Latest news with #DFD
Politico
6 hours ago
- Business
- Politico
What ‘America First Antitrust' means for Big Tech
There's one big exception to the Trump administration's pro-tech, anti-Biden policy agenda so far — its antitrust efforts. At least since tech CEOs all donated millions of dollars to the inauguration, and sat on the dais, Trump has generally been happy to rub shoulders with Silicon Valley elites, and even more eager to scorch anything that his predecessor put into place. However, that doesn't quite square with the Trump administration's persistence on Big Tech antitrust. Antitrust regulators have all been pursuing the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice's suits against tech giants like Google and Amazon, some filed under former President Joe Biden, some during President Donald Trump's first term. True, there's some indication that Trump sees those suits as leverage in negotiations with tech CEOs. Yet, there's also a seemingly genuine ideological drive behind this antitrust approach — a MAGA anti-tech sentiment rooted in Trump's populism and flag waving. It extends to Republicans in Congress, too, where a pending House Appropriations bill would give the DOJ's antitrust division $310 million next year, $77 million more than what Trump asked for. In the past week, antitrust has come into sharper focus as Gail Slater, the DOJ's competition chief, has become more vocal about enforcement. Slater has started to publicly make her case for what she calls 'America First Antitrust.' She characterizes enforcement as being an inherently patriotic endeavor that defends the liberty of everyday consumers against high prices and fewer purchasing choices. Yet she also seems to be walking a fine line between competing Republican priorities — balancing the traditional pro-business wing of the GOP with the 'forgotten men and women' strains of Trump's movement. 'The Republican Party has two forces within it,' Fiona Scott Morton, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama DOJ's antitrust division, told DFD. 'The money people, corporations who want to be allowed to merge anytime … and then there's the populists who are more against large corporations.' There's no obvious way to resolve that tension. Slater didn't immediately respond to DFD's question about it, but she has started to stake out a potential middle path. On Thursday, Slater penned a barn-burning condemnation of dominant cell carriers for harming customers in a DOJ press release, calling them an 'oligopoly' — but notably, it was part of a larger statement announcing that the DOJ wouldn't stand in the way of T-Mobile's $4.4 billion acquisition of UScellular. Then, in two recent interviews, she went even deeper on Big Tech and protecting consumers, invoking national triumphs in the American Revolution and the Cold War to argue for robust antitrust enforcement. But simultaneously, she warned against being overly aggressive — saying on the Foundation for American Innovation's Tuesday podcast, 'We don't want to be overseeing businesses as if we know what we're doing.' It's too early to tell whether MAGA antitrust policy will gel into a distinctive and coherent framework. Slater's rhetoric nevertheless hints at an approach that will be a bit less hands-on than what we saw under Biden, but more proactive than recent Republican administrations. 'We're not doing Bush antitrust, we're not doing Biden antitrust,' Slater said in an appearance on former White House advisor Steve Bannon's 'War Room' podcast last Wednesday. 'The pendulum swings, but we're doing Trump antitrust.' Slater isn't the only administration official to pitch a MAGA spin on competition policy. FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has also outlined a vision that caters to the Trump voter base, framing antitrust enforcement as a way to rein in online platforms that the GOP has long accused of censorsing conservative viewpoints. And Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a MAGA stalwart mounting a primary challenge against Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), has been using antitrust laws as a culture war cudgel to beat back social media moderation and corporations' environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices. Slater's own focus on Silicon Valley has deep roots: She had a reputation for being wary of tech companies' monopolistic practices during her stint at the FTC's competition bureau from 2004 to 2014. During her current tenure, the DOJ has tried to force Google to share its search data and limit its AI development in an antitrust case over its search monopoly. The department has also continued to pursue a Biden administration case regarding Apple's alleged smartphone monopoly, and sued to block Hewlett Packard from acquiring the software company Juniper Networks — though the DOJ settled at the last minute. When Bannon asked Slater about the tech CEOs who flanked Trump during his inauguration, she brushed the idea of industry-friendliness aside as a 'media narrative.' She cited the president's appointment of tech watchdogs like Ferguson and Mark Meador to the FTC, and referred to herself as a 'cop on the beat.' At the end of the interview, she gave Bannon a souvenir wristband made by the DOJ's trial team in the Google case. It bore the words: 'radical & dangerous' and 'reckless & irresponsible' – which Google had used to describe the DOJ's remedy proposal. Beyond this big talk, there are early indications that there might be some concrete departures from the previous administration's antitrust practices too. In an April