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  • Trump says Microsoft is one of the companies eyeing TikTok

    Trump says Microsoft is one of the companies eyeing TikTok

    President Donald Trump said Monday evening that Microsoft is among the U.S. companies looking to take control of TikTok to help the popular app avert an effective ban that could kick-in in April.

    “I would say yes,” Trump told reporters when asked if Microsoft was one of the companies interested in helping to bring about a new ownership of TikTok, a requirement set by Congress to keep the app functioning in the U.S.

    Trump added that other companies were also interested in purchasing TikTok, but wouldn’t provide a list.

    “I like bidding wars because you make your best deals,” Trump said as he spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One while flying back to Washington from Miami, where Republican House members were holding a conference.

    Microsoft declined to comment. Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In one of his first acts in office last week, Trump extended the deadline for TikTok to find new ownership that satisfies the government by 75 days, to April 4 from January 19.

    The president has said that he’s looking for the ultimate purchaser to give the U.S. a 50% stake in the company, which is owned by China-based ByteDance. But the details remain murky, and its unclear whether he’s proposing control of the app by the government or another U.S. entity.

    Last week, the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI presented a new proposal to ByteDance that would allow the U.S. government to own up to 50% of a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok’s U.S. business, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    Several other investors — including billionaire Frank McCourt and Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — have spoken publicly about their desire to purchase TikTok’s U.S. platform. Trump has also said he’s spoken to “many people” privately about the company.

    After the bipartisan law was signed by former President Joe Biden in April, ByteDance said it did not have plans to sell the platform and fought the statute in court for months. China also rebuked Washington over the divestment push, though more recently it appears to be softening its stance.

    In media interviews last week, Bill Ford, the chairman of the global investing firm General Atlantic and a ByteDance board member, said the company is prepared to engage with the Trump administration and Chinese officials to find a solution that keeps TikTok available. He also floated the idea that there could be a solution short of a full divesture by ByteDance.

    Lawmakers and officials in both parties have raised national security concerns about Chinese ownership and potential manipulation on the immensely popular platform, which is used by more than 170 million U.S. users.

    Trump was in favor of a TikTok ban before he reversed his position last year. He credits the platform with helping him win more young voters during the recent presidential election.

    Microsoft, along with Walmart, made a failed bid for TikTok during Trump’s first term after Trump tried to ban the app. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella later described it as the “strangest thing I’ve ever worked on.”

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  • Trump highlights partnership investing $500 billion in AI

    Trump highlights partnership investing $500 billion in AI

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday talked up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.

    The new entity, Stargate, will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. The initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and could reach five times that sum.

    “It’s big money and high quality people,” said Trump, adding that it’s “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential” under his new administration.

    Joining Trump fresh off his inauguration at the White House were Masayoshi Son of SoftBank, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle. All three credited Trump for helping to make the project possible, even though building has already started and the project goes back to 2024.

    “This will be the most important project of this era,” said Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

    Ellison noted that the data centers are already under construction with 10 being built so far. The chairman of Oracle suggested that the project was also tied to digital health records and would make it easier to treat diseases such as cancer by possibly developing a customized vaccine.

    “This is the beginning of golden age,” said Son, referencing Trump’s statement that the U.S. would be in a “golden age” with him back in the White House.

    Son, a billionaire based in Japan, already committed in December to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years. He previously committed to $50 billion in new investments ahead of Trump’s first term, which included a large stake in the troubled office-sharing company WeWork.

    While Trump has seized on similar announcements to show that his presidency is boosting the economy, there were already expectations of a massive buildout in data centers and electricity plants needed for the development of AI, which holds the promise of increasing productivity by automating work but also the risk of displacing jobs if poorly implemented.

    The initial plans for Stargate go back to the Biden administration. Tech news outlet The Information first reported on the project in March 2024. OpenAI has long relied on Microsoft data centers to build its AI systems, but it has increasingly signaled an interest in building its own data centers.

    OpenAI wrote in a letter to the Biden administration’s Commerce Department last fall that planning and permitting for such projects “can be lengthy and complex, particularly for energy infrastructure.”

    Other partners in the project include Microsoft, investor MGX and the chipmakers Arm and NVIDIA, according to separate statements by Oracle and OpenAI.

