xAI has a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense to provide... whatever this is.

A German teen told Meta's child safety researchers his under-10 little brother had been sexually propositioned multiple times on its VR platform. Meta deleted the evidence. New internal whistleblower docs indicate that was part of a broader cover-up: www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

Darkly amusing that the president who pardoned Ross Ulbricht also says illicit drugs are such a threat to national security that he can use the military to assassinate suspected drug dealers with no due process.

How is this legal?? edition.cnn.com/2025/09/05/p...

In addition to being extremely weird, the spectacle of tech executives kissing the ring at the White House last night showed that the only principle left in Silicon Valley is power www.wired.com/story/tech-c...

witnessed history in the making today www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

this is giving "ministry of peace" vibes

Finally, this story by Nick Robins-Early dropped! “Just a few months ago, it was hard to imagine that an active government employee at an agency embedded across the government would assume control over a pharmaceutical company seeking FDA approval.” www.theguardian.com/technology/n...

They got those mailers out fast in California

please let this make it to trial

Okay, let me get this straight... Meta poaches OpenAI engineers, then OpenAI poaches xAI engineers, then xAI poaches Meta engineers, now Microsoft is offering multimillion-dollar offers to poach Meta engineers too?

The worst single-day crime spree in modern Washington history, of course, took place on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump issued no order to the National Guard to intervene -- Mike Pence did -- and later pardoned the perpetrators.

Just for the record: Oakland's police department just released this year's crime stats, showing violent crime has fallen by 29% in the first six months of 2025, compared to last year. (Baltimore and NYC are also down) majorcitieschiefs.com/wp-content/u...

New: Israel is starving Palestinians, forcing them to beg for donations on sites like Bluesky. Their accounts keep getting flagged as spam. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Everything about this is amazing. (GPT-5 apparently has something against Johnson, HW Bush and Biden)

OpenAI today urging people to use ChatGPT for cancer diagnosis and treatment advice

NEW: Google has sharply reduced its support for nonprofit groups devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion, in what appears to be another sign that the company is falling in line with President Trump’s anti-DEI crusade, TTP has found.

ICYMI: Amazon still doing Amazon things The company is not only reintroducing new versions of old features that allow police to access footage from Ring users Amazon is introducing a new Ring feature that will allow police to request *livestream* access to our home security devices. @eff.org

This has got to be up there as one of the biggest all-time jury awards in a wrongful death lawsuit. $329 million in total damages -- broken down, that's $129 in compensatory damages and $200 in punitive damages against Tesla www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Zuckerberg writes a manifesto on bringing "personal superintelligence" to everyone to improve humanity, but doesn't even define what superintelligence means. www.meta.com/superintelli...

it's not often you add a CEO quote referencing a dick joke to an earnings story 😑 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Did I hear this right??? On Tesla's earning call, Musk just said the company's driverless robotaxis will be available to about half of the US population by the end of this year

NEW: Hundreds of NASA employees have filed a letter of formal dissent. "We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement, and efficient use of public resources. The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire."

OH MY GOD

So, Congress passes a bill cutting $9B in spending for NPR, PBS and foreign aid. Meanwhile, the federal government has given at least $22B in contracts to one single commercial company -- SpaceX. That's nearly 2.5x as much government money to the private company.

NEW: SpaceX’s plan to expand in the Pacific has largely flown under the radar. So, I started digging thru thousands of pages of government documents and found the company plans to detonate rockets over the Hawaiian Islands. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

I was in Hunt, Texas (a place close to my heart) in 1987 and remember a major flood hitting the Guadalupe. But my memory is fuzzy. So, I tracked down others who were there and learned a horrible tragedy took place that mirrors some of what we witnessed on July 4 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The United States of America, 2025

He’s not a just a simple opponent of affirmative action; the guardian confirms he’s Jordan Lasker — a eugenicist who pals around with Nazis, and the Times is letting him funnel and legitimize his racism through their “news” paper: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

For perspective, Perplexity is valued at $15B and Anthropic at $61B. So, for xAI to be valued at $113B is just...

Peace Corps was added as a defendant in a case against Trump, DOGE, Musk and other govt agencies. The suit alleges the federal govt's reorganization is unlawful. While PC is a defendant, the idea of the suit is to stop DOGE's dismantling of the independent agency democracyforward.org/wp-content/u...

X was rife with talk of "white genocide" today, thanks to Grok responding to random queries with answers about "white genocide in South Africa" that it's "instructed to accept as real." www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

As always, HCR's newsletter is so insightful for the goings-on in today's world. Also appreciate the shout out 🥹

this is just... insane

Cybertrucks are piling up -- apparently no one wants to buy them -- but they can't stop making them, b/c shutting the factory down is too expensive. Great work all around.

Bill McKibben weighs in: "In Tennessee, [Musk is] running into forces seasoned by several generations of struggle."

Got to talk to Justin about all the twists, turns and environmental impact from what's going on with Musk's xAI supercomputer in Memphis

NEW: 13 ex-Palantir employees condemn work with the Trump administration as violating Palantir's code of conduct, including using products to collect data on immigrant children. "These injustices could be facilitated by the very software infrastructure we help build." www.npr.org/2025/05/05/n...

how many jobs can marco rubio have?

Got to help cover this one with @laurengambino.bsky.social

Incredible framing

Mark Zuckerberg says Meta's chatbots will supplement your real friends: "The average American has fewer than 3 friends ... but has demand for ... 15 friends" (h/t x.com/romanhelmetg...)

BREAKING: In a major civil rights victory, a federal court today issued a preliminary injunction barring Border Patrol from using stop-and-arrest practices that violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution. They can’t target people just because they’re Brown, or day laborers, or farm workers.

A Zoox (Amazon’s self driving car subsidiary) car allegedly hit an immigrant food delivery worker on a moped last week in San Francisco. Under Prop 22, the worker neither gets the min wage nor workers’ compensation. What a dystopia!!!

NEW: DOGE cuts at the Peace Corps begin today with various staff being offered a second "fork in the road" buyout. In an internal email sent to staff, Peace Corps CEO said to expect “significant restructuring efforts.” But, for now, volunteers won't be affected. shorturl.at/QyyGz

"Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern and Adam Ramada, a Miami-based venture capitalist, have had accounts on the computer systems... Prior to their work at DOGE, neither Farritor nor Ramada appear to have had experience with either nuclear weapons or handling classified information."

NEW: A federal judge raised alarm Friday that the Trump administration appeared to have deported a 2-year-old U.S. citizen to Honduras with "no meaningful process" — even as her father was fighting to keep her in the country. Details w/ @joshgerstein.bsky.social www.politico.com/news/2025/04...

Just watched the xAI hearing in Memphis, the room was packed. First up was xAI rep Brent Mayo, who got booed. Then people lined up to tell their stories, relatives who died of cancer, severe asthma. The unifying demand was to deny xAI's proposal to burn methane gas with its portable generators

Someone distributing anonymous fliers to residents: "The fliers say that the generators are low emissions and are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Shelby county health department. Both of those agencies have said they did not issue permits for xAI’s gas generators."

The county health department in Memphis is holding a hearing today about pollution from Musk's xAI facility. In the run-up to this hearing, there have been all sorts of hijinks. Here's my story about it: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...