers glimpse of Trump-Musk era

Americans should “all be rooting” for the overwhelming success of DOGE, she said, and the group will be “one of the single biggest unifiers that will bring this country together.”

While Yaccarino and the technology executives on stage project confidence, the mood on the ground floor is more apprehensive. Trump has promised a swath of policies that will directly impact the sector, including dramatically raising tariffs on goods coming to the US.

The president-elect has promised surcharges of at least 60 per cent on products coming in from China, and tariffs of between 10 and 20 per cent on goods from other countries. That will likely lead to higher prices for consumers: the CTA, which organises CES, has conducted analysis estimating that Trump’s tariff proposals would drive up average prices for laptops by $US357, smartphones by $US213 and televisions by $US48.

There is also likely to be sweeping changes across immigration, cryptocurrency policies, regulation and semiconductor production. Australian entrepreneurs and investors are watching closely.

Max Marchione started his career in finance in Sydney, where he interned at Goldman Sachs and US VC fund GGV Capital. Marchione relocated to San Francisco in 2023 and co-founded Superpower, a consumer health company that provides advanced diagnostics and therapeutics to help people increase their lifespans. The company has employees in California, New York, and Sydney.

“The 2024 election saw a coalition of tech elites throw their influence behind Trump,” Marchione says. “The endorsement and support of tech luminaries like Musk, Peter Thiel, and Joe Rogan helped Trump to build considerable momentum in the election campaign.”

For Marchione, while many people in the US technology sector might dislike Trump’s personal values and find his past conduct distasteful, they’re also disillusioned by politics and hoping for a change.

“Many entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are excited by the coalition of advisors that Trump has built …Elon Musk, David Sacks, and Sriram Krishnan,” he said. “These advisors have built successful businesses, understand tech, and are thinking deeply about how AI, robotics, and advancements in computing will impact the world.”

Publicly, the world’s largest technology companies are putting on a brave face at CES despite the tumult.

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Samsung, South Korea’s largest company, is grappling not only with political upheaval in the US, but in South Korea as well, where the impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol is resisting arrest.

“The world’s certainly evolving, and we obviously have to take into consideration all of those things,” Samsung Australia executive Jeremy Senior tells this masthead of the current political maelstrom.

“But we have a globally very diverse supply chain, which gives us a level of confidence that we’ll be able to ride any challenges.”

Charlie Ill is the chief executive of Investible, one of the largest venture capital firms in the Asia Pacific region.

“If there are two things a Trump administration stands for, they are American innovation and jobs,” Ill says.

“US industry is fuelled by cheap energy and stifled by red tape. We believe traditional energy sources will continue to power the nation, but doors will be open for alternatives to compete. Trump believes America’s future industry is predicated on accelerating sovereign capability in advanced manufacturing. Energy, climate, space, health and defence tech companies all contribute towards this.

“This is where Australia’s start-ups have been and will continue to benefit most. They, as beneficiaries of a strong Australia-US alliance, will have an invitation to the party, but will need a presence on shore.”

Georgina Healy is the host of the In the Blink of AI Podcast, and says that Biden’s suite of AI regulations are not long for this world. Biden last year signed a measure setting voluntary security and privacy guidelines for AI developers.

“We know Trump is anti-regulation, so I’m expecting deregulation for AI research and deployment, allowing innovations to market more quickly,” she says.

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“This could lead to rapid advancements in AI technologies across various sectors, including healthcare, finance, and transportation.

“While this is exciting, rapid deployment of AI without thorough testing could lead to malfunctions or unintended consequences … In critical applications like autonomous vehicles or medical diagnostics, this could pose significant safety risks to the public.

“We’ll need to wait and see, and I’ll be paying close attention.”

David Swan travelled to Las Vegas with support from Samsung, LG and Hisense.

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