I admit I’m disappointed that Saturday Night Live’s season is over and we won’t get a cold open on Elon Musk’s public breakup with President Donald Trump, but I am resisting the urge to be amused. I think the somber truth is that the US tech industry, which got played by the bromance, will be hurt by all of this for decades.
But the biggest loser will be the average American. Technology has been the key to US prosperity since World War II, and Musk’s bitter split with the White House is symbolic of the dagger being driven through the industry’s future.
The cuts to basic research will reverberate for decades. Preventing current and future foreign scientists and technologists from coming here or studying here is a self-inflicted wound that may never heal.
The DOGE argument for slashing research dollars, as it was described to me by sources, was that the money was going to the wrong places, and universities were capturing too much of it before it ever made its way to the lab. It needed to be wiped out and then redistributed.
The system was long overdue for serious reform. But if DOGE had a plan as it took a sledgehammer to an essential element of American innovation, we’ll likely never see it now. And even so, the damage has been done.
The effects are so widespread that you can’t avoid bumping into them.
This week, I met a startup founder trying to cure diseases who has to contend with tariffs on basic lab equipment. I met a college professor whose Chinese research assistants have gone from being would-be patriotic Americans to potentially being sent home to help America’s biggest rival. And I spoke to a venture capitalist who can already see the pipeline of investable academic projects threatened by cuts in research.
Long before some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names leapt onto the Trump train, the seeds of that revolt had been planted. The Biden administration made clear that the Democratic Party was no longer an ally of the tech industry.
The Trump administration seems willing to meet the right people in tech and say the right things, but its policies are antithetical to a thriving ecosystem of innovation.
The tech industry should now ask: Which political party is willing to do what it takes to maximize American innovation? Which party is willing to set aside petty differences and ego, and work in the interests of American prosperity?
And then it should wait to see who can prove it.