There are many ways to describe the Trump administration—boring is not one of them. The new administration hit the ground running, with massive changes announced before the first day in office. The 47th president stepped into the ring of the Supreme Court’s Tik Tok decision, repealed the Biden executive order on artificial intelligence (AI), and supported a major investment in American digital infrastructure.

The day before the inauguration, Supreme Court decisions on social media were on the table. President Trump signed an executive order (EO) to restore TikTok, a popular video sharing app. This EO followed a brief outage on the app after the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to uphold  a 2024 law passed in Congress to ban it in America. TikTok and U.S. users appealed to stop the law from being enforced, arguing that it violated the First Amendment. The Court unanimously upheld the law and TikTok’s parent company Byte Dance was faced with the option to sell TikTok to an American company or be banned from U.S. smartphones.

The new executive order directs the Justice Department to hold back from enforcing the ban for 75 days, while his administration evaluates the “appropriate course forward.” One solution floated by President Trump himself is joint ownership of the app between the United States government and Bytedance—a remedy that some say does little to reconcile fears of government control of free speech. The Court’s decision, they claim, has major implications for the First Amendment rights and livelihoods of Americans, and the postponement of the ban is an opportunity to mitigate the harms of an otherwise hasty ruling.

Not to be outdone by Monday, Tuesday brought a collection of executive orders, many of them rescinding Biden era policy. The notorious Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of  AI, a sprawling document that proposes restrictions on nearly every step of AI development and deployment, was one of the first to go. The repeal marks a shift from the precautionary approach of the Biden Administration, characterized by preemptive regulation and a general skepticism of innovators, towards a light touch regulatory approach and embrace of American innovation.

While much remains to be seen about how AI policy will unfold in the coming year, the revocation of the EO on AI sets a hopeful tone for the direction of U.S. leadership in AI. Challenges lie ahead, particularly on the state level. A host of state AI bills threaten to create a patchwork of red tape that could potentially stifle innovation even more than the Biden EO. The rejection of heavy-handed regulation on the federal level can serve as an example to those policymakers grappling with how best to approach AI and other emerging technologies.

President Trump also announced a billion dollar venture to invest in AI infrastructure, Stargate. Funded by tech giants like OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle, the project will channel up to $500 billion into constructing data centers around the United States. If successful, Stargate could generate thousands of jobs and a long term economic boost, while galvanizing the digital economy of America.

The major investment of Stargate is part of a larger goal to “remove barriers to American leadership in artificial intelligence,” which resulted in an Executive Order of the same name. This EO commissions an action plan to “to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” Rather than seeing AI as a threat to be managed, this approach embraces the potential of the technology to serve and protect the United States.

Executive orders are one thing, enacting real change through sound policy is another. After a whirlwind first week in office, tech companies and policymakers around the country have their work laid out for them. Trump’s commitment to embracing new and emerging technologies is a challenge for innovators to carry the momentum and continue to pursue the progress that a free market and a dedication to human flourishing can bring.