Big tech companies tend to make a lot of enemies — but there are none more powerful than the US government. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta are regularly called in front of Congress to fend off monopoly accusations — and lawmakers bring up bills to rein in the companies just as often. The Federal Trade Commission has taken a particularly central role, leading a lawsuit to sever Facebook and Instagram while blocking new acquisitions for Oculus and the company’s virtual reality wing. Like it or not, these regulatory fights will play a huge role in deciding the future of tech — and neither side is playing nice.
It’s a busy day in DC: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address Congress this afternoon, and Musk is in attendance.
Dozens of Democrats have vowed to boycott his speech — and protests are happening today — as the Israeli bombardment of Gaza stretches into its ninth month. Nearly 40,000 people have been killed.
Update: Musk told a reporter he’s there as a guest of Netanyahu’s.
Vice President Kamala Harris now has the support of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for the top job. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden said he would issue an Oval Office address at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, “on what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people.”
JD Vance’s former coworkers say the vice presidential candidate wasn’t very good at being a venture capitalist. One person said he was too consumed with his book tour around Hillbilly Elegy to show up to work.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) backed her fellow Californian Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race. The announcement shores up support from a key member of the party, further easing Harris’ path to the Democratic nomination. In a statement on X about Harris, Pelosi said she has “full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.”
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In her first X post since President Joe Biden’s endorsement to lead the party’s ticket, VP Harris said she would “do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.” Democrats are slated to choose their nominee at the national convention in August.
By endorsing Trump, Elon Musk is gambling with Tesla’s future
The CEO of an EV company goes all in on the candidate who has made anti-EV sentiment a cornerstone of his campaign.
The FTC called Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass price hike “exactly the sort of consumer harm” it had predicted ahead of the company’s Activision-Blizzard buy.
Microsoft’s response (PDF) claims that with included multiplayer and the upcoming day-and-date release of Call of Duty, the offering isn’t degraded at all.
Patrick Orlando, who once led Digital World Acquisition Corp, lied to the public when he said his SPAC didn’t have a target in its S-1 form. It definitely did: Trump Media, parent company of Donald Trump’s Truth Social. The SEC complaint is chock-full of his texts and emails. DWAC, incidentally, already settled a similar suit.
Apparently J. D. Vance didn’t read my PSA about Venmo. Among his contacts? The elites he claims to loathe, execs from Anthropic and AOL, lobbyists, Tucker Carlson, and the people pushing Project 2025.
Earlier this month, the country’s data protection authority (ANPD) issued a temporary measure banning Meta from training its AI models on Brazilian personal data over privacy and transparency concerns.
Like it did following similar constraints with the EU, Meta has now decided to suspend its generative AI tools in the region while it works to find a resolution with ANPD, according to Reuters.
Last night, the campaign sent an email about Musk’s planned donations in support of Trump. It urged supporters to prevent Musk from ruining democracy like he “already ruined Twitter.”
The EU’s General Court has ruled that TikTok parent company ByteDance meets the required user threshold to be a “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act.
TikTok has claimed it wasn’t valuable enough, and failed to obtain interim measures to avoid having to comply with DMA rules while it appealed the designation. The decision can still be appealed to the European Court of Justice.
The agency wants more information about Amazon’s maneuver to hire most of the Adept team and license its technology. Adept said its plans to build “useful general intelligence and an enterprise agent product” would have required “significant attention on fundraising.” The informal inquiry might not lead to an investigation or enforcement, but enforcers are keeping close watch of tech giants and AI.
Musk, who has been a resident of Texas since 2019, says he decided to move the companies because Gavin Newsom didn’t do what Musk told him to. Previously, Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin after local health officials closed the Fremont plant during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic; Musk has a history of political donations in Texas.
J.D. Vance is anti-Big Tech, pro-crypto
The former tech investor likes the FTC’s Lina Khan and wants to break up Google, citing its liberal bias.
The Wall Street Journal put a number on Musk’s reported donation to a political action committee backing Donald Trump’s campaign and on the formation of America PAC. He’s not on the most recent list of contributors, but both Winklevoss twins, current SpaceX / former Tesla board director Antonio Gracias, and early PayPal exec Ken Howery are.