How AI fractured the bipartisan anti-Big Tech alliance

The MAGA populists who made breaking up Big Tech their rallying cry are losing momentum under President Trump's full-throated embrace of AI and cozy relations with the tech industry. The Trump administration would rather scrap regulations than create new ones in the age of AI, blunting whatever bipartisan unity remained around curbing tech's power. "The uncharitable read is these executives have just cozied up to the White House and are pulling the strings, and that's why there's been this shift," said Brad Littlejohn, director of programs at conservative populist think tank American Compass. He said he's had conversations with people in the White House who agree with American Compass' concern that tech and AI companies push dangerous, addictive products on children and exercise too much market power, but the people who have the president's ear on AI think differently. "The charitable read is to say that AI is so fundamentally new and transformative and disruptive that we actually have to push the pause button on how we're thinking about tech regulation," he said.