address at the University of Notre Dame Law School, Slater asserted that she would advance her agenda through enforcement rather than policy — an approach in line with Trump's pro-business deregulatory aims. On the FAI's podcast, 'The Dynamist,' she pointed out that the DOJ has been quicker to terminate cases or conclude them with settlement agreements. Slater also echoed Paxton and Ferguson in framing antitrust law as a tool to prevent large platforms from censoring conservative speech. William Kovacic, who chaired the FTC under former President George W. Bush, told DFD that Slater seems to be advertising America First Antitrust as 'a sensible centered program that's not too far to the left, not too far to the right.' Yet an ostensible emphasis on Silicon Valley doesn't seem all that different from what the previous administration was doing under former FTC chair Lina Khan, who went after companies like Nvidia and Microsoft. In fact, it can be difficult to put your finger on how exactly America First Antitrust differs from Khan's approach. Khan also wanted to be a populist champion for downtrodden consumers, accusing grocery stores of inflating prices. Beyond her broad proclamations, though, there's still a possibility that Slater's later antitrust moves could fit within the GOP's classic libertarian mold in practice. 'There's rhetoric and then there's actions, and those two things need not be the same,' said Scott Morton, the former Obama official. 'With rhetoric, you might be able to make some people happy, [but] you don't notice that the actions don't quite line up.' The Epstein saga may haunt the FCC Democrats are trying to use the intra-MAGA blowup over Jeffrey Epstein as leverage to stymie the Federal Communications Commission's news media investigations. As POLITICO's John Hendel reports, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter on Wednesday to FCC Chair Brendan Carr regarding a 2024 'Fox & Friends' interview with Trump. In the broadcasted interview, Trump responded to a question about whether he would release the Epstein files by saying, 'Yeah, yeah I would.' The senators accused Fox of misleadingly editing the interview by not airing the rest of the answer, in which Trump seemed to hedge his affirmation, adding there may be 'phony stuff in there' that could 'affect people's lives.' The Senators claim that this editorial decision was more egregious than what's being alleged in the commission's investigation into '60 Minutes.' The FCC is looking into CBS's editorial decision to broadcast two different sections of an answer that Kamala Harris gave when promoting the interview and then airing the full version. 'To be clear, the FCC should not investigate either CBS or Fox,' the letter reads. 'Editorial discretion lies at the heart of press freedom and should not be subject to government interference.' Congress gets rattled by a chip policy pivot Lawmakers are calling for answers on why the Trump administration is lifting restrictions on sales of certain semiconductors to China, POLITICO's Ari Hawkins and Anthony Adragna reported Tuesday. In a Monday blog post, Nvidia announced that the government had assured the company it would approve its applications to sell its H20 AI chips to Chinese customers. The next day, AMD said it also had plans to resume sales of its advanced MI308 chips in China. The White House had imposed export controls on both the H20 and MI308 chips in April. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told POLITICO that he 'strongly supported' the export controls and would seek clarification from the Commerce Department on Nvidia's statement. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said it was 'shameful' that 'Nvidia and the Trump Administration are prioritizing sending these chips to the People's Republic of China.' Nvidia told POLITICO in a statement, 'the Trump Administration's approach promotes American technology leadership and benefits our national and economic security. The [U.S. government] has full visibility over every H20 sale to China.' post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Aaron Mak (amak@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
Politico
a day ago
- Politics
- Politico
How X is fueling the MAGA-Trump split
The Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy saga is blowing up in the White House's face — and Elon Musk's remake of X helped light the fuse. Conspiracy theories about Epstein — and the Trump administration's supposed complicity in silencing them — are starting to split MAGA's unruly factions and turn part of the movement against the president. (For those not following closely: The Department of Justice and FBI issued a joint report last week claiming that Epstein did not have an 'incriminating 'client list'' of powerful individuals whom he introduced to exploited minors — a finding that defied the hopes of right-wing Epstein truthers who President Donald Trump and his allies had been encouraging.) It was Musk himself who wrenched the Epstein affair back into public consciousness during his first open spat with Trump in June. In a now-deleted X post, Musk wrote, '@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.' Trump has not been officially accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein. But Musk bears a deeper responsibility for the mess as well, say experts in online speech — and for whatever damage it inflicts on Trump's coalition. A huge amount of the infighting has unfurled on X, from Musk's initial accusations to far-right activist Laura Loomer's attacks on Attorney General Pam Bondi, to Infowars founder Alex Jones raging at 'deep state' puppet masters in the administration. 