Approximately 10 months and several hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions after it started, the alliance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk is officially over.
As the two most powerful men on Earth ripped off their shirts and savagely tore into each other Thursday, the citizens of the world looked on, transfixed by the spectacle. But even as the two antagonists flung fireballs at each other on their respective social networks, and as oddsmakers gamed out the potential outcomes, an important question was overlooked: Who will replace Musk as President Trump’s new tech BFF?
The question might seem premature, perhaps even tangential, with all the drama still unfolding. But given the president’s approach to industrial and trade policy, and the stakes that hinge on being in his good graces, or in his dog house, it seems logical that another savvy tech industry billionaire will seek to fill the seat that Musk just vacated.
Here’s a quick overview of the top contenders and their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Sam Altman
The 40-year old cofounder and CEO of OpenAI has a lot to gain by claiming the “First Buddy” title. His company’s large language models are pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence, challenging longstanding assumptions and policies around security, ethics, privacy, and labor—all areas where government regulation could come into play. Altman is also seeking to build a massive network of AI data centers, and he stood alongside Trump earlier this year to announce the so-called Stargate project. In fact, according to some media reports, Trump’s support of the Stargate project irked Musk, who has a rival AI service.
Mark Zuckerberg
It wasn’t long ago that Trump mused in an interview about jailingMeta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Zuck, whose various social networking apps banned Trump after the January 6, 2020 storming of the Capitol, got the message and has been diligently at work since then attempting to befriend Trump. Meta donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration in January and Zuckerberg was front-and-center during the inauguration festivities. On a Meta earnings call in January, Zuck even praised Trump for leading an administration that “prioritizes American technology winning and that will defend our values and interests abroad.” While Trump hasn’t repeated his threats of jailing the Meta CEO, the social networking company is currently awaiting a verdict in the government’s antitrust lawsuit seeking to break the company up.
Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, is keen to mend fences with Trump, who he once offered to blast into space on one of his rockets. There’s no love lost between the two. In his first term, Trump regularly railed about the Bezos-owned Washington Post. This term Bezos wants a reset, having visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and contributing to the inauguration. At stake for Bezos is Amazon’s sprawling business, which encompasses everything from retail to cloud computing and grocery stores. Another potential motivation for Bezos to take Musk’s place: the space race. Bezos’ Blue Origin competes directly with Musk’s SpaceX, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet satellite effort is a rival to Musk’s Starlink.
Tim Cook
Once known as the Trump Whisperer for his skill at shielding Apple from Trump’s trade policies, Tim Cook’s star has not seemed to shine as brightly in the White House during Trump’s second term. The president’s tariffs have not exempted Apple as they did in the first term, and in May Trump even took a direct shot at Apple, threatening to impose 25% tariffs on its products if the company did not move its iPhone manufacturing out of China and India, and into the U.S. “I had a little problem with Tim Cook,” Trump said in May, referring to overseas iPhone manufacturing. If Cook (or “Tim Apple” as Trump once referred to him) can successfully step into the breach left by Musk, it would be a master move.
