TikTok has finalized the deal to sell its US business, according to reports from Axios, The Hollywood Reporter, and CNBC. They report that a memo from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to employees on Thursday said the deal will close on January 22nd, with Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX owning 45 percent of […]
Trump Media, the company that runs social network Truth Social, is pivoting to nuclear fusion. It has announced a merger with California-based fusion power company TAE Technologies and plans to start construction on a fusion power plant in 2026. Trump Media & Technology Group will become the holding company of the new organization, though shareholders […]
Apple has announced the changes it’s making to the iOS App Store in Japan in order to comply with recent legislation in the country. It will allow third-party app stores and payment processing options, though is introducing new commission fees for those transactions. Developers in Japan will now be able to distribute apps on alternative […]
The Senate confirmed Jared Isaacman’s appointment as the head of NASA on Wednesday, a decision that comes just months after President Donald Trump pulled his nomination before picking him yet again in November, as reported earlier by CNBC. Isaacman, the founder and CEO of a payments platform called Shift4, has flown to space twice through […]
A defiant Brendan Carr testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday in his first public appearance before lawmakers since threatening broadcasters who aired comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show. Over the course of nearly three hours, the Federal Communications Commission chairman ping-ponged between heated exchanges with Democrats and largely muted questions from Republicans. But at least […]
The year 2025 has been, to put it mildly, eventful. If you’re like me, you’ve felt as if it’s pretty much impossible to keep up with things; every day brings something new, much of it baffling or enraging. But that’s not the case for everything — and so, as with past years, we’re using this […]
2025 could have been a pretty disastrous year for Google. The company came in knowing it had three major legal battles to fight, increasing competition in the burgeoning AI market, and a new US president to adapt to. It looked possible – perhaps likely – that the company might be broken up and forced to […]
Elon Musk, a billionaire who decimated the United States federal workforce using the Department of Government Efficiency, is not remembered fondly by the most powerful woman in Washington: Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff and the gatekeeper to President Donald Trump. In several on-the-record interviews with Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple conducted over the past […]
Hello and welcome to 2025’s last issue of Regulator. If you’re not a Verge subscriber, get off the 2026 naughty list by signing up here. And if you’re a Verge subscriber – well, dang, that’s really nice of you. Last week, I appeared on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC to talk about my reporting […]
The Office of the US Trade Representative posted on X Tuesday, claiming that US service providers have been hit by “a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines, and directives” from the EU. Earlier this month, X was fined $140 million under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), in addition to new laws, […]