MONTREAL — Richard Chénier can’t stand Elon Musk or the idea of giving him money—despite the fact he drives a Tesla. Chénier, general manager of Québec Tech, an industry non-profit, isn’t alone. Following Donald Trump’s election victory, many in the province’s tech sector have been struck by a similar contradiction: it’s bad news, with an appetizing upside.

Musk might well be a conspiracy-addled edgelord complete with big ego, thin skin, nativist tendencies and a yen for antisemitic tropes. Yet as the Trump administration’s guiding light on all things tech, Musk is poised to push forward what are arguably the most tech-friendly set of policies the U.S. has ever seen. It’s a conundrum that’s got lefty Quebec grappling with a new reality. As with Musk, Quebec’s tech sector might not like Trump. For many, though, his second term could be shockingly good for the bottom line.

“We’re the new Rockefellers,” Adrian Schauer, CEO of Montreal-based healthtech company AlayaCare said to me the other day. He was joking, but it underscored a certain truth: Americans have always wanted what Quebec (and the rest of Canada) sells. Thanks to Trump, they may well want even more.

If Trump is good for Quebec tech, so the theory goes, it’s because he’s good for tech in general. The reasons are bumper-sticker simple. The president-elect says he will cut the corporate tax rate and make estate and wealth tax cuts permanent. He has toyed with the idea of eliminating personal income taxes altogether. Critically for the sector, he won’t likely tax capital gains or dividends. He is against guardrails on AI, saying they hinder its development. Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance, meanwhile, is a faux hillbilly turned venture capitalist backed by Musk and fellow techno-utopist Peter Thiel.

Then there’s crypto. Kamala Harris wanted to regulate the industry. Trump, who called such  regulation “unlawful and unAmerican,” spent a considerable part of the campaign cozying up to crypto’s libertarian mores, promising to sack SEC chair Gary Gensler for being insufficiently jazzed about the currency. The result: a post-election crypto bull run that caused Bitcoin’s valuation to soar. Two of Canada’s largest Bitcoin miners have facilities in Quebec, while the country as a whole is the fourth-largest Bitcoin miner in the world, according to a recent MarketsChain report.

Tech’s giddiness in the wake of Trump’s victory has been near palpable. Packy McCormick, author of the excellent Not Boring newsletter, recently wrote how Trump’s win has effectively shaken the industry from its Biden-era doldrums, and the sudden burst of optimism will allow it to tackle all sorts of world-bending problems. Delusional? Quite possibly. Yet in the case of tech, a high-growth industry representing roughly 10 per cent of the U.S. GDP, giddiness is also lucrative in practice—and, many believe, borderless by definition.

If so, Quebec tech is in for a windfall. Roughly half of Montreal startups, home to the lion’s share of the province’s tech firms, have a presence in the U.S., according to a 2020 Québec Tech report. Quebec is home to the fifth-biggest concentration of tech workers on the continent, and the third-biggest aerospace hub in the world. It’s also a global leader in AI research and quantum computing, and is heavily invested in travel and software as a service. 

Doubtless, there will be losers. Trump’s denial of climate change doesn’t augur well for the cleantech sector, in which Quebec is heavily invested. Nor will Musk’s dominance help efforts in the province and elsewhere to make tech less overwhelmingly bro-ey. Trump, it’s also worth remembering, blew up NAFTA during his first administration in part because someone in Wisconsin told him that Canada’s Quebec-heavy milk supply management system was unfairly protectionist. Here’s hoping no one mentions the province’s maple syrup cartel.

There are many other potential pitfalls with the incoming U.S. president. Trump has floated the idea of giving green cards to noncitizen college graduates; should this happen, Canada can’t expect a similar tide of educated graduates fleeing to its shores as did last time around. In fact, as Réseau Capital CEO Olivier Quenneville pointed out to me, Trump’s tax-easing policies could make it more difficult for Canadian tech firms to attract talent. 

As for crypto, miners on this side of the border are no doubt over the moon with Bitcoin’s Trump bump. Yet many in the industry say crypto’s free reign under Trump will only highlight Canada’s comparatively bleak view of the currency—if not the myriad moratoria on harvesting it. “We stopped our Bitcoin mining operations in Canada because I think that there are just so many haters,” Montrealer Sam Tabar, CEO of Bit Digital, told me.  

In addition, Trump could well apply his tariff regime to non-U.S. digital goods and services as well. Along with the plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, thus hobbling the U.S. labour force, these tariffs are a recipe for inflation—which is also borderless, at least when it afflicts the U.S.

Finally, there are the problems with Trump himself, in that he is brutishly transactional, hypocrisy-prone and highly influenceable. He hated Musk before he loved him, while crypto was “a scam against the dollar” before it was a “miracle of cooperation and human achievement.” He signalled his intention to dial back on the Biden administration’s antitrust policies against Big Tech—then announced attorney-general appointee Matt Gaetz, a staunch advocate of antitrust policies against Big Tech.

Chaos will be the only constant for the next four years. Here, at least, tech has an innate advantage. After all, it tends to thrive in the stuff.

Martin Patriquin is The Logic’s Quebec correspondent. He joined in 2019 after 10 years as Quebec bureau chief for Maclean’s. A National Magazine Award and SABEW winner, he has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Walrus, Vice, BuzzFeed and The Globe and Mail, among others. He is also a panelist on CBC’s “Power & Politics.”