    The push to build data centers predates Trump’s presidency. Last October, the financial company Blackstone estimated that the U.S. would see $1 trillion invested in data centers over five years, with another $1 trillion being committed internationally.

    Those estimates for investments suggest that much of the new capital will go through Stargate as OpenAI has established itself as a sector leader with the 2022 launch of its ChatGPT, a chatbot that captivated the public imagination with its ability to answer complex questions and perform basic business tasks.

    The White House has put an emphasis on making it easier to build out new electricity generation in anticipation of AI’s expansion, knowing that the United States is in a competitive race against China to develop a technology increasingly being adopted by businesses.

    Still, the regulatory outlook for AI remains somewhat uncertain as Trump on Monday overturned the 2023 order signed by then-President Joe Biden to create safety standards and watermarking of AI-generated content, among other goals, in hopes of putting guardrails on the technology’s possible risks to national security and economic well-being.

    CBS News first reported that Trump would be announcing the AI investment.

    Trump supporter Elon Musk, worth more than $400 billion, was an early investor in OpenAI but has since challenged its move to for-profit status and has started his own AI company, xAI. Musk is also in charge of the “Department of Government Efficiency” created formally on Monday by Trump with the goal of reducing government spending.

    Trump previously in January announced a $20 billion investment by DAMAC Properties in the United Arab Emirates to build data centers tied to AI.

    ___

    AP reporter Matt O’Brien contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.

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  • Trump Administration shuts down White House Spanish-language page, social media

    Trump Administration shuts down White House Spanish-language page, social media

    Within hours of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the new administration took down the Spanish-language version of the official White House website.

    The site — currently https://www.whitehouse.gov/es/ — now gives users an “Error 404” message. It also included a “Go Home” button that directed viewers to a page featuring a video montage of Trump in his first term and on the campaign trail. The button was later updated to read “Go To Home Page”.

    Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion at the abrupt change and frustration at what some called the administration’s lack of efforts to maintain communication with the Latino community, which helped propel him to the presidency.

    The Spanish profile of the White House’ X, @LaCasaBlanca and the government page on reproductive freedom also were disbanded. Meanwhile, the Spanish versions of other government agencies such as the Department of Labor, Justice and Agriculture remained available for users on Tuesday.

    Asked about the changes, White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields responded Tuesday that the administration is “committed to bringing back online the Spanish translation section of the website.”

    “It’s day two. We are in the process of developing, editing and tweaking the White House website. As part of this ongoing work, some of the archived content on the website went dormant. We are committed to reloading that content in a short timeline,” he said without elaborating.

    Trump removed the Spanish version of the page in 2017. At that time, White House officials said they would reinstate it. President Joe Biden reinstated the page in 2021.

    The page’s removal coincided with Trump’s first-day wave of executive orders highlighted by the launch of an illegal immigration crackdown that was one of his key campaign pledges. Trump on Monday declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border and announced plans to send U.S. troops to help support immigration agents and restrict refugees and asylum.

    According to 2023 Census Bureau estimates, about 43.4 million Americans — 13.7% of the U.S. population age 5 and older — speak Spanish at home. The U.S. has no official language.

    Monica Rivera, a brand and communications strategist in New York City of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, said the shutdown sends a clear signal.

    “There are 43 million Latinos who speak Spanish as their first language and removing access to information directly from the White House draws a distinct line as to who they are serving and more dangerously, signals to the administration’s MAGA base that we as Latinos are ‘other’ and a less significant part of this country,” Rivera said.

    Anthony Hernandez, a paralegal in the nation’s capital, wasn’t initially aware of the move and said it suggests what the coming years of a second Trump presidency would look like, with specific issues making headlines while “minor but equally malicious things like that go unnoticed.”

    “A move like shutting down the Spanish White House page and X profile serves no purpose other than to cut off resources for millions of Hispanic Americans and immigrants attempting to enter the United States legally,” Hernandez said. “And it’s a slap in the face to the millions of Hispanic voters that supported him in this recent election.”

    Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is Cuban American and speaks Spanish. At his swearing-in Tuesday, he gave remarks in Spanish, thanking God, his family and Trump.

    Meanwhile, Hispanic leaders and communication strategy experts expressed surprise with the page’s removal, given Trump’s popularity with certain Latino voters.

    “If the White House is seriously interested in engaging with Latinos, the second largest group in this country, then they need to make sure that updates can also be distributed in Spanish, a preferred language for millions in our community,” said Frankie Miranda President and CEO of the Hispanic Federation.

    He called that a way to ensure “everyone is a part of the civic process.”

    Kris Klein Hernández, a U.S. historian specializing in race, gender, and sexuality at Connecticut College, said the content removal from official White House websites not only limits the access available to Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens and migrants but leads “some to question which constituencies the administration prioritizes.”

    Jeff Lee, former deputy cabinet secretary and deputy director of external and international affairs for former California Gov. Jerry Brown, said the move seems counterintuitive given the opportunity to “showcase” policy changes, especially ones related to economics and border security.

    “I didn’t see any other language mediums that got the kibosh. So I think that’s a really interesting thing to single out — if that’s the case,” Lee said.

    AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters, found Trump won a larger share of Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, and most notably among men under age 45. Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, also were more open to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, compared with about 6 in 10 who went for Biden.

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  • Trump issues an executive order to suspend the US TikTok ban. But can it stick?

    Trump issues an executive order to suspend the US TikTok ban. But can it stick?

    President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday to keep TikTok operating for 75 days, a relief to the social media platform’s users even as national security questions persist.

    TikTok’s China-based parent ByteDance was supposed to find a U.S. buyer or be banned on Jan. 19. Trump’s order could give ByteDance more time to find a buyer.

    “I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok,” Trump said.

    Trump has amassed nearly 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. Yet its 170 million U.S. users could not access TikTok for more than 12 hours between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

    The platform went offline before the ban approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court took effect on Sunday. After Trump promised to pause the ban on Monday, TikTok restored access for existing users. Google and Apple, however, still have not reinstated TikTok to their app stores.

    Business leaders, lawmakers, legal scholars, and influencers who make money on TikTok are watching to see how Trump tries to resolve a thicket of regulatory, legal, financial and geopolitical issues with his signature.

    TikTok’s app allows users to create and watch short-form videos, and broke new ground by operating with an algorithm that fed viewers recommendations based on their viewing habits. But concerns about its potential to serve as a tool for Beijing to manipulate and spy on Americans pre-date Trump’s first presidency.

    In 2020, Trump issued executive orders banning dealings with ByteDance and the owners of the Chinese messaging app WeChat. Courts ended up blocking the orders, but less than a year ago Congress overwhelmingly passed a law citing national security concerns to ban TikTok unless ByteDance sold it to an approved buyer.

    The law, which went into force Sunday, allows for fines of up to $5,000 per U.S. TikTok user against major mobile app stores — like the ones operated by Apple and Google — and internet hosting services like Oracle if they continued to distribute TikTok to U.S. users beyond the deadline for ByteDance’s divestment.

    Trump on Sunday said he had asked TikTok’s U.S. service providers to continue supporting the platform and app while he prepared to sign an executive order to stop the ban for now.

    “The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” Trump posted on Truth Social, his social networking site.

    The law that Congress passed and now-former President Joe Biden signed in April allowed for a 90-day extension if there had been progress toward a sale before the statute’s effective date. Less certain is whether that provision can be applied retroactively, according to Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute.

    “Executive orders cannot override existing laws,” Kreps said. “It’s not clear that the new president has that authority to issue the 90-day extension of a law that’s already gone into effect.”

    Kreps also doubts the conditions for a delay exist at this point without so much as even a potential buyer being named to prove that a sale was moving along.

    But Alan Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor, has written that the law also empowers the president to decide what constitutes a “qualified divestiture” — suggesting Trump could have discretion to say whether or when ByteDance meets the terms of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

    Although ByteDance spent months repeating it wasn’t interested in selling, Beijing on Monday also signaled a possible easing on China’s stance on TikTok to allow it to be divested from its Chinese parent company. China’s vice president held meetings with Vice President JD Vance and Tesla tech titan Elon Musk on Sunday.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, said Monday that business operations and acquisitions “should be independently decided by companies in accordance with market principles.”

    “If it involves Chinese companies, China’s laws and regulations should be observed,” Mao said.

    Until now, it was widely believed that Beijing would not allow the sale of TikTok, which had come to embody China’s defiance in the face of “U.S. robbery.” However, TikTok was among several issues brought up in a phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump on Friday, though details were not available.

    Trump later announced plans to delay the TikTok ban and suggested a joint venture in which the U.S. would get a 50% ownership of the app. Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, attended Trump’s inauguration, seated with American tech heavyweights.

    The Justice Department is generally tasked with enforcing the laws of the federal government, so it’s possible that Trump will direct the DOJ to ignore the law. Such a move might itself be subject to legal scrutiny but would buy time for TikTok.

    Trump’s efforts to save TikTok may put him at odds with some of the House members and senators who voted for the law, which received broad bipartisan support. House Speaker Mike Johnson called ByteDance’s ownership “a very dangerous thing,” and said he expected a full sale to happen.

    “I think we will enforce the law,” Johnson told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

    Legislators now stand to “look a little bit silly” if the ban doesn’t last, Kreps said.

    “(The case) becomes about the separations of powers, and checks and balances, that we don’t have a king who decides what happens with the law,” Kreps said. “Enforcement isn’t only up to the executive branch.”

    Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, in a message posted on X, listed a number of state and federal agencies, and private entities, that might be willing to go to court to get the ban enforced.

    “Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” Cotton noted.

    Despite the intense scrutiny and potential costs involved, the machinations over TikTok are in some ways just business as usual for the tech companies involved, according to Gus Hurwitz, a legal scholar with the International Center for Law and Economics.

    “The fines that we’re talking about are civil penalties and companies risk civil penalties all the time,” Hurwitz said.

    Still, the hard business calculus of complying with a law in limbo or risk defying a president who holds lucrative federal contracts over those companies could come into focus if shareholders sue.

    Oracle, for example, has a part of the Pentagon’s $9 billion contract to build its cloud computing network.

    “This actually could be the right business decision to make,” Hurwitz said. “That’s not necessarily a breach of duty to shareholders.”

    There’s been lots of questions about how companies such as Oracle and Akamai Technologies are powering TikTok’s servers to stay online, while others such as Apple and Google have made the app unavailable for new users to download.

    None of the companies have responded to requests for comment.

    Oracle in 2020 announced it had a 12.5% stake in TikTok Global after securing its business as the app’s cloud technology provider.

    Meanwhile, as of Monday night, a search for TikTok on Apple’s app store directs to an online statement that reads in part: “Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates,” while Google’s app store notes downloads for TikTok “are paused due to current US legal requirements.”

    ___

    Ho reported from Seattle. Maya Sweedler and Didi Tang in Washington contributed reporting.

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  • Trump asks Supreme Court to delay TikTok ban so he can weigh in after he takes office

    Trump asks Supreme Court to delay TikTok ban so he can weigh in after he takes office

    President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue.

    The request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by Jan. 19 while the government emphasized its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk.

    “President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” said Trump’s amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case and was written by D. John Sauer, Trump’s choice for solicitor general.

    The argument submitted to the court is the latest example of Trump inserting himself in national issues before he takes office. The Republican president-elect has already begun negotiating with other countries over his plans to impose tariffs, and he intervened earlier this month in a plan to fund the federal government, calling for a bipartisan plan to be rejected and sending Republicans back to the negotiating table.

    He has been holding meetings with foreign leaders and business officials at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida while he assembles his administration, including a meeting last week with TikTok CEO Shou Chew.

    Trump has reversed his position on the popular app, having tried to ban it during his first term in office over national security concerns. He joined the TikTok during his 2024 presidential campaign and his team used it to connect with younger voters, especially male voters, by pushing content that was often macho and aimed at going viral.

    He said earlier this year that he still believed there were national security risks with TikTok, but that he opposed banning it.

    The filings Friday come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. The law was was signed by President Joe Biden in April after it passed Congress with broad bipartisan support. TikTok and ByteDance filed a legal challenge afterwards.

    Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute, leading TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

    The brief from Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”

    In their brief to the Supreme Court on Friday, attorneys for TikTok and its parent company ByteDance argued the federal appeals court erred in its ruling and based its decision on “alleged ‘risks’ that China could exercise control” over TikTok’s U.S. platform by pressuring its foreign affiliates.

    The Biden administration has argued in court that TikTok poses a national security risk due to its connections to China. Officials say Chinese authorities can compel ByteDance to hand over information on TikTok’s U.S. patrons or use the platform to spread or suppress information.

