The 2024 election – The Verge

Trump announces new tech policy picks for his second term

2024-12-23T09:44:01-05:00

Michael Kratsios appearing at the Web Summit in 2019. | Photo by Rita Franca/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In a pair of Truth Social posts on Sunday, Donald Trump announced a set of picks for his administration's tech policy team that will report to David Sacks, Trump's "AI and crypto czar." The picks include Michael Kratsios, who will lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) if confirmed by the Senate.

Kratsios, who served in Trump's first term as the White House chief technology officer, also briefly held an acting undersecretary role at the Department of Defense near the end of the term. He later became a managing director at Scale AI and has been helping lead Trump's tech policy transition team.

The President-elect also picke …

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David Sacks is Trump’s AI and crypto ‘czar’

2024-12-05T20:50:55-05:00

David Sacks speaking at the 2024 Republican National Convention. | Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump says that VC and All-In podcast co-host David Sacks will be the "White House A.I. & Crypto Czar."

The appointment of Sacks, who hosted a $300,000-a-person dinner at his San Francisco mansion to fundraise for Trump's campaign, follows the appointment of fellow PayPal mafia member Elon Musk to co-lead the "Department of Government Efficiency." According to Bloomberg, like Musk, Sacks will be "a special government employee" who can serve up to 130 days a year without divesting or publicly disclosing his assets.

Here's what Sacks will be tasked with in his role, according to Trump:

In this important role, David wi …

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Jeff Bezos says he’s ‘very optimistic this time around’ about Trump

2024-12-04T17:45:38-05:00

Jeff Bezos. | Laura Normand / The Verge

Jeff Bezos and President-elect Donald Trump famously didn't get along the last time Trump was in the White House. This time, Bezos says he's "very optimistic" and even wants to help out.

"I'm actually very optimistic this time around," Bezos said of Trump during a rare public appearance at The New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday. "He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help him do that, I'm going to help him."

Trump railed against Bezos and his companies - Amazon, Blue Origin, and The Washington Post - during his 2016 term. Bezos defended himself but it did little to help his reputation with Trump. No …

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Meta says it’s mistakenly moderating too much

2024-12-03T08:00:00-05:00

Meta is mistakenly removing too much content across its apps, according to a top executive.

Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, told reporters on Monday that the company's moderation "error rates are still too high" and pledged to "improve the precision and accuracy with which we act on our rules."

"We know that when enforcing our policies, our error rates are still too high, which gets in the way of the free expression that we set out to enable," Clegg said during a press call I attended. "Too often, harmless content gets taken down, or restricted, and too many people get penalized unfairly."

He said the company regrets aggre …

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Mark Zuckerberg had dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago

2024-11-27T21:11:28-05:00

Mark Zuckerberg. | The Verge | Photo by Tom Williams via Getty Images

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met President-elect Donald Trump for dinner at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday.

"It's an important time for the future of American Innovation," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement shared with The Verge. "Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming Administration."

Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to Trump, also confirmed the meeting in an interview with Fox News: "Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of, and a participant in, this change that we're seeing all around America, all …

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Tech CEOs want to replicate Tim Cook’s Donald Trump playbook

2024-11-24T16:18:07-05:00

Tim Cook and then-President Donald Trump, speaking to the Press in Austin, Texas in 2019. | Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images

Apple CEO Tim Cook managed to forge a personal relationship with Donald Trump during his first Presidential term that other tech firms struggled to replicate. Now, others are trying to follow his template, says a Wall Street Journal report today.

Cook used direct appeals to influence Trump's 2017 tax policy and to get him to dial back his 2019 tariffs in ways that benefitted Apple. In exchange, Trump got to look good; as the Journal points out, Cook didn't correct Trump when claimed responsibility for Apple opening an Austin manufacturing plant that had already been around for years and wasn't even owned by Apple.

Part of Cook's strategy w …

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A study found that X’s algorithm now loves two things: Republicans and Elon Musk

2024-11-17T11:31:40-05:00

Elon Musk's X may have tweaked its algorithm to boost his account, along with those of other conservative-leaning users, starting around the time he announced his support of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. That's according to a new study published by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), which found that Musk's posts in particular were suddenly much more popular.

The study's authors - QUT associate professor in digital media Timothy Graham and Monash University communications and media studies professor Mark Andrejevic - first looked at Musk's engagement before and after his July endorsement of Trump. They report that startin …

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Why Robinhood’s CEO thinks prediction markets are here to stay

2024-11-08T15:53:29-05:00

This week's presidential election introduced a lot of people to prediction markets.

Kalshi was the number one app in the App Store on Election Day. The CEO of Polymarket claims the Trump campaign first realized they were winning from his startup's stats, which showed them winning by a landslide hours before news networks called the race. There's a sense in some tech and finance circles that these betting markets are now a better "wisdom of the crowd" indicator than polls.

Robinhood joined the fray just in the nick of time. A week before the election, the company announced that its first-ever prediction market would be for the presidential …

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All the Big Tech leaders congratulating Donald Trump

2024-11-06T13:08:09-05:00

Big Tech leaders from across the industry are lining up to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory in the US presidential election. Trump has butted heads with many of the executives now cozying up to the soon-to-be president, who recently threatened to throw Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in prison and said Google could be broken up because its search results are "rigged."

Despite these comments (and the conflicts during Trump's previous presidency), many of the tech CEOs targeted by Trump in the past are now coming forward with statements about his win. Here's what some of the biggest names in tech are saying:

Apple CEO Tim Cook

"Congratulatio …

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Another Trump presidency is literally toxic — his opponents are gearing up for battle

2024-11-06T10:02:17-05:00

Donald Trump clinched a presidential victory, ushering in another term of environmental rollbacks that'll make it more difficult to safeguard our air, water, and climate.

"Environmental [regulation] is the biggest tool for stopping growth … it costs much more to do things environmentally clean," Trump said in a rambling three-hour interview with Joe Rogan on October 25th, when he falsely claimed the US had "the cleanest air and cleanest water" under his watch.

The last time he was president, Trump slashed air and water protections, replacing them with weaker rules that, over time, were expected to lead to thousands more deaths from polluti …

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