Techmeme: Sources: Tim Cook called Texas Governor Greg Abbott last week urging a veto or changes to a bill that would require Apple to verify users' ages on its devices (Wall Street Journal)

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May 23, 2025, 7:30 PM

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Jesse Pound / CNBC:

Trump says a 25%+ tariff “must be paid by Apple” on iPhones not made in the US, and he told Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the US must be made in the US — President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.

More: CNN, BBC, Financial Times, Ars Technica, MacRumors, Reuters, The Hill, Android Police, Engadget, MacRumors, ZDNET, AppleInsider, Variety, Gizmodo, SiliconANGLE, CNBC, The Guardian, How-To Geek, CNBC, NBC News, CBS News, Bloomberg, Tom's Hardware, FOX13 Memphis, Daily Kos, PhoneArena, 9to5Mac, The Verge, CBS News, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, The Economic Times, CBS News, Benzinga, Wccftech, TECHi, Bloomberg, CBS News, GuruFocus, iDrop News, Sci-Tech, Investopedia, Reuters, Washington Post, CNBC, New York Times, Gizmodo, Time, Fortune, Associated Press, Metro.co.uk, Los Angeles Times, Fox Business, CNN, Fast Company, Fox Business, Semafor, Cult of Mac, South China Morning Post, TechCrunch, Axios, Spyglass, Daring Fireball, AppleInsider, The Indian Express, Forbes, NewsNation, MarketWatch, Raw Story, Inc, FXStreet, Fierce Electronics, iDownloadBlog.com, CNBC, Fortune India, The Information, The US Sun, The Wrap, Macworld, Deseret News, Newser, Fortune, TradingView, Investor's Business Daily, Rolling Stone, Baller Alert, iPhone in Canada, New York Times, Yahoo Finance, Reason, New York Times, Yahoo Finance, Investor's Business Daily, The Hill, Cryptopolitan, Barron's Online, ABC News, Newsweek, Memphis Commercial Appeal, Fox Business, Crypto Briefing, Times of India, Yahoo Finance, Watcher Guru, 9to5Mac, The Guardian, Mashable, USA Today, The Independent, Times of India, UPI, Al Jazeera, Pocket-lint, Fortune, Analytics India Magazine, Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Quartz, People, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, Townhall, ProtoThema English, BetaNews, TechEBlog, The Irish Times, City A.M., PetaPixel, Redmond Pie, Newsweek, MeidasTouch News, Yahoo Finance, Inc42 Media, TechSpot, Breitbart, Neowin, PhoneArena, Associated Press, RetailWire, CNET, Gulf News, Business Insider, Patently Apple, TechCentral.ie, Mobile World Live, and Benzinga

Bluesky: @craigipedia, @ericfoltz, @timeforchange, @tomcoates, @mrsdeborahlynn, and @petertl. Truth Social: @realDonaldTrump …. Mastodon: @cafechatnoir@mastodon.social

X: @mingchikuo, @truthtrumpposts, @pitdesi, @spencerhakimian, @devahaz, @mgsiegler, @rolfewinkler, @markgurman, @zacksjerryrig, @pkafka, @rakeshsfnyc, @atrupar, and @tomwarren

Bloomberg:

President Trump says that the tariffs he has threatened against Apple would also be aimed at “Samsung and anybody that makes that product” — “It would be more,” Trump said when asked at the White House whether his tariff threat would only apply to Apple.

Financial Times:

Sources: Oracle will spend ~$40B on ~400,000 Nvidia GB200 chips and lease them to OpenAI at its 1.2GW Texas data center, billed as the first US Stargate project — The 1.2 gigawatts infrastructure project will be one of the largest in the world — Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT …

More: SiliconANGLE, Reuters, Wall Street Pit, TipRanks Financial, ZeroHedge News, Benzinga, and CNBC

Bluesky: @edzitron.com and @edzitron.com

X: @elonmusk and @sundeep

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Tim Cook called Texas Governor Greg Abbott last week urging a veto or changes to a bill that would require Apple to verify users' ages on its devices — Apple's CEO called Greg Abbott after law passed requiring app stores to verify user ages — Apple stepped up efforts in recent weeks …

More: 9to5Mac, PhoneArena, TechCrunch, The Verge, Michael Tsai, New York Post, The Mac Observer, iPhone in Canada, CryptoSlate, AppleInsider, and Philip Elmer‑DeWitt

Bluesky: @peark.es. X: @schilling1776, @zamaan_qureshi, @zerohedge, @amrithramkumar, @meghanbobrowsky, and @taylorlorenz

Forums: r/technology and r/apple

Kylie Robison / Wired:

A look at Anthropic's first developer conference, where CPO Mike Krieger said 70%+ of Anthropic's code pull requests are now written by their AI model Claude — Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said everything human workers do now will eventually be done by AI systems.

More: ZDNET, Business Insider, and Inc

Bluesky: @edzitron.com, @karlbode.com, @kylierobison.com, and @stevekovach. X: @alexalbert__

Emma Roth / The Verge:

CEO Anil Dash says Glitch will stop hosting projects and close user profiles on July 8; Glitch launched in March 2017, and Fastly acquired it in May 2022 — The collaborative coding platform will no longer host projects starting July 8th. … Glitch, the coding platform where developers …

More: Glitch Blog and The Register

Bluesky: @schul.dev, @fionawh.im, @waxy.org, @kylebrussell, @pomdtr.me, @anildash.com, @kylebrussell, @jos1264.social …, @pvh.ca, and @taggart-tech.com

Mastodon: @mttaggart@infosec.exchange and @TheRealPomax@mastodon.social. X: @kylebrussell

Forums: Hacker News and Slashdot

Bloomberg:

Sources: Salesforce is in talks to acquire cloud data management company Informatica, reviving discussions that stalled in 2024; INFA closes up 17.45% — If a deal is reached, it could be announced as soon as next week, according to the people, who asked to not be identified because the discussions are private.

More: Barron's Online, Channel NewsAsia, and MarketWatch. LinkedIn: Brody Ford

Wall Street Journal:

Trump hosted a gala dinner for top buyers of $TRUMP, including Justin Sun, and said he was fulfilling his promise to make the US the world's “crypto capital” — The president hosted the biggest investors in his memecoin at his golf club outside Washington

More: Wired, NBC News, New York Times, The Verge, Gizmodo, Rolling Stone, Raw Story, The Block, Bloomberg, CryptoPotato, MSNBC, Cointelegraph, Business Insider, Reuters, Mediaite, Meidas+, South China Morning Post, The Independent, PREVAIL, Fox News, CryptoSlate, and Coinpedia Fintech News

Bluesky: @hollia, @thacalebdume, @lesleyabravanel, @kevincollier, @repcasar, @jtheman, @mrsdeborahlynn, and @bethtoja

Mastodon: @GottaLaff@mstdn.social and @cbarbermd@med-mastodon.com

X: @mikeisaac, @calltoactivism, @chrismurphyct, @eleanorterrett, @wutangkids, @danprimack, @krassenstein, @nprinskeep, @pitdesi, @darrigomelanie, @giantbabycorn, @adamscochran, and @themainewonk

Forums: r/politics, r/inthenews, and r/politics

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan used an AI avatar for his initial comments on Zoom's Q1 earnings call on May 21; Klarna's CEO used an AI avatar to deliver earnings on May 19 — CEOs are now so immersed in AