Behind the Curtain: Washington's open for business
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Buckle up: President-elect Trump plans fast action on a business-friendly agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and expanded energy production, his advisers tell us.
Why it matters: Trump plans to load his White House and Cabinet with business- and tech-friendly executives, and stretch the powers of the presidency to force quick changes.
Behind the scenes: Trump advisers believe in retrospect that they wasted early opportunities in his first term, because they were unfamiliar with maximizing government power and restrained by a divided staff. There are several reasons to expect a very different outcome this time.
- Trump will take office with Republican control of the Senate + Republicans are on track to hold the House. Every Republican leader and committee chair, and most rank-and-file GOP members, will be Trump loyalists.
- Trump will fill his top ranks with billionaires, former CEOs, tech leaders and loyalists.
- The courts have his — and corporate America's — back.
- Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Joe Lonsdale and other tech leaders are helping pick staff and drive policies to quickly expand AI, crypto and other business frontiers.
Reality check: Trump is notorious for picking winners and losers based on their public support of him. Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have been critical of Big Tech.
- Trump and Vance share a streak of populist skepticism about big companies, and mergers and acquisitions.
Power players: Trump's transition also is business-friendly. The co-chairs are Howard Lutnick, chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and Linda McMahon, who headed the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term.
- Trump's inner circle includes Ike Perlmutter, a billionaire and Mar-a-Lago member who's former chair of Marvel Entertainment and the biggest donor to the Right for America PAC, a huge backer of Trump's campaign.
- Other close advisers include hedge-fund moguls John Paulson and Scott Bessent, and Steve Witkoff, a real-estate investor who golfs with Trump.
Trend to watch: Several CEOs and their D.C. representatives are trying to quickly highlight their support for Trump, or at least his policies.
- You saw Jeff Bezos scramble just before the election to spike a pro-Harris endorsement in his paper, The Washington Post — then quickly take to X to applaud Trump's win after the election.
- Bezos, who owns Blue Origin, a competitor to Musk's SpaceX, knows his company's fate could hang on improving relations with Trump.
Big winners to watch: Oil and gas, crypto, tech firms, Musk's companies and banks are all poised to benefit from Trump's agenda.
Policy fights to come include tariffs, taxes, crypto and banking, and oil and gas leasing.
- Republicans' likely unified control of the White House and Congress means tax cuts from Trump's first term will most likely be extended.
- "In a GOP sweep," TD Cowen analyst Chris Krueger writes, "the risk of a debt ceiling showdown this summer is ... likely de-risked as the GOP would likely incorporate it into a massive tax package they hope to pass via reconciliation by April 30. First reconciliation bill would have Oct 1, 2025 deadline for passage."
Threat level: Trump has promised higher tariffs and bigger spending, which could make taming inflation and lowering interest rates much harder.
- But the markets exploded after the Republican romp. So investors are anticipating a friendly environment for investment, mergers and start-ups.
- "The expected departure of Lina Khan, who leads the Federal Trade Commission and has been a thorn in the side of executives hoping to work out tech acquisitions, was cheered by investors and bankers," The Wall Street Journal reports.
The bottom line: Governing and law-making is often a slow, difficult slog — even when Republicans control everything.
