Techmeme
February 4, 2025, 2:50 AM

Top News

Evan Weinberger / Bloomberg Law:
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent orders the CFPB to stop activities, like rulemaking, communications, and litigation; in November, Musk said to “Delete CFPB”  —  Search by Topic  —  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has shut down a wide variety of operations inside …
Bloomberg:
Donald Trump signs an executive action to direct officials to create a US sovereign wealth fund and says that it could be used to facilitate a sale of TikTok US  —  - Fund could be used as US facilitates TikTok sale, Lutnick says  — Bessent says fund will be created in the next 12 months
Makena Kelly / Wired:
Sources: Thomas Shedd, GSA's new Technology Transformation Services director and Elon Musk ally, told GSA workers the agency will pursue an “AI-first strategy”  —  Sources say the former Tesla engineer now in charge of the Technology Transformation Services wants an agency that operates like a “startup software company.”
Caleb Ecarma / Musk Watch:
CBC News:
Ontario Premier Doug Ford pauses retaliatory measures like “ripping up” the province's CA$100M Starlink contract, after Donald Trump delays US tariffs on Canada  —  Retaliatory measures included ‘ripping up’ Starlink contract, taking American booze of LCBO shelves
Financial Times:
The US' largest companies, like Visa, United, Amazon, Apple, and Oracle, are cutting deals with Elon Musk's businesses as he solidifies his power in government  —  Companies from Boeing to Amazon have sought out the world's richest man as he seeks to remake US government
Bloomberg:
A US appeals court panel appeared skeptical of Google's bid to overturn a 2023 jury verdict that declared the Play Store an illegal monopoly in the Epic case  —  - Jury ruled Google violated antitrust law by restricting apps  — Google argues case shouldn't have been decided by jury
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
The first ever native iPhone porn app, Hot Tub, arrives in the EU via the alternative app store AltStore PAL, which was made possible by the DMA  —  A native pornography app for iOS is coming to the EU via the approved alternative app store AltStore PAL, made possible by Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Josh Xiao / Bloomberg:
China's State Administration for Market Regulation says it will probe Google for antitrust violations, moments after Trump announced tariffs on Chinese goods  —  China announced an investigation into Google and imposed new tariffs on a range of US products moments after President Donald Trump slapped …
Ben Bergman / Business Insider:
Dick Kramlich, who co-founded NEA in 1977, died on February 1 at age 89; he was an early investor in Apple and led investments in Juniper Networks and others  —  - Richard “Dick” Kramlich made one of the earliest investments in Apple.  — He cofounded NEA in 1977, which now has nearly $26 billion in assets under management.
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
Anthropic details Constitutional Classifiers, a protective LLM layer designed to stop AI model jailbreaking by monitoring inputs and outputs for harmful content  —  Leading tech groups including Microsoft and Meta also invest in similar safety systems  —  Artificial intelligence start …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Turn financial data into better business decisions  —  This is a guest blog by ScaleXP.For CEOs and CFOs of growing small and mid-sized businesses, financial data is everywhere.  Invoices, expenses, subscriptions …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic vs. The Pentagon, Bloodbath at Block, The Citrini Selloff
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Hard Fork:
Is A.I. Eating the Labor Market? + The Latest on the Pentagon, OpenClaw and Alpha School
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Valar Atomics' Isaiah Taylor: Solving AI's Energy Crisis With Nuclear 'Gigasites'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Access:
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on surviving the AI slop-pocalypse
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:50 AM ET, February 4, 2025.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Andrew Orr / AppleInsider:
Samantha Subin / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Ethan Mollick / One Useful Thing:
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: