The “Muskification” of US tech one year into Trump’s second term

On 12 January 2026,Donald Trump took to his online platform Truth Social to warmly congratulate Mark Zuckerberg, head of the social media conglomerate Meta. The U.S. president praised the decision to appoint Dina Powell McCormick, a former Trump adviser during his first term in office, to a senior role at Meta. This strategic hire, preceded a few days earlier by Meta's recruitmentof a former right-hand man to Elon Musk when the tech mogul headed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) ,is one of many indicators of the growing ties between major digital companies and the White House.

The first year of Trump's second term was rife with episodes that indicate the start of a marriage of convenience between the presidency and companies like Meta. His inauguration was peppered with massive donations by tech companies. In September, a strategic White House dinner with the country's leading artificial intelligence (AI) firms was hailed by the Trump administration as a uniting moment to ensure "American AI dominance." The administration also virulently defendedElon Musk's social media platform X in the face of fines imposed by the European Commission. The budding alliance was then cemented by open hostilities against Brusselsand a radical reading of the First Amendment. It is impossible not to see the legacy of Elon Musk - the tech mogul who transformed Twitter, now called X, into a bastion of hatred towards journalistsand a breeding ground for disinformation - in the mindset that unite these two groups.

Elon Musk's strategy for his social network was based on opposing European regulation and defending his definitions of free speech and innovation. This doctrine has now also been adopted by the U.S. administration, which has not hesitated to sanction European Union (EU) policymakers - such as Thierry Breton, former European Commissioner for Internal Market - for their work on EU digital regulation, namely the Digital Services Act (DSA). This policy may advance the financial agendas of tech giants, but they gravely threaten the trustworthiness of online content.

The false "First Amendment" argument against foreign regulation

On 26 February 2025,online platforms were doubly pressured as Donald Trump threatened Europe with a trade war. The first push came from Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Carr, one of the leading anti-press voicesin the United States, sent a letterto the US' ten largest digital companies - including X and Meta - praising their efforts to counter laws such as the EU's DSA that, in Carr's view, "silence" American citizens and violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution. But the letter went further. In order to be able to supports these companies in their "efforts" to "restore and preserve freedom of expression," Carr asked how they planned to reconcile DSA requirements with the "American tradition of free speech," clearly setting the two in opposition and far exceeding the remit of the institution he leads. At the same time, Brendan Carr has not made any known statement in response to the rise of disinformation on X, a social media platform dear to the conservative camp that Elon Musk constantly uses to attack journalists and media outlets.

On the same day, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, led by Republican lawmaker Jim Jordan, issued subpoenas to eight industry giants,including Meta, X and Alphabet (the parent company of Google and YouTube), ordering them to hand over all internal communications related to requests from foreign governments and all communications issued by those governments. Under the guise of hunting down alleged "foreign censorship," Washington is explicitly targeting democratic legislation - especially from the European Union and the United Kingdom - and portraying these laws as illegitimate tools wielded by "unelected regulators."

Pressure that pays off

Alphabet's response was displayed like a trophy on the committee's website. In a letter dated 23 September 2025, the group notably reiterated that YouTube does not work - and has no intention of working - with fact-checkers, as it had done in Europe earlier that year. This re-opened the door for content creators previously banned for spreading disinformation on sensitive topics such as elections or COVID-19. Alphabet's statement then shifted to the geopolitical arena, describing the DSA as a "risk" to innovation and freedom of expression worldwide.

Fact-checking vs. community notes and free speech

The behemoths of the online information space have showed their willingness to bend to the will of the Trump administration through more than just letters. In April 2025, Meta ended its partnerships with ten fact-checking organisations in the United States, just as Mark Zuckerberg had promised on 7 January in a video tinged with overtones of submission to Donald Trump. These partnerships, a tool for combatting disinformation, was replaced by "community notes," a moderation system based on contributions from Facebook users, directly copied from the one deployed on… X. The two moderation systems even share part of their underlying code, which is publicly accessible. While this system is currently confined to the U.S. versions of these platforms , it could be rolled out in other countries, according to an official communication from Meta's Oversight Board in November 2025, the entity responsible for reviewing moderation decisions on Meta's platforms.

Even TikTok, a Chinese social media platform often targeted by U.S. authorities, started experimenting in July with "footnotes," a feature similar to community notes - but only in the United States. A political signal that did not prevent the Chinese platform from being carved up a few weeks later andceding part of its operations to a US-based structure led by close allies of President Trump.

Other online platforms have also changed their policies. According to revelations by The New York Timesin June 2025, YouTube reportedly instructed its moderators to prioritise "freedom of expression," even if that meant tolerating more problematic content.. Another example cloaked in the long shadow of Elon Musk, who ensured Trump's dangerous definition of free speechbecame a rallying cry for his supporters when he acquired Twitter.