Techmeme: Arguments start Monday in the FTC's antitrust suit targeting Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, amid reports Zuckerberg asked Trump to intervene (Washington Post)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

April 12, 2025, 3:25 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:

The Trump administration exempts smartphones, laptops, hard drives, processors, memory chips, and machines used to make semiconductors from reciprocal tariffs — President Donald Trump's administration exempted smartphones, computers and other electronics from its so-called reciprocal tariffs …

More: CNBC, U.S. Customs …, BBC, AppleInsider, Barron's Online, Associated Press, Gizmodo, CNET, TechRadar, Benzinga, TechCrunch, Neowin, Financial Times, MacRumors, The Information, Nikkei Asia, Los Angeles Times, Cointelegraph, Reuters, The Irish Times, Mashable, UPI, Axios, Windows Central, The Mac Observer, Tech in Asia, Liliputing, Digital Trends, New York Times, USA Today, Fox Business, The Verge, PhoneArena, Android Central, Daily Mail, RedState, Mirror, Yahoo Finance, ZeroHedge News, 9to5Mac, Latest from Digital …, Wall Street Pit, Mediaite, Politico, Forbes, KVUE-TV, and Mock Paper Scissors

Mastodon: @TonyStark@progressivecafe …, @joeycastillo@mastodon.social, and @KimPerales@toad.social

Threads: @carnage4life and @carnage4life

X: @tradingthomas3, @mattyglesias, @armanddoma, @nikitabier, @teroterotero, @armanddoma, @nicknotned, @charlesarthur, @joannastern, @pt, @petespiliakos, @tianan_, @modestproposal1, @birdyword, @jraines, @dkaushik96, @mohit_emkay, @josephpolitano, @yeselson, @mooremorrissemi, @zac_petkanas, @benthompson, @armanddoma, @nmf_bru, @nkulw, @markgurman, @jamessurowiecki, @historyboomer, @scottlincicome, @josephpolitano, @danprimack, @rjunkapoor, @danpfeiffer, @jessesingal, @dkthomp, @keithmancuso, @alessiotmad, @lewis_goodall, @anthonydelage, @morqon, @josephpolitano, @besttrousers, @seanobannon_, @typesfast, @justinwolfers, @aaronblake, @jonathanchait, @realjimchanos, @teroterotero, @idothethinking, @itsandrewjude, @divestech, @johncoogan, @scottlincicome, @teroterotero, @teroterotero, @geiger_capital, @confusedsith, @mattbruenig, @pewilliams_, @mattyglesias, @levie, @mgsiegler, @robertgkepes, @ernietedeschi, @travisyost, @zhao_dashuai, @hasanthehun, @dimi, @selinawangtv, and @dimi

LinkedIn: Daniel Ives, Mollie Sitkowski, Deborah Elms, Lori Mullins, Andy Rothman, and Keefe John

Washington Post:

Arguments start Monday in the FTC's antitrust suit targeting Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, amid reports Zuckerberg asked Trump to intervene — Arguments start Monday in the FTC's blockbuster antitrust suit targeting Facebook's purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp, as Zuckerberg pleads for the White House to intervene.

More: The Verge, Tech in Asia, Fast Company, CNBC, Tech Policy Press, Cryptopolitan, and Wall Street Pit

Bluesky: @willoremus.com and @colinbowern.com. Forums: r/technology

Bloomberg:

Netflix is testing an OpenAI-powered search engine that lets users find shows via inquiries that go beyond genres or actors' names, like the subscriber's mood — The OpenAI-powered search engine lets customers look for shows using far more specific terms, including the subscriber's mood, for example, the company said.

More: Engadget, The Verge, iDownloadBlog.com, Digital Trends, Financial Express, Tech in Asia, and Trusted Reviews

Bluesky: @carnage4life and @quinnypig.com. X: @jakuuire. Forums: r/technology

See also Mediagazer

Makena Kelly / Wired:

Sources: Palantir is helping DOGE build an API layer above all IRS databases; DOGE wants Palantir's Foundry software to be the “read center of all IRS systems” — For the past three days, DOGE and a handful of Palantir representatives, along with dozens of career IRS engineers …

Bluesky: @krazylars, @wired.com, @wired.com, @emptywheel, @sbyrnes, @techviews, @whodat35, @couts, and @katie-drummond. Mastodon: @JorisMeys@mstdn.social. X: @wired

