The world’s largest tech show offers a glimpse of the Trump-Musk era

Deep underground at the Las Vegas Convention Centre, it’s easy to be impressed with Elon Musk’s vision for the future.

Here, the world’s richest man has constructed a fully operational underground transportation system, dubbed the “Vegas Loop”, that relies on Tesla Model 3 cars to ferry thousands of conference attendees from one end of the complex to the other. It reduces what would be a half-hour walk to just two minutes, and the system transports about 1300 passengers an hour at its peak.

If Musk gets his way, the project will span 68 miles (110 kilometres) of tunnels across 104 stations. And even at this early stage, it’s a visceral, real symbol of how Musk is reshaping the city in his own image.

The world’s largest technology summit, CES, offers a glimpse of what we can expect from 2025.Credit: Bloomberg

Above ground, the world’s largest technology summit, CES, offers a glimpse of what we can expect from 2025. And US President-elect Donald Trump and Musk hang over all of it: literally – Trump Tower, where a Tesla Cybertruck exploded just a week ago, is visible from most points of the Las Vegas strip – and figuratively, dominating hallway and dinner conversations.

They say what happens in Vegas stays here, but this week the opposite is true: What happens here will help define the global technology sector and the broader economy for years to come.

The Las Vegas Convention Centre is a sea of smiley techno-optimism: brand spokespeople showing off their shiny innovations, most involving AI in one way or another. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang wowed attendees with the company’s new AI superchip, and Samsung showed off what it says is the world’s brightest OLED television. Yet amid the buzzwords and new products there’s also a lingering sense of uncertainty about what comes next, when Trump and Musk take over the White House on January 20.

X chief executive Linda Yaccarino at the CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday.Credit: Bloomberg

X chief executive Linda Yaccarino assured CES attendees they should be excited by Musk’s appointment to lead Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, alongside fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

“Elon is a visionary, and there is no better person that can set a vision and a course for others to be inspired and follow,” she said. “As far as DOGE is concerned, I would imagine that surfacing and identifying government waste and inefficiency is beneficial to all of us, and I don’t think there are two better people than Elon and Vivek to do that.”

Americans should “all be rooting” for the overwhelming success of DOGE, she said, and the group will be “one of the single biggest unifiers that will bring this country together”.

While Yaccarino and the technology executives on stage project confidence, the mood on the ground floor is more apprehensive. Trump has promised a swath of policies that will directly affect the sector, including dramatically raising tariffs on goods coming to the United States.

At CES there was a lingering sense of uncertainty about what comes next, when Trump and Musk take over the White House on January 20.Credit: AP Photo

The president-elect has promised surcharges of at least 60 per cent on products coming in from China, and tariffs of 10 to 20 per cent on goods from other countries. That will likely lead to higher prices for consumers: the CTA, which organises CES, has conducted analysis estimating Trump’s tariff proposals would drive up average prices for laptops by $US357 ($581), smartphones by $US213 and televisions by $US48.

There is also likely to be sweeping changes across immigration, cryptocurrency policies, regulation and semiconductor production. Australian entrepreneurs and investors are watching closely.

Max Marchione started his career in finance in Sydney, where he interned at Goldman Sachs and US VC fund GGV Capital. Marchione relocated to San Francisco in 2023 and co-founded Superpower, a consumer health company that provides advanced diagnostics and therapeutics to help people increase their lifespans. The company has employees in California, New York and Sydney.

“The 2024 election saw a coalition of tech elites throw their influence behind Trump,” Marchione says. “The endorsement and support of tech luminaries like Musk, Peter Thiel and Joe Rogan helped Trump to build considerable momentum in the election campaign.”

For Marchione, while many people in the US technology sector might dislike Trump’s personal values and find his past conduct distasteful, they’re also disillusioned by politics and hoping for a change.

“Many entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are excited by the coalition of advisers that Trump has built …Elon Musk, David Sacks and Sriram Krishnan,” he said. “These advisers have built successful businesses, understand tech and are thinking deeply about how AI, robotics and advancements in computing will impact the world.”

Jensen Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia.Credit: Bloomberg

Publicly, the world’s largest technology companies are putting on a brave face at CES despite the tumult.

Samsung, South Korea’s largest company, is grappling not only with political upheaval in the US, but in South Korea too, where the impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol is resisting arrest.

“The world’s certainly evolving, and we obviously have to take into consideration all of those things,” Samsung Australia executive Jeremy Senior tells this masthead of the current political maelstrom.

“But we have a globally very diverse supply chain, which gives us a level of confidence that we’ll be able to ride any challenges.”

Charlie Ill is chief executive of Investible, one of the largest venture capital firms in the Asia Pacific.

“If there are two things a Trump administration stands for, they are American innovation and jobs,” Ill says.

“US industry is fuelled by cheap energy and stifled by red tape. We believe traditional energy sources will continue to power the nation, but doors will be open for alternatives to compete. Trump believes America’s future industry is predicated on accelerating sovereign capability in advanced manufacturing. Energy, climate, space, health and defence tech companies all contribute towards this.

“This is where Australia’s start-ups have been and will continue to benefit most. They, as beneficiaries of a strong Australia-US alliance, will have an invitation to the party but will need a presence on shore.”

Georgina Healy is host of the In the Blink of AI podcast and says Biden’s suite of AI regulations are not long for this world. Last year, Biden signed a measure setting voluntary security and privacy guidelines for AI developers.

“We know Trump is anti-regulation, so I’m expecting deregulation for AI research and deployment, allowing innovations to market more quickly,” she says.

“This could lead to rapid advancements in AI technologies across various sectors, including healthcare, finance and transportation.

“While this is exciting, rapid deployment of AI without thorough testing could lead to malfunctions or unintended consequences … In critical applications like autonomous vehicles or medical diagnostics, this could pose significant safety risks to the public.

“We’ll need to wait and see, and I’ll be paying close attention.”

David Swan travelled to Las Vegas with support from Samsung, LG and Hisense.

Get news and reviews on technology, gadgets and gaming in our Technology newsletter. Sign up to receive it every Friday.