    But the government “concedes that it has no evidence China has ever attempted to do so,” TikTok’s legal filing said, adding that the U.S. fears are predicated on future risks.

    In its filing Friday, the Biden administration said because TikTok “is integrated with ByteDance and relies on its propriety engine developed and maintained in China,” its corporate structure carries with it risk.

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  • Musk and Trump are viewed roughly the same by Americans, an AP-NORC poll finds

    Musk and Trump are viewed roughly the same by Americans, an AP-NORC poll finds

    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk, clad in tuxedo and black tie, took the stage at President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort shortly after the election with all the swagger of the winning candidate himself.

    “The public has given us a mandate that could not be more clear, the clearest mandate. The people have spoken. The people want change,” Musk told the audience of Trump’s biggest donors, campaign leaders and appointment seekers. “We are going to shake things up. It’s going to be a revolution.”

    Musk’s attachment to Trump has created an alliance between America’s most powerful politician and its richest businessman — and roughly the same percentages of Americans have favorable views of each, according to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

    Experts are split on whether that overlap in public opinion is a good or bad thing for Musk’s businesses or for Trump’s politics. But it could have far-reaching effects in both realms.

    Musk, whose net worth tops $400 billion, oversees six businesses while continuing to work closely with Trump: electric car manufacturer Tesla, the X social media platform, space technology company SpaceX, brain link company Neuralink, the startup xAI and tunneling operator The Boring Co.

    “Even though there’s a negative impact, in terms of potentially alienating some of their customers that might not be fans of Trump, the benefits far outweigh any negatives when it comes to having a right-hand seat next to Trump in the White House,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

    Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, identified himself as an investor in Musk’s Tesla and a driver of Tesla’s new Cybertruck, the futuristic pickup that has gotten huge amounts of attention but also been the subject of safety concerns and multiple recalls.

    “Having your CEO not working at your company and working at the job of having to fire government employees … as a shareholder, I’m paying someone to not work for my company,” he said. “As a Cybertruck owner with self-driving that sucks and doesn’t work, I’m like, ‘Dude, this isn’t fair.’”

    But despite his skepticism, Gerber said he won’t stop investing in Musk’s businesses.

    “I’ve made a lot of money with Elon,” he said. “I’m not in the business of investing based on the popularity of CEOs.”

    Musk doesn’t appear to give Trump much boost with people who don’t back the incoming president.

    He is no more popular with the U.S. public than the president-elect himself, and viewed unfavorably by about half of Americans, according to the AP-NORC poll.

    About 4 in 10 Americans have a somewhat or very favorable view of the world’s richest person, very similar to the percentage who view Trump positively. Likewise, about half of adults have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Musk — again, similar to Trump.

    Instead, said one political strategist, Musk is the ideal validator for someone who cultivates an image of success in business and who has stocked his Cabinet and key adviser roles with billionaires.

    “Trump has always pushed this narrative that he’s a successful developer and a very successful businessman. I think having Musk with him is his double-down on this business success, good-for-the-economy, good-for-everybody-making money kind of persona,” said Christine Matthews, a national political pollster who has worked for Republicans. “In this case, Musk is seen as this successful, innovative, tech entrepreneur, frontier-buster.”

    Musk also has at his disposal X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that he purchased and turned into a megaphone for conservative ideas. And having spent an estimated $250 million to support Trump in the election, Musk has signaled he is willing to back Republican primary challenges to GOP members in the House and Senate seeking reelection in 2026 who waver on Trump’s appointments and agenda.

    Trump has tasked him with leading a group to reduce the size of the federal government and reduce the rulemaking authority of the federal bureaucracy.

    Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration with the threat of diminished subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles doing the most harm to smaller competitors. Trump’s plans for extensive tariffs on Chinese imports make it less likely that Chinese EVs will be sold in bulk in the U.S. anytime soon.

    Some analysts believe the billionaire’s role will create a very friendly landscape for Tesla over the coming years. Ives, the analyst at Wedbush Securities, said Musk’s relationship with Trump could “revolutionize the Tesla story, especially around robotics, AI and autonomous.”

    Investors, he said, are betting on Musk and see his political ascent as a “champagne moment.” Unlike Gerber, Ives believes that ending the EV credit and taking subsidies from Detroit carmakers, Hyundai and other companies will create only opportunity for Tesla.

