Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™.
President-elect Donald Trump is starting to fill out the list of people who will be closest to him during his second term in office. It was announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head an organization called the Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to ensure that tax dollars are being allocated properly and to reduce bureaucracy. DOGE, as it is being called around the internet, will not be a formal body within the government but will instead operate outside of it in an advisory capacity. As Trump and Musk continue to build a closer relationship with one another, we may see Musk’s views pushed through the Trump administration’s actions, and perhaps DOGE is the first iteration of that.
While many know who Musk is, Ramaswamy is a lesser-known public figure. Ramaswamy is the founder of Roivant Sciences, a life science and drug development company, and he also ran for the Republican nomination in the 2024 president campaign. Outside of DOGE, Trump has started to nominate members who could potentially join his cabinet during his administration. These picks will hold a lot of power given the hold that Republicans have over the Senate and House of Representatives. The secretary of health and human services, secretary of defense, and the secretary of energy are the picks I believe will have an outsized impact on the future of tech. It benefits those in tech, and those who want to be in it, to know a bit more about them and what they stand for.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) has been nominated to serve as the next secretary of health and human services. Historically, health care has been an area that investors have always seen an opportunity in because it’s such a large part of our lives as well as 17.3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). During the COVID-19 pandemic, funding for health tech companies peaked at $29.2 billion in 2021 due to the easing of regulatory restrictions about how care could be accessed, which caused an explosion in the world of health tech companies. Specifically these were telehealth companies like BetterHelp. RFK is seen as a leader in the growing medical freedom movement, which advocates for alternative methods to becoming healthy, such as alternative medicine and natural foods. If he did end up putting half of the budget towards preventive, alternative, and holistic approaches to health as he has said, that could open an opportunity for alternative ways to deal with mental health such as psychedelics. Psychedelics have been touted as an alternative to the traditional medicines that one may receive from a psychiatrist. Their legalization has already occurred in Oregon and Colorado, and in the cities of Santa Cruz and Oakland in Northern California. RFK’s alternative medicine views could be a positive sign for those looking for alternative ways to improve their mental health.
Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth, a contributor on Fox and former member of the Army National Guard, to be the secretary of defense. Defense tech is an area that has started to heat up recently from an investment perspective in the world of tech. In 2019, defense tech startups raised $300 million and in 2024 they raised $3 billion, according to Crunchbase. That is a 10-times increase in five years. Hegseth has expressed that he would like to see a faster contracting process when it comes to turning commercial inventions into weapons in the field. If this was made a priority, I could see more defense tech startups getting a shot at showing their offerings to the U.S. department of defense. This would be a welcome change from what the department currently has called “The Valley of Death,” where innovation gets stuck in the contracting process and never sees a formalized program. Previously that valley was a big reason investors and operators stayed away from defense tech. If that changes, we will see startups flood into the ecosystem.
Chris Wright, the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, an oil and gas company based in Denver, CO, has been nominated by Trump to hold the office of secretary of energy. After the Biden administration became a champion of clean energy and our transition away from fossil fuels, those within the climate movement are worried about having a pro-fracking oil and gas CEO as the next leader of the department of energy. Wright has not publicly stated if he is for or against the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a whole but has stated that he is not a fan of the subsidies for clean energy. Due to Trump already floating around the potential of defunding the IRA and his energy advisor not being a fan of the subsidies, this pair should raise the eyebrows of those who have been spending years within the world of climate tech. However, those in the world of artificial intelligence will be happy to see that he is pro-nuclear energy, which people have been looking to as a source of energy to power the AI revolution.
Often people tend to care about only who is sitting at the head of the table and not who is being invited to take a seat. As we look to navigate the next four years, everyone should take stock not only of Trump himself but of who Trump surrounds himself with.