Forums: r/technology, r/politics, r/feddiscussion, r/fednews, and r/TrueReddit

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Binance asked the US Treasury last month to loosen oversight on its AML compliance, after Binance entered into deal talks with Trump's crypto venture — Executives for the cryptocurrency exchange met with Treasury officials last month after the company entered into talks with a Trump family venture

More: Cryptopolitan, Cointelegraph, CoinGape, DL News, The Crypto Times, Reuters, Crypto Briefing, Coinpedia Fintech News, and Bloomberg

Bluesky: @ilyamarritz and @taraconlan. X: @tier10k

Meaghan Tobin / New York Times:

ByteDance, which spent an estimated $11B in 2024 on infrastructure for AI, is using data from ~1B users of its apps as the linchpin of its growing AI business — A set of popular apps helped China's ByteDance develop a key component of advanced artificial intelligence: information on how a billion people use the internet.

More: Politico

Ryan Weeks / Bloomberg:

Architect Partners: Q1 2025 was a record quarter for crypto M&A with 61 deals and $2.2B in total deal value, including Kraken's $1.5B acquisition of NinjaTrader — A false dawn for M&A? — Is the crypto M&A boom for real? We asked Casper Johansen, partner at The Spartan Group, a digital assets advisory firm.

More: Architect Partners and Architect Partners. X: @business

Gabriela Sá Pessoa / Rest of World:

A look at the battle between Uber and its unlikely ally, Chinese-owned rival 99, against the São Paulo city government, which banned motorcycle taxis in 2023 — The ride-hailing rivals are taking on the government of São Paulo, which banned motorcycle taxis.

Bluesky: @rinachandran. LinkedIn: Gabriela Sá Pessoa

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Appfigures: ChatGPT was the most downloaded app globally in March, excluding games, with 46M downloads across App Store and Google Play, its biggest month ever — ChatGPT became the world's most downloaded app in March, excluding games, topping the usual contenders for the No. 1 spot, Instagram and TikTok.

More: 9to5Mac, Business Today, Nairametrics, The Economic Times, Moneycontrol, and CNET

Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News:

Asia's startup funding fell 40% YoY to ~$13B in Q1 2025, the lowest funding for a quarter since $12.3B in Q4 2014; AI startup funding fell 50% YoY to just $1.8B — While OpenAI's massive $40 billion funding boosted global and North America's funding totals, Asia was not so lucky.

X: @crunchbasenews

Counterpoint Research:

In Q1 2025, SK Hynix overtook Samsung for the first time to lead global DRAM revenues with a 36% share, driven by its dominant 70% market share in HBM — - SK Hynix takes lead for first time ever in DRAM, grabbing 36% share of revenues in Q1 2025 — In particular, the company dominated in critical HBM with 70% market share

More: SamMobile, KED Global, SammyGuru, DigiTimes, and Tech in Asia. X: @counterpointtr

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.

Cape:

Most carriers track everything. Cape doesn't. — Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more. Switch today and get 29% off for life.

Zoho:

Introducing Zoho Expense MCP: Turn conversations into expense workflows — Artificial intelligence (AI) has already changed how we search for information, summarize documents, and analyze data.

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

Demis Steps Down, Apple's Memory Problem, Microsoft's Clever Trick

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.

Hard Fork:

The White House's Secret A.I. Rules + The State of Model Alignment With METR's Chris Painter + The Final Hot Mess Express

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.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Oliver Darcy on Status, Bari Weiss, and Why Media Reporters Are Too Soft

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.

Training Data:

Chai Discovery's Bitter Lesson: Drug Design Is Another Scaling Problem

Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.

Subscribe to Training Data.

Invest Like the Best:

Gavin Baker - AI Market Jitters

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:25 PM ET, April 12, 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.

From Mediagazer

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Trump names Danielle Thumann, an adviser to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, to serve as an FCC commissioner; if confirmed, she'd bring the Republican majority to 3-1

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

Scripps' CEO says the company is adopting a streaming news model enabled by AI, including cutting 12% of staff, and praises the FCC's lift of the ownership cap

Sarah Whitten / CNBC:

With the addition of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, four movies in 2026 have earned $1B+ at the box office globally, the most in one year since the Covid pandemic

Upcoming Tech Events

Made By Google "The next generation of Pixel" media event

New York

Aug 12

Earnings: CBRS, Tencent, CSCO, Foxconn

WordCamp US ***Use promo code “techmeme” for 50% off*** REGISTER NOW

Phoenix

Aug 18

Earnings: BIDU, Xiaomi

Aug 25

Earnings: ZM, INTU

Aug 25-27

VIRTUAL: The Six Five Summit: AI Unleashed 2026 Featuring Marc Benioff & Enterprise AI Leaders REGISTER FOR FREE