    “I think Wall Street is starting to fully digest the potential benefits from Musk,” Ives said.

    Tesla shares closed at a record high on Tuesday, with much of the company’s recent gains coming after Trump’s victory. But Gerber feels that jump is because investors believe Tesla will have an advantage when it comes to autonomous driving because Trump could grant the company a national autonomy license.

    Still, he thinks Tesla will be the “big loser” of Musk’s businesses because of Trump’s promise to end the EV tax credit for carmakers.

    “For Tesla, I don’t see a ton of benefit from this,” he said. “Elon is misleading people to say it hurts the competition if the credit goes away.”

    Musk’s other companies — including his artificial intelligence company, xAI — could reap the benefits of working within the Trump administration, he said.

    “AI is a transformative investment that will create lots of regulatory and governmental issues, especially around safety and information,” Gerber said. “There’s a lot of benefit, from an AI perspective, to having Elon where he is.”

    The relationship between the two men has no parallel in U.S. history, said David Nasaw, biographer of American business tycoons Andrew Carnegie and William Randolph Hearst. He noted that Musk, to a level unlike other tycoons, has relied on subsidies and favorable government decisions for his success from Tesla to SpaceX.

    “He’s a unicorn,” Nasaw said of Musk.

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    Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Parvini reported from Los Angeles.

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  • What does Big Tech hope to gain from warming up to Trump?

    What does Big Tech hope to gain from warming up to Trump?

    NEW YORK — In a string of visits, dinners, calls, monetary pledges and social media overtures, big tech chiefs — including Apple’s Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — have joined a parade of business and world leaders in trying to improve their standing with President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office in January.

    “The first term, everybody was fighting me,” Trump said in remarks at Mar-a-Lago. “In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”

    Tech companies and leaders have now poured millions into his inauguration fund, a sharp increase — in most cases — from past pledges to incoming presidents. But what does the tech industry expect to gain out of their renewed relationships with Trump?

    A clue to what the industry is looking for came just days before the election when Microsoft executives — who’ve largely tried to show a neutral or bipartisan stance — joined with a close Trump ally, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, to publish a blog post outlining their approach to artificial intelligence policy.

    “Regulation should be implemented only if its benefits outweigh its costs,” said the document signed by Andreessen, his business partner Ben Horowitz, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the company’s president, Brad Smith.

    They also urged the government to back off on any attempt to strengthen copyright laws that would make it harder for companies to use publicly available data to train their AI systems. And they said, “the government should examine its procurement practices to enable more startups to sell technology to the government.”

    Trump has pledged to rescind President Joe Biden’s sweeping AI executive order, which sought to protect people’s rights and safety without stifling innovation. He hasn’t specified what he would do in its place, but his campaign said AI development should be “rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.”

    Trump’s choice to head the Interior Department, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, has spoken openly about the need to boost electricity production to meet increased demand from data centers and artificial intelligence.

    “The AI battle affects everything from defense to healthcare to education to productivity as a country,″ Burgum said on Nov. 15, referring to artificial intelligence. “And the AI that’s coming in the next 18 months is going to be revolutionary. So there’s just a sense of urgency and a sense of understanding in the Trump administration″ to address it.

    Demand for data centers ballooned in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and local governments are competing for lucrative deals with big tech companies.

    But as data centers begin to consume more resources, some residents are pushing back against the world’s most powerful corporations over concerns about the economic, social and environmental health of their communities.

    “Maybe Big Tech should buy a copy of ‘The Art of The Deal’ to figure out how to best negotiate with this administration,” suggested Paul Swanson, an antitrust attorney for the law firm Holland & Hart. “I won’t be surprised if they find ways to reach some accommodations and we end up seeing more negotiated resolutions and consent decrees.”

    Although federal regulators began cracking down on Google and Facebook during Trump’s first term as president — and flourished under Biden — most experts expect his second administration to ease up on antitrust enforcement and be more receptive to business mergers.

    Google may benefit from Trump’s return after he made comments on the campaign trail suggesting a breakup of the company isn’t in the U.S. national interest, after a judge declared its search engine an illegal monopoly. But recent nominations put forward by his transition team have favored those who have been critical of Big Tech companies, suggesting Google won’t be entirely off the hook.