'X is really ground zero for a lot of what's going on,' Joan Donovan, a Boston University professor who studies misinformation, told DFD. She added, 'It acts as a constant headache for powerful politicians and the mega-rich that still use the platform.' This would have been unthinkable on Twitter before Musk's reign, when a team of content moderators tried to tamp down on volatile conspiracy theories by kicking off many of the users who are now raising a ruckus. Musk acquired the site for $44 billion in 2022 and began rebuilding it in the name of 'free speech.' By dramatically loosening content moderation rules, X put Republican elites face to face with the fringes of the right — and brought their intramural arguments out of the shadows of 8kun, Gab and other less moderated sites. X did not respond to DFD's request for comment. Back when it was known as Twitter, the platform mounted a series of initiatives to counteract conspiracy theories that were spilling out to create real-world chaos. Twitter tried off and on to purge QAnon content, especially after it was linked to several violent incidents. It then suspended tens of thousands of accounts connected to the Capitol riot in 2021, including Trump's — triggering a massive GOP blowback against social media companies that still continues. Members of these movements had long tried to evade Twitter's moderators. Donovan, who was closely watching the online groups at the time, said that many 'de-identified as QAnon' and then attached themselves to Stop the Steal, the election-conspiracy campaign that was slightly more mainstream, at least until it culminated in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Given Twitter's somewhat inhospitable conditions, the far right's more fantastical narratives tended to flourish on alternative sites such as 4chan, its offshoot 8kun, Rumble and Gab. That all changed when Musk took over Twitter, later renaming it X, and promised to create a digital public square that welcomed content and influential accounts that had previously been banned. Their audiences came along, and X is now the main hub for crackpot beliefs. 'These alternative platforms still exist,' said Jared Holt, a specialist in online extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. 'But the cultural capital they hold in the Trump movement has been almost entirely displaced by X.' Toxic conspiracy theories used to gestate on alternative platforms and then spread to bigger sites. The anonymous leader of QAnon, who claimed to be a senior federal official, would post messages on 8kun that followers would then take to Facebook and Twitter. This content no longer has to cross-pollinate, as users have been emboldened to post it directly on X. The big tent that X provides allows fringe users to directly confront prominent allies of the president, particularly in the comments of their posts. Their streams and posts often land on X's Discover feed, giving the content extra visibility among the mainstream and more center-right media. 'As far as they're concerned, it is activism to be posting on social media,' Renée DiResta, a Georgetown professor who researches online conspiracy theories, told DFD. 'Particularly for the right, they're not wrong that … posting achieves results.' According to Donovan, somewhat more mainstream figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have been able to harness this anger on X. She says Carlson in particular has 'managed to move from the mainstream to the fringes, and then bring some people from the fringes back towards the MAGA right.' Carlson, who straddles these two words, has promoted some of the more obscure threads of the Epstein affair. He suggested during a Turning Point USA conference on Friday that Epstein had connections to the Israeli government, playing into the theory that the deceased sex offender ran a blackmail ring on behalf of the country. That narrative is being amplified on X by Carlson himself, and by the likes of TPUSA's Benny Johnson and conservative commentator Megyn Kelly. The platform is bringing family arguments within the right into public view, and turning the conspiracy theory ecosystem from an asset to a liability for Trump. Podcasts become the go-to policy vehicle Example #2 of how new media is catalyzing politics: Trump is set to deliver a major new AI policy address at an event co-hosted and moderated by the All-In Podcast, POLITICO's Mohar Chatterjee reports. Trump will give the keynote speech at the All-In Podcast's 'Winning the AI Race' Summit in D.C. next week. According to the announcement, the keynote will be 'Trump's first major address on the topic of artificial intelligence since the start of his second term as President.' The podcast isn't just a convenient PR vehicle for Trump: It has already supplied an important White House official. Co-host David Sacks is also the president's AI and crypto czar. Detailing policies on podcasts is in vogue among government officials. The All-In Podcast has also talked through budget reconciliation with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and homelessness initiatives with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. Today, Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater went on the Foundation for American Innovation's podcast to lay out her vision for an America First antitrust policy. The administration has been particularly partial to bro-centric podcasts popular among young men online. Trump and Vice President Vance made the rounds on