Trump administration may sell deep-sea mining leases at startup’s urging
Impossible Metals, a deep-sea mining startup, submitted a formal request to the Department of the Interior to sell leases to mine the ocean floor.
Government & Policy
Amanda Scales, a Musk hire who helped lead DOGE, has returned to xAI
Amanda Scales, the former xAI HR exec who helped lead billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative while working at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, recently returned to xAI, according to The New York Times. Scales used to work on talent acquisition at xAI. Since April, she’s worked on the talent side of […]
Trump signs bill criminalizing revenge porn and explicit deepfakes
President Donald Trump is expected to sign the Take It Down Act today, a bipartisan law that enacts stricter penalties for distributing non-consensual explicit images, including deepfakes and revenge porn.
Trump to sign bill criminalizing revenge porn and explicit deepfakes
President Donald Trump is expected to sign the Take It Down Act today, a bipartisan law that enacts stricter penalties for distributing non-consensual explicit images, including deepfakes and revenge porn.
Grok says it’s ‘skeptical’ about Holocaust death toll, then blames ‘programming error’
Grok, the AI-powered chatbot created by xAI and widely deployed across its new corporate sibling X, wasn’t just obsessed with white genocide this week. As first noted in Rolling Stone, Grok also answered a question on Thursday about the number of Jews killed by the Nazis in World War II by saying that “historical records, […]
U.S. lawmakers have concerns about Apple-Alibaba deal
The Trump administration and congressional officials are scrutinizing a deal between Apple and Alibaba that would bring Alibaba-powered AI features to iPhones sold in China, according to The New York Times. Citing anonymous sources, the NYT says White House officials and members of the House Select Committee on China have asked Apple executives directly about […]
Laser-powered fusion experiment more than doubles its power output
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility increased the yield of the experiment in recent attempts.
Epic Games asks judge to force Apple to approve Fortnite
Epic Games is escalating its efforts to pressure Apple to allow its game Fortnite into its App Store, with a new court filing asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to require that Apple “accept any compliant version of Fortnite onto the U.S. storefront of the App Store.” Epic and Apple have been engaged in a years-long […]
How Silicon Valley’s influence in Washington benefits the tech elite
Since Donald Trump took office, more than three dozen employees, allies, and investors of Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Palmer Luckey have taken roles at federal agencies, helping direct billions in contracts to their companies.