    Cook’s notoriously rocky relationship with the EU can be traced back to a 2016 ruling from Brussels in a tax case targeting Apple. Cook slammed the bloc’s order for Apple to pay back up to 13 billion euros ($13.7 billion) in Irish back taxes as “total political crap.”

    Trump, then in his first term as president, piled on, referring to the European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who was spearheading a campaign on special tax deals and a crackdown on Big Tech companies, as the “tax lady” who “really hates the U.S.”

    Brussels was eventually vindicated after the bloc’s top court rejected Apple’s appeal this year, though it didn’t stop Cook from calling Trump to complain, Trump recounted in a podcast in October.

    Trump hosted Cook for a Friday evening dinner at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly. Neither Apple nor the Trump transition team has commented on the nature of their discussions.

    Altman, Amazon and Meta all pledged to donate $1 million each to Trump’s inaugural fund.

    During his first term, Trump criticized Amazon and railed against the political coverage at The Washington Post, which billionaire Bezos owns. Meanwhile, Bezos had criticized some of Trump’s past rhetoric. In 2019, Amazon also argued in a court case that Trump’s bias against the company harmed its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract.

    More recently, Bezos has struck a more conciliatory tone. He recently said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York that he was “optimistic” about Trump’s second term, while also endorsing president-elect’s plans to cut regulations.

    The donation from Meta came just weeks after Zuckerberg met with Trump privately at Mar-a-Lago.

    During the 2024 campaign, Zuckerberg did not endorse a candidate for president, but voiced a more positive stance toward Trump. Earlier this year, he praised Trump’s response to his first assassination attempt. Still, Trump in recent months had continued to attack Zuckerberg publicly.

    And Altman, who is in a legal dispute with AI rival Elon Musk, has said he is “not that worried” about the Tesla CEO’s influence in the incoming administration. Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company earlier this year alleging that the maker of ChatGPT betrayed its founding aims of benefiting the public good rather than pursuing profits.

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  • Trump hosts Apple CEO at Mar-a-Lago as big tech leaders continue outreach to president-elect

    Trump hosts Apple CEO at Mar-a-Lago as big tech leaders continue outreach to president-elect

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook for a Friday evening dinner at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.

    Cook is the latest in a string of big tech leaders — including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — who have sought to improve their standing with the incoming president after choppy relations with Trump during his first term.

    Trump has said he has spoken with Cook about the company’s long-running tax battles with the European Union.

    The meeting comes less than two months after Trump said he spoke to Cook by phone, and soon after Apple lost its last appeal in a dispute with the EU over 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion) in back taxes to Ireland.

    “He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion,” Trump recalled of his conversation with Cook, in an October interview with podcaster Patrick Bet-David. “Then on top of that they got fined by the European Union another $2 billion.”

    The decision by the EU top court was the finale to a dispute that centered on sweetheart deals that Dublin was offering to attract multinational businesses with minimal taxes across the 27-nation bloc. The European Commission in 2016 ruled that Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid that Ireland was required to recover.

    Trump’s transition team and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his dinner with Cook.

    OpenAI CEO Altman is planning to make a $1 million personal donation to Trump’s inauguration fund, the company confirmed Friday. Amazon and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, confirmed this week they had each donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.

    During his first term, Trump criticized Amazon and railed against the political coverage at The Washington Post, which Bezos owns. Meanwhile, Bezos had criticized some of Trump’s past rhetoric. In 2019, Amazon also argued in a court case that Trump’s bias against the company harmed its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract.

    More recently, Bezos has struck a more conciliatory tone. Last week, he said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York that he was “optimistic” about Trump’s second term while also endorsing president-elect’s plans to cut regulations.

    The donation from Meta came just weeks after Meta CEO Zuckerberg met with Trump privately at Mar-a-Lago.

    During the 2024 campaign, Zuckerberg did not endorse a candidate for president, but voiced a more positive stance toward Trump. Earlier this year, he praised Trump’s response to his first assassination attempt.

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  • Trump nominates cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins as SEC chair

    Trump nominates cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins as SEC chair

    President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he intends to nominate cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    Trump said Atkins, the CEO of Patomak Partners and a former SEC commissioner, was a “proven leader for common sense regulations.” In the years since leaving the SEC, Atkins has made the case against too much market regulation.