these shows during their 2024 campaign, and while in office, the two have made return visits to masculine-coded podcasts hosted by the Nelk Boys and Theo Von. As opposed to the stuffiness of a press release, or the potential combativeness of a news interview, podcasts seem to provide a lax venue where officials can shoot the breeze, chuckle uncomfortably at off-color jokes and outline extremely consequential policies with little pushback. The administration launches a drone probe The Commerce Department is set to officially commence two trade investigations into drones and materials for electronics on Wednesday, POLITICO's Ari Hawkins reports. According to a notice to be released tomorrow, the department will be scrutinizing supply chains for drones to look for national security vulnerabilities, unfair trade practices from other countries and opportunities to bring more of the production back home. Of particular concern is the prospect that foreign governments could artificially lower prices by overproducing drones and their components. The notice also suggests that such governments could weaponize segments of the supply chain that they control. The Commerce Department is also planning to publish an investigation notice tomorrow focusing on imports of polysilicon, a crystalline substance used in solar panels and semiconductors. The investigation falls along similar national security and trade practices lines. The drone investigation could lead to tariffs that would raise costs for foreign drone companies like Autel Robotics, and for American farms that deploy the devices to monitor their agricultural operations. Polysilicon tariffs could also affect bottom lines for chip companies, as well as solar panel manufacturers who have warned that import taxes would allow China to dominate the industry. THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Aaron Mak (amak@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
Politico
2 days ago
- Business
- Politico
How war, and Silicon Valley, are driving an Israeli tech rebound
With help from Aaron Mak It wasn't long ago that Israel's tech sector saw a drop in both confidence and global investments. After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack and the ensuing Israeli retaliation in Gaza, foreign direct investment plummeted, and the government injected millions of dollars into the tech industry to try to lure investors. But now, a rebound is firmly underway — led in many cases by American investment. The California semiconductor giant Nvidia is planning a new campus of up to 30 acres in the country's north, it told DFD. Google acquired Israeli-founded cybersecurity company Wiz for $32 billion in March. Since the war began, venture capital firms Sequoia and Greylock announced they were hiring new local partners; Andreessen Horowitz also reportedly made significant new investments in Israel (the company didn't respond to DFD questions). Startup Nation Central, a nonprofit promoting Israeli innovation, found in January that Israeli tech companies raised more than $9.3 billion in the first half of 2025, which it said was the strongest six-month performance in the last three years. Investors in Israel say the recovery is fueled by growing global interest in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, both of which are Israeli strengths, and have now been tested on the battlefield in Gaza. Politically, too, Israel is benefiting from more vocal support in Silicon Valley, despite global criticism of Israel's retaliatory actions. Most recently, Google co-founder Sergey Brin called the United Nations 'transparently antisemitic' after it published a report on companies, including Google, that profit from working with Israel, The Washington Post reported. (Google didn't respond to a question about Brin's comment.) The Financial Times marked the shift in an essay published Monday: 'Despite all the international criticism of Israel for its multiple military offensives, from Gaza to Iran, a surge in foreign buying has fuelled the rally in its stock market…. Israel is cementing its status as the region's dominant economic force.' Shuly Galili, managing partner and founder of the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm UpWest VC, which invests in Israel, said she had noticed the bounceback as well. 'Between October [2023] and January – that was probably the most disruptive period,' she said. She mused that foreign investors might be swooping in to be 'contrarian' and 'to announce this is time to get best deals and put in money on ground.' Israel is not a consensus cause in the tech world, where the rank-and-file politics often lean progressive. Last year, dozens of Google workers protested the company's contract with the Israeli government. The company fired them. Critics continue to target Israeli policies — and its use of technology — as morally questionable. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accused Israel of war crimes in the course of an onslaught that has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. And Palestinians say Israeli's dominance in AI should not be a selling point - it should be a cautionary tale. One group called it 'the most nefarious threat to Palestinians' living under Israeli control because of its speed, potential inaccuracies and the shift of responsibility to machines. But these concerns do not seem to have dented Israel's appeal for investors — especially those looking for advanced military technology powered by AI. It's all a remarkable pivot from the early days after Hamas attacked Israel and killed 1,200 people, taking hundreds more hostage. After the attack — and Israel's overwhelming military reaction — airlines canceled their flights, major tech companies nixed events, and the sector's workers were in and out of reserves. By 2024, one financial newspaper reported tech deals were at a five-year low. But since then, economically at least, the conflict has gone from a liability to something more like a proof of concept. In one literal example, the state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems appeared to show a real-life drone attack on a man in a promotional video for its Spike Firefly loitering munition, which one analyst geolocated to northern Gaza. The company did not respond to a request for comment. Startup Nation Central's CEO Avi Hasson said in a statement that defense companies have shifted into 'high gear: battlefield urgency has fast-tracked development, surfaced exceptional talent, and inspired a new wave of entrepreneurs. Startups are pouring into this space, and capital is following.' Grant Demaree, a U.S. military veteran and founder of the Pentagon contractor Onebrief, says Israel had offered some real-world lessons in how to integrate AI on the battlefield. 'The biggest lesson is that for AI to be useful, it need not to be perfect, it just needs to significantly outperform people,' he said. As an example, he mentioned AI for targeting. 'We know humans make a lot of targeting mistakes all the time,' he said. 'If you can have an AI that makes fewer mistakes and is significantly faster, I think that contributes to a better outcome and is just better than just doing the process manually, even if that is still imperfect.' Palestinians say AI — far from 'outperforming' — is responsible for some of the worst carnage of the conflict. Hani Almadhoun, who lives in the Washington, D.C. area and runs a soup kitchen in his native Gaza using GoFundMe, said his brother Majed was killed with his wife and children in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023; a second brother Mahmoud was killed a year later by a drone. He told DFD he suspected Majed might have been mistakenly targeted by AI, though he had no way to confirm the feeling. 'AI hasn't made war smarter. It's just made it way easier to kill people without feeling guilty about it,' he said. 'That's not progress; that's just pure horror, all wrapped up in fancy computer code,' he said. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to POLITICO's questions. In response to previous reports that soldiers were relying on an AI-based program to identify targets, the Israeli military said that AI was only used in 'auxiliary tools that assist officers in the process of incrimination.' Meanwhile, Silicon Valley's politics are shifting, with Israel fitting into a new, Trump-aligned sensibility. After Brin complained about a UN report accusing 48 companies – including Google, Microsoft, Palantir and Amazon – of complicity in Israel's 'economy of genocide,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio sanctioned its author. In Washington, after a Palestinian heckler accused Palantir of killing Palestinians with AI, CEO Alex Karp retorted, 'Mostly terrorists, that's true.' Galili, the Israeli investor, said the war disrupted travel for investors and founders. But she said, 'overall we've seen a lot of support from tech leaders. I'm based in Silicon Valley and my day to day is interacting with investors in Silicon Valley. There was day-to-day a lot of support.' There are still other factors that could slow down Israel's tech dominance. President Donald Trump has announced huge deals to sell semiconductors and build data centers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which could eventually become tech powerhouses. A more tangible cloud on the horizon might be internal politics. Before October 7, Israel was riven by protests over a plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to overhaul the judicial system. That began scaring investors away. A new survey by AllJobs finds nearly three-quarters of Israeli workers considering relocation overseas. 'Many things can spark political unrest,' Galili said. 'External threats we can deal with, internal threats – we're still working on it.' California AI bills get delayed After hitting legislative hurdles, lawmakers are putting off their push for two pathbreaking AI bills in Sacramento, POLITICO's California Decoded team reports. One bill, sponsored by assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, has pitted Hollywood against the tech industry. AB 412 would allow copyright owners to request information on the datasets that developers use to train their AI models. Hollywood power players, like the actors union SAG-AFTRA, have backed the bill as a tool for artists to protect their rights. However, the AI industry has warned that AB 412 would stifle innovation. Bauer-Kahan has paused her efforts to pass the bill until 2026. Her spokesperson told POLITICO's Tyler Katzenberger that this will give them time to 'resolve outstanding issues.' Democratic state Sen. Jerry McNerney is also delaying action on SB 813, which would create expert panels to vet AI systems, after the bill got stuck in the Senate Appropriations Committee. If passed, developers would have the option to voluntarily submit their models for inspection in exchange for legal protections in personal injury cases. The Decoded team reported that a mysterious nonprofit called Fathom has been advocating for the bill since its inception. Fathom has $25 million in funding, though it hasn't disclosed who exactly its donors