Trump’s staffing picks and a new tech consensus

With two key staffing picks—Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson as the new chair of that agency, and U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commissioner (and Palantir senior adviser) Jacob Helberg as undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment—President-elect Donald Trump is giving some early hints as to how his second administration will try to forge a new Republican consensus on tech. The two men will be responsible, in part, for enacting a sea change from the Biden administration in how government relates to tech — and turning the diverse, heterodoxical beliefs and ambitions of the new tech right into something resembling a coherent national policy. Ferguson and Helberg will have different policy ambits, but face similar challenges in establishing what Trump described in his announcements for each as his “America First” policy agenda. For Ferguson that means rolling back current FTC Chair Lina Khan’s antitrust agenda, widely loathed by the venture capitalists who powered Trump’s victory, while maintaining the Republican Party’s burgeoning anti-Big Tech populism. For Helberg, that means changing the global conversation on issues like energy and artificial intelligence, while maintaining a hawkish stance on China — something that might prove tricky given Helberg’s role in gathering support for the de facto TikTok ban, about which Trump has expressed ambivalence.