    “He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

    The commission oversees U.S. securities markets and investments and is currently led by Gary Gensler, who has been leading the U.S. government’s crackdown on the crypto industry. Gensler, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, announced last month that he would be stepping down from his post on the day that Trump is inaugurated — Jan. 20, 2025.

    Trump, once a crypto skeptic, had pledged to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin. Money has poured into crypto assets since he won. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, is now above $95,000. And shares in crypto platform Coinbase have surged more than 70% since the election.

    Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of Coinbase, congratulated Atkins in a post on X.

    “We appreciate his commitment to balance in regulating U.S. securities markets and look forward to his fresh leadership at (the SEC),” Grewal wrote. “It’s sorely needed and cannot come a day too soon.”

    Atkins began his career as a lawyer and has a long history working in the financial markets sector, both in government and private practice. In the 1990s, he worked on the staffs of two former SEC chairmen, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt.

    His work as an SEC commissioner started in 2002, a time when the fallout from corporate scandals at Enron and WorldCom had turned up the heat on Wall Street and its government regulators.

    Atkins was widely considered the most conservative member of the SEC during his tenure at the agency and known to have a strong free-market bent. As a commissioner, he called for greater transparency in and analysis of the costs and benefits of new SEC rules.

    He also emphasized investor education and increased enforcement efforts against those who steal from investors over the internet, manipulate markets, engage in Ponzi schemes and other types of fraud.

    At the same time, Atkins objected to stiff penalties imposed on companies accused of fraudulent conduct, contending that they did not deter crime. He caused a stir in the summer of 2006 when he said the practice of granting stock options to executives before the disclosure of news that was certain to increase the share price did not constitute insider trading.

    U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Atkins has the experience needed to “restore faith in the SEC.”

    “I’m confident his leadership will lead to clarity for the digital asset ecosystem and ensure U.S. capital markets remain the envy of the world,” McHenry posted on X.

    Atkins already has some experience working for Trump. During Trump’s first term, Atkins was a member of the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, an advisory group of more than a dozen CEOs and business leaders who offered input on how to create jobs and speed economic growth.

    In 2017, Atkins joined the Token Alliance, a cryptocurrency advocacy organization.

    Crypto industry players welcomed Trump’s victory in the hopes that he would push through legislative and regulatory changes that they’ve long lobbied for.

    Trump himself has launched World Liberty Financial, a new venture with family members to trade cryptocurrencies.

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  • Zuckerberg dines with Trump in Mar-a-Lago

    Zuckerberg dines with Trump in Mar-a-Lago

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Donald Trump dined on Wednesday with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, bringing together the Facebook founder and the former president who was once banned from that social network.

    Stephen Miller, who has been appointed deputy chief of staff for Trump’s second term, said Zuckerberg, like other business leaders, wants to support Trump’s economic plans. The tech CEO has been seeking to change his company’s perception on the right following a rocky relationship with Trump.

    “Mark, obviously, he has his own interest, and he has his own company and he has his own agenda,” Miller said in an interview on Fox News about the meeting. “But he’s made clear that he wants to support the national renewal of America under Trump’s leadership.”

    A spokesperson for Meta confirmed that Zuckerberg and Trump met on Wednesday, saying he was invited for dinner with the president-elect and other members of his team to talk about the incoming administration.

    Trump was kicked off Facebook following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The company restored his account in early 2023.

    During the 2024 campaign, Zuckerberg did not endorse a candidate for president.

    Zuckerberg has since taken a more positive stance toward Trump. Earlier this year, he praised Trump’s response to his first assassination attempt, calling it “badass.” Zuckerberg also complained that senior Biden administration officials pressured Facebook to “censor” some COVID-19 content during the pandemic.

    Still, Trump in recent months had continued to attack Zuckerberg publicly. In July, he posted a message on his own social network Truth Social threatening to send election fraudsters to prison in part by citing a nickname he used for the Meta CEO. “ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!” Trump wrote.

    The Thanksgiving eve visit also comes as tech mogul Elon Musk has become more influential in Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, contributing an estimated $200 million through his political action committee to help elect Trump. Musk is the billionaire owner of the X social network, a competitor to Meta.

    Musk has spent considerable time at Mar-a-Lago since the election, and Trump selected him to lead an outside advisory panel known as the “Department of Government Efficiency ” to identify waste with Vivek Ramaswamy, a venture capitalist and former GOP presidential candidate.

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