are. It's 'crypto week' at the House The House is set to vote on two cryptocurrency bills during what Republicans lawmakers are calling 'crypto week,' staffers told POLITICO's Jasper Goodman. On Wednesday, the House is expected to vote on legislation that would effectively ban Federal Reserve banks from issuing digital currencies. Republicans have expressed concerns that such assets would give the government too much power in the cryptocurrency space. However, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) wrote in a May House Financial Services Committee report that cryptocurrency backed by central banks could have 'a greater potential to gain broad public trust and utilization (especially after numerous digital assets have been used to defraud Americans).' The House will then vote on Thursday on the Senate's GENIUS Act, which establishes a regulatory framework for stablecoins — cryptocurrency that is pegged to another kind of asset, like the dollar. It includes provisions to split up oversight duties among market regulators and implement measures against money laundering. If passed, the legislation could lend more legitimacy to stablecoins, and allow financial institutions to get more involved in the cryptocurrency sector. Trump's sons notably founded a cryptocurrency firm last year known as World Liberty Financial Inc., which issues a stablecoin. post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Aaron Mak (amak@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
Politico
01-07-2025
- Politico
AI is coming for our wireless networks
With help from Aaron Mak Artificial intelligence feels like it's everywhere these days, and the wireless networks connecting our devices will soon be no exception. Telecom wonks are determining how AI should be built into sprawling cellular networks to better transmit phone calls and allocate resources for the hundreds of data-hungry apps that people use each day. Every decade or so, a new generation of wireless technology arrives for our phones, marked in the transitions from 2G to 3G and so on. We're on 5G now, which brought the fastest speeds people have seen to date, starting in 2019. That means it's time to prepare for 6G in the next five years. That's the era when many people believe AI will play a significant role in juggling and allocating the resources powering devices and AI-related tools. 'The transition to 6G will be a lot more visible,' Ronnie Vasishta, senior vice president of telecom at Nvidia, told DFD during a recent visit to Washington. 'For a long time, 5G was looking for that monetizable killer app, and I think that check mark comes with these generative AI use models.' 6G's more expansive promises, where cellular networks converge with AI, quantum and other tech efforts premised on explosive speeds and better computing power, have taken shape since the start of the decade and finally feel at hand. Initial 6G deployments could come as soon as 2028 or so, Vasishta believes, with many companies eyeing 2030 as the big 6G year. The new era could see smart glasses and autonomous vehicles competing for 6G bandwidth in a sea of internet-connected devices and more widespread integration of generative AI. At play will also be better sensing technology, which will have both commercial and defense applications, and better tools to fight spam calls (although spammers will likely have their own enhanced tools). This parade of new applications will strain the capacity of 5G networks. 'We're going to see the network holding us back,' Vasishta added. 'All of a sudden, we'll start seeing a pressing need for 6G. But 6G will be kind of a different type of network.' And it's meant a broader industry conversation about how to handle this transformation. The fact that Nvidia, a tech giant best known for chipmaking, cares at all about 6G is a sign of how broad the transition — and AI's role in it — is likely to be. Vasishta is focused on the company's AI platform that's intended to blend wireless network operations with faster computing power. The goal is what the industry calls 'AI-native 6G wireless,' which could bring a host of benefits, including the more efficient use of spectrum and better network operations. Nvidia's efforts picked up last fall as the company announced a partnership with cellular heavyweight T-Mobile and expanded it in March to a broader coalition of like-minded players, including the MITRE Corp, Cisco, Open RAN Development Company and Booz Allen Hamilton, all trying to figure out how these new systems are supposed to work. The participants also know they need to keep 6G secure, and that includes the global push against Chinese telecom giants like Huawei. Nvidia's 6G ambitions are also far-reaching. It just announced a collaboration with the British government on the topic and touts ongoing research in Finland, Germany and France. Much of the global story around 5G involved fighting between the U.S. and China over the sway of Huawei and fellow Chinese powerhouse ZTE. The U.S. has decreed both companies national security threats and sought to minimize their global presence — but China is very much still a part of the story. '6G is not far away — the standards process has started and is being fully engaged by the global U.S. competitors,' Douglas Robbins, vice president of engineering and prototyping at MITRE Labs, told DFD. 