Abstract by Convex REGISTER NOW

New York Times DealBook Summit

More News

Connor Jones / The Register:

UK government report: 43% of businesses faced a cyber breach or attack in the past year; phishing was the most common type, affecting 85% of those attacked

More: BetaNews, Tech Monitor, The Stack, and ITPro. LinkedIn: Simon Lang

Kate O'Keeffe / Bloomberg:

US investigators are probing whether the China ties of TP-Link Systems Inc., the US-based business of Wi-Fi router giant TP-Link, pose an “unacceptable risk”

X: @business, @kate_okeeffe, @marksimonhk, @tomcottonar, and @dnvolz. Forums: Slashdot

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Google says some terms in AI Overviews will link to Google's search results “to help people more easily explore topics and discover relevant websites”

More: 9to5Google and Search Engine Roundtable. Bluesky: @glenngabe

Financial Times:

Bain Capital agrees to buy Blackstone-backed HealthEdge, which offers SaaS for health insurers to modernize their systems, sources say for ~$2.6B including debt

More: Axios and Bain Capital

Reuters:

Source: Alphabet and Nvidia are among investors backing Safe Superintelligence; Google Cloud announced on April 9 that SSI is using its TPUs for AI research

More: Neowin and Financial Times

Bluesky: @nosunkcosts. LinkedIn: James Mawson. Forums: r/singularity

Sophie McEvoy / GamesIndustry.biz:

Newzoo: global consumer spending for PC and console gaming fell 2% YoY to $80.2B in 2024, with console revenues leading market share with $42.8B, down 3.9% YoY

More: Newzoo, TechSpot, ITC.UA, Mezha.Media, Game Rant, Kotaku, Game File, PC Games Insider, and CNET

Bluesky: @gtelephant. X: @gamer_matheusx, @stephentotilo, and @newzoohq. Forums: r/pcmasterrace

Earlier Picks

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:

YipitData: Waymo's robotaxis made up about 20% of rides offered by Uber in Austin in the last week of March, after launching on March 4

More: Engadget, The Robot Report, TipRanks Financial, and The Driverless Digest

Bluesky: @jf2u. X: @aleximm, @stockmarketnerd, @adamkovac, and @sethdavishoops. Forums: r/waymo

Ari Levy / CNBC:

Filing: Founders Fund has closed a $4.6B late-stage venture fund; source: a substantial amount of the capital was provided by the firm's general partners

More: The Economic Times, Tech in Asia, Bloomberg, and US SEC

Aisha S Gani / Bloomberg:

Revolut plans to add UK stocks to its trading platform as some investors look to diversify away from US equities, and says it has over 800K UK trading customers

More: PYMNTS.com. LinkedIn: Aisha S Gani

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Meta adds Dina Powell McCormick, who served as deputy national security adviser to Trump in his first term, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison to its board

More: Fortune, Engadget, Mashable, Reuters, Meta, Tech in Asia, RTÉ, CNBC, The Information, TechCrunch, The Hollywood Reporter, and Irish Independent

Bluesky: @karaswisher and @chadbourn

Threads: @mwi.invest and @vishwanathsarangkeller

X: @campbell_brown, @cernovich, @donaldjtrumpjr, @jasonmiller, and @sarafischer. Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg

Erin Woo / The Information:

Source: Google cuts hundreds of employees in its platforms and devices unit, which works on Android, Pixel, and Chrome, after offering buyouts in January 2025

More: Reuters, 9to5Google, Engadget, SiliconANGLE, iPhone in Canada Blog, Cryptopolitan, Android Central, Entrepreneur, PCMag, New York Post, Thurrott, Android Authority, San Francisco Chronicle, MobileSyrup, Phandroid, Silicon UK, International Business Times, Verdict, Cord Cutters News, ITPro, MacDailyNews, AIN, Android Police, PhoneArena, Hindustan Times, City A.M., Moneycontrol, Business Standard, DNA India, and Outlook Business

Bluesky: @tomwellborn3 and @bdowney. Mastodon: @majorlinux@toot …. Threads: @carnage4life

X: @teamblind, @argyleink, and @westonruter. LinkedIn: Reino Piip

Forums: r/technology and r/Android