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A second CISA employee predicted that “compliance efforts such as security by design may not have the support they currently enjoy.”
That retreat from corporate oversight will be a top priority for Musk and other tech billionaires who have flocked to Trump. “The influence of technology here, assuming Elon Musk stays in Trump’s good graces, will be significant,” says the cyber official.
Without high-level White House support, CISA’s safe design campaign “becomes toothless,” says top CISA staffer. “Some companies will be less willing to follow these (guidelines) if they don’t believe the executive branch supports them.”
CISA employees are also watching anxiously to see if Trump officials pressure the cyber agency to water down its draft regulation obligation of critical infrastructure operators to report cyber incidents. Congress sent the rule in a 2022 spending bill, but groups representing infrastructure operators they complained that the requirements of the project – which must be finalized by the end of 2025 – are too onerous. Trump could force CISA to reduce rules to appease the private sector.
Trump and his allies want to “get rid of anyone who can enforce the rules, because then the rules don’t matter,” says the cyber official. “In the example of CISA, it will be quite significant.”
CISA is also preparing for changes to its electoral security mission. The agency already has conversations scaled back dramatically with social media companies on online misinformation following a right-wing reactionbut the Trump team could force CISA to abandon even more of its election security work. CISA staff worry that Trump will prevent the agency from participating in state and local elections. “Trusted Info” initiative.that encourage Americans to listen to their local election supervisors instead of provocative online claims.
“I think the job is probably dead,” says a third CISA employee.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security, he embraced election conspiracies after Biden’s victory in 2020. “Kristi Noem is a Trump loyalist who supported him in the claims of denial of the election, and now he will be in charge of the agency that oversees (CISA),” he says the official cyber. “I have a lot of questions about what’s going on here.”
The third CISA employee expects to see “persecution of those who did election security work” once Trump takes office.
Weakened the Authority
Trump’s victory could also have serious consequences for other CISA missions.
Under Biden, CISA won wider authority and new funding to monitor the networks of other agencies for suspicious activity, turning it into the centralized defender of federal networks that many experts still hope it will become. That could change under Trump, especially if senior officials close to Trump get involved in overseeing CISA.
