Trump's election throws tech regulation a curveball

A tech regulation shakeup is on the way with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in January. Trump has made it clear that he plans to dismantle Biden’s AI policies on "day one," aligning himself with those who’ve pushed back against regulation. Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Devin Coldewey and Margaux MacColl  dove into what Trump’s win could mean for AI policy and innovation moving forward.

While AI is always on the mind these days, there was so much more startup and venture news for the Equity crew to get into this week. Listen to the full episode to hear about:

• OpenAI’s acquisition of Chat.com, the domain previously acquired by HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah for a whopping $15.5 million. We’re not sure if this signals a brand change for the AI startup, but users’ trips to ChatGPT just got three letters shorter.
• DeepRoute’s $100 million raise and the startup’s race to get its automated systems out before Tesla FSD is available in China.
• Biotech startup Archon’s $20 million effort to power up drug development with its ‘antibody cages’. Of course, we couldn’t talk about the news without a biochemistry lesson from Devin where we learned a new scientific term: thingies.
• Google’s new AI-focused data center and collaboration with the Saudi Public Investment fund. The move had the team thinking more about tech’s climate commitments at large, and who is walking back their pledges in favor of AI.
• The election bidding boom - from Polymarket to Kalshi and a potential $450 million payout.

Equity will be back next week with a special interview between TechCrunch senior editor Julie Bort and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, so stay tuned.

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. 

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.