'Huawei is very active, just presented recently their vision for AI in 6G.' That means, per Robbins, 'the time is now' for the U.S. to assert a leadership role in crafting 6G, which means creating the technical standards for it, and fostering research for the transition. He hopes to see flexible standards that allow companies to regularly update their software-based wireless architecture and that embrace post-quantum cryptography and security protocols. Washington, of course, is paying attention, at least in fits and starts. The Biden administration had hammered out high-level 6G principles. Last month the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a subcommittee hearing on AI's role in communications infrastructure, where Vasishta testified about Nvidia's endeavors. And the GOP is now seeking to free huge tranches of wireless frequencies for the private sector in the party's reconciliation package — 'serious power for American Leadership on 6G,' President Donald Trump proclaimed on Truth Social in June. But the road to wireless supremacy may come with bumps. U.S. policy, as this year shows, can swerve in unexpected directions. Although lawmakers devoted $1.5 billion to advanced wireless research in the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act — grants aimed at fostering 5G open radio access networks, intended to help boost U.S. competition with China — Republicans are now looking to scrap the remaining funds in their reconciliation bill. That cut was included in the Senate legislation that passed Tuesday. The country's R&D efforts also face heightened pressure as the Trump administration eyes restricting foreign student visas and scaling back federal support for research. 'We need government help in fostering research,' Vasishta said. 'In the U.S, there's some amazing research that's happening in the area of AI native wireless. … At the end of the day, those researchers also need research funding, and there's some fundamental research that's coming out of the U.S. that I think could make a big difference to standards committees.' The iPhone antitrust case moves forward A federal judge has ruled Apple must face claims that it has an illegal smartphone monopoly. In his ruling Monday, Judge Julien Neals of the U.S. District Court for New Jersey wrote that the Justice Department and several states adequately presented evidence showing Apple allegedly has a smartphone monopoly given its 65 percent share of the market. He also found it was plausible that Apple intended to maintain its dominance through monopolistic practices. The decision points to barriers such as third-party phones having difficulties connecting to Apple Watch, accessing iMessage features, and making digital payments without Apple Wallet. Apple, which is represented by a legal team from Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, said in a statement, 'We believe this lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law, and we will continue to vigorously fight it in court.' Denmark wants age verification across the EU Denmark is looking to make age verification for children on social media a priority as it takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union starting Tuesday. 'All European countries have the opportunity to demand from the Big Tech platforms that they introduce this [age verification],' Caroline Stage Olsen, Denmark's digital affairs minister, told POLITICO Europe's Eliza Gkritsi. Olsen has also been pushing to adjust the EU's General Data Protection Regulation to raise the threshold for parental consent for data processing of minors from its current standard of children under 13 up to 15. These efforts build on momentum in Denmark and other European countries to more tightly regulate kids' online activities. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called for a ban last year on social media use by kids under 15. Danish officials have also said they believe that online platforms are fueling a spate of youth gang violence. French President Emmanuel Macron threatened last month to ban social media for those younger than 15 if the EU did not institute more youth internet restrictions for the bloc. Spain, Greece and the United Kingdom have also moved to institute additional age-based restrictions for platform use. post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Aaron Mak (amak@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
Politico
12-06-2025
- Business
- Politico
Why tech is so quiet on the California protests
With help from Alfred Ng and Anthony Adragna The explosive immigration protests in California have become a national talking point, with politicians, celebrities and major interest groups all weighing in. Notably missing is California's wealthiest industry — one with its own big stake in the immigration debate. The biggest players in Silicon Valley have been sitting this one out, even as Waymo cars go up in flames in Los Angeles and protests spread to the Bay Area. Tech companies rely heavily on foreign-born workers, and on high-skilled immigration in particular. And the industry was vocal in the immigration debate just six months ago, rallying for the H-1B and student visa pipelines that have reliably attracted talent to their workforces. Tech figures even seemed cautiously optimistic that Donald Trump's administration might help them loosen some of the rules, with leaders like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen trying to coax Trump into increasing visa numbers. The LA protests, however — and the militarized government response — have radically shifted the immigration conversation in ways that make even a powerful industry hesitant to try to tamp things down. Given the sharp divides in public opinion over the protests, and the deportations that sparked them, Big Tech is steering clear of a combustible situation. 