IBM CEO on Trump: ‘Less regulation, more innovation’ is a win for business
Tech executives may be warming to Donald Trump’s return to the White House as his quick win sparks optimism for more spending and dealmaking.
“Business does a lot better when uncertainty goes away,” IBM (IBM) CEO Arvind Krishna told me at Yahoo Finance’s Invest conference. “We are hopeful that there is going to be a lot more innovation and less regulation. Those are both good for businesses across the board.”
Krishna believes a lighter regulatory environment will prompt clients to make investment decisions more quickly and also lay the groundwork for a more favorable deal environment.
“If we have more certainty on the outcome, then we are willing to lean into things like M&A … If the regulatory process and antitrust are going to be more certain, that allows you to take more risk,” Krishna added.
A shift toward less regulation would be a dramatic change for the industry, which has faced intense scrutiny from the Biden administration. Under FTC Chair Lina Khan’s leadership, regulators aggressively pursued cases against the industry’s biggest companies, including Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL).
Trump, on the other hand, has promised to cut excess red tape, including his promise to throw out Biden’s executive order aimed at putting safety guardrails on AI — a move that would be viewed as controversial by those within the industry.