McCarthy on Tuesday. Photo: Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Kevin McCarthy has had a love-hate relationship with tech for most of his tenure in Congress.
Zoom in: He's been very close with tech lobbyists like Jeff Miller, a longtime confidante whose major clients have included Apple and Amazon. He often took meetings with CEOs, including Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk, treading carefully on his messaging on tech throughout the years.
- Yet he leaned into the allegations that Big Tech platforms censor conservative speech, and when he took the gavel in January, he prioritized demanding White House emails with companies.
- Earlier in his political career, he helped push along policies tech companies sought and was viewed as friendly to the industry.
- Notably, McCarthy was not directly supportive of efforts by the House Judiciary Committee to reel in Big Tech with new antitrust laws, favoring an approach that focused more on alleged censorship and bias.
On privacy, industry watchers have said McCarthy was seen as less of a roadblock to comprehensive privacy legislation than his predecessor Nancy Pelosi, who preferred not to preempt California's law.
- McCarthy hasn't taken a position on the American Data Privacy and Protection Act — which has yet to be reintroduced this year — but supports preemption of state laws in favor of a federal one.
- He has also fielded concerns about restrictions on businesses' access to data and private right of action in the bill.
- McCarthy's replacement is likely to be amenable to business-friendly changes to the ADPPA, though it might mean losing some Democrats along the way.
On artificial intelligence, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he and McCarthy spoke about regulation and that he had been open and supportive of the Senate's focus on it.
- McCarthy, in a press conference just after his ouster, referenced the work he'd done with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to educate members on AI this year.
