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With executive actions repealing federal guardrails on artificial intelligence, President Donald Trump’s first few weeks in office have marked a major shift from the Biden administration’s attitude toward the tech industry.
In his first week in office, Trump rolled back Biden’s 2023 Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence, which aimed to promote competition within the AI industry while creating guidelines for responsible government use of the technology. He also signed an executive order to prohibit the federal government from interfering with social media platforms’ content moderation decisions and rolled back new and pending federal rules affecting tech policy.
Some of Trump’s appointments, like venture capitalist David Sacks as the country’s first “crypto czar,” and Tesla CEO Elon Musk heading an effort to decrease government spending, also point to his desire to put tech front and center.
“The Biden folks went for sort of responsible AI guardrails and incremental progress, and the Trump team are in a place of all accelerator, no brakes,” said Jeff Le, managing partner at tech policy consultancy 100 Mile Strategies, of the change.
While many tech industry leaders are celebrating these moves, and looking forward to more spending in the sector, that doesn’t automatically mean it will be a good year for tech jobs, Le said.
In the first month of the year, the U.S. labor market saw nearly 52,000 new tech jobs added, totalling 476,000 unfilled tech jobs, the most recent CompTIA report showed. Even with so many open roles, hiring managers say they still struggle to find people with the right skills for these positions, and the tech unemployment rate jumped from 2% to 2.9% this month.
Industry layoffs have continued in the new year, including at Microsoft and Salesforce, the latter of which said it is doing so to invest in salespeople for new AI products. Layoffs are a part of tech industry life, Le said, but the hiring and firing we see in the first few months of 2025 will likely tell us a lot about how companies aim to find their footing under the Trump administration.
Some layoffs have had immediate ties to Trump’s tech stances, like Meta eliminating its fact-checking team a week before his inauguration.
“One area certainly is that you’re going to continue to see the degradation of investment from companies on trust and safety and on content moderation, and that that’s not new,” Le said, adding that Musk began shedding those standards and team members when he took over X in 2022.
Le said that while some tech jobs may grow, he agreed that others will likely become obsolete.
Hiring of top data scientists will likely be a priority as companies develop their AI products, as will skilled engineers. Marketing and communications functions at these tech companies, and those in their legal departments could be on the chopping block, Le predicted.
Kathryn Wifvat, founder of edtech startup Nuubi, and a collegiate data science instructor, said Trump’s tech policies could position the U.S. as a leader in the AI space. She’s also optimistic that they will lead to more jobs, but said she recognizes that Americans will likely need more education about technology, similar to media literacy, without regulation.
“I see a lot of misunderstandings that can lead to harm, whether that’s just people being susceptible to scams that have been created using AI, or even people not understanding how a model works,” she said.
Wifvat said her students, who are often pursuing graduate data science degrees, feel optimistic about their job prospects in the current market. But she tries to underscore that their soft skills, like teamwork and communication, as well as the ability to keep learning, will be essential in this job market.
“The type of AI that we’re seeing now, you know, you can go to school and get certified and get good jobs with it right now,” Wifvat said. “But in 10 years, what kind of AI is going to come out?”
Le said even as the market and in-demand skill sets change to prioritize AI, the need for skilled human workers remains. Some of Trump’s immigration policies may not set the industry up for success. Foreign workers currently fill many positions via H-1B visas in the U.S.’ STEM economy.
“You still need world-class human capital that is coming from these university institutions, and the pipeline that comes through the sort-of Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem,” Le said. “That’s still essential.”
Regardless of who won the presidency, the tech industry would still likely be at this inflection point, during which it is shedding thousands of jobs as some skill sets become obsolete, and creating new ones as new technologies develop. Le said he isn’t sure if the jobs lost in the next year or so will equal the new ones added.
It will likely take months, or even years, before it’s clear how Trump’s initial executive actions on the tech industry will play out, Le said. But the breakneck speed in which we’ve seen changes in the first few weeks is likely to make a long lasting impact.
“I think, you know, we’re, you’re operating in a place where suddenly your airplanes are now rocket ships,” Le said. “And I think that has impacted who gets to be on board.”
Last updated 4:23 p.m., Feb. 21, 2025