Airbnb founder Joe Gebbia: Trump calls him to the digital revolution!

Airbnb founder Joe Gebbia: Trump calls him to the digital revolution!

Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, has taken an influential post in President Donald Trump's administration. Gebbia was appointed to modernize and make the U.S. digital government services more user-friendly. His goal is to make the United States the leading nation in digital government and to make online services as intuitive as an Apple Store. This appointment comes as part of a newly created agency that will lead the U.S. National Design Studio. This studio succeeds the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), previously headed by Elon Musk. The creation of this institution was supported by an executive order from Trump.

Gebbia is planning a major overhaul of public service offerings and is looking for professionals to build this national design studio. This is intended to not only improve the user interfaces of government websites, but also reduce costs by eliminating duplication of effort. The studio is expected to operate for three years before disbanding. At the same time, Gebbia hopes that the redesigned websites will be “beautiful” and based on modern software to provide citizens with an excellent user experience.

Background and history

44-year-old Joe Gebbia has a significant personal fortune of $8.1 billion, making him one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs. He owns seven percent of Airbnb shares, whose market value is around 48 billion euros. In addition to being a co-founder of Airbnb, Gebbia also holds positions on the board of directors of Tesla. Together with his former classmate Brian Chesky, he founded Airbnb in 2007, which has since become a major player in the hospitality industry.

Gebbia was also part of Musk's DOGE team, which worked on identifying and reducing unnecessary federal spending. With his background in technology and design, Gebbia is expected to play a key role in the digitalization of citizen services. He has made a historic shift in his political support, moving from a major Democratic Party donor to a supporter of Trump, reflecting his disappointment with the former party.

The path to the new design studio

Gebbia's vision includes redesigning federal websites to be simpler, more reliable and more satisfying for citizens. He compares his ambitions to the success of the Apple App Store and aims to take digital services in the USA to a new level. In doing so, he aims not only to make public information easier to access, but also to increase citizens' trust in government services.

Given the challenges associated with digitizing government services, Gebbia's approach is seen as a potential game-changer for public administration in the US. While he takes on half of Musk's previous duties, it remains to be seen how successful Gebbia will be in modernizing and improving the country's bureaucratic apparatus. Focus and DW report comprehensively on these developments and the associated political and business implications.