'Anything that increases the tension around immigration will just make it harder for tech,' said Nu Wexler, a consultant who formerly worked in policy communications for Facebook and Google. 'In this culture of fear, I would be surprised if the large companies speak up,' he said. DFD called around to see where the biggest companies stood. Meta declined to comment on the protests, referring DFD to its November 2022 statement promising support for laid-off employees on work visas. Google and Amazon declined to comment on the record. Microsoft and Apple did not respond to DFD's inquiries. Trade associations restated their support for high-skilled immigration to DFD, while not directly touching on the clashes in LA. 'We need smart immigration policy,' said Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association. An analyst for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said that restricting high-skilled immigration 'would be a serious mistake.' In one sense, the protests don't immediately implicate Silicon Valley. The ICE raids that sparked the uproar were reportedly targeting subsistence workers at Home Depot parking lots and car washes, as well as a 9-year-old LA elementary school student, not immigrants who came for STEM jobs. But the industry has been dragged in anyway. Former Trump aide Steve Bannon explicitly called out Big Tech when lambasting the protests during his War Room podcast on Tuesday. 'You control who comes here as citizens,' he said. 'Silicon Valley doesn't want that … they're hiring everybody in the revolution of artificial intelligence, they're still bringing 135,000 H-1Bs because they detest American citizens.' Bannon also came out swinging six months ago, when Musk started pushing on the issue — calling the H1-B program a 'total scam,' and Musk a billionaire 'toddler' solely focused on his own wealth. As POLITICO reported, then-incoming deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller was also working behind the scenes to slash visas for educated immigrants at the time. The tech companies aren't just trying to avoid being slammed again, though — they also have other business to worry about. As one observer put it, they don't want to alienate Republicans who can help pass favorable tax laws and ease up costly tariffs. 'High-skilled immigration never really ranks as a number one priority for any of them,' said an industry insider who asked not to be named due to consulting work with several major companies. 'It doesn't impact quarterly earnings, unlike the other issues.' They might not be able to sit it out forever, though. Rallies against ICE cropped up in San Francisco last weekend, with police arresting participants by Sunday. The nationwide No Kings protests against Trump set for the upcoming weekend are reportedly expected to attract thousands of people to the Bay Area. Wexler also thinks that certain developments in Washington could force big tech companies to get involved, noting that a policy change seriously impacting their workforces could 'push companies out of their comfort zone.' Macron's smartphone ban challenge French President Emanuel Macron is facing a host of legal, technical and lobbying challenges as he seeks to ban social media for children under 15, POLITICO's Eliza Gkritsi, Ellen O'Regan, Émile Marzolf and Klara Durand report. Macon is pushing for an EU-wide age verification law, but is threatening to go it alone if Brussels balks. 'I'm giving us a few months to achieve European mobilization. Otherwise, I will negotiate with the Europeans so that we can do it ourselves in France,' Macon said earlier this week. There's also the matter of who should verify the age of online users. Different wings of the tech industry — especially in the United States — have clashed over who should be responsible for checking the ages of internet users. Then there's the battle with the porn industry, which must verify users' ages under a new French law. That prompted the owner of Pornhub, Redtube and YouPorn to stop serving porn in France earlier in June. Trump's take on Obama 'Hope' poster The White House's Instagram account is making posters of alleged criminals that play off former President Barack Obama's iconic 'Hope' poster from his 2008 campaign. It has made five posts in this style since May, the first of which labeled Salvadoran native Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a member of the MS-13 gang, with an Obama logo on his shoulder. Its most recent post was a wanted poster for a man accused of assaulting federal officers in Los Angeles. The White House did not confirm or deny whether it is using AI to generate the images. The wanted posters aren't just needling Obama, perhaps Trump's greatest political foil — they're knocking off the aesthetic of artist Shepard Fairey, whose anti-authoritarian street-art roots gave the posters their cachet in the first place. Asked about the use of Obama's campaign imagery, Trump spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the posters were designed to associate Democrats with 'rioters and criminal illegal aliens.' 'The White House is always looking for creative, eye-catching ways to highlight the important work the Trump Administration is doing,' said Jackson. DFD also reached out to Fairey, who replied that the Trump administration's posts are the opposite of his original work's intent. 'Trump may be emulating my style, but we couldn't be more different on substance,' he said. post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Aaron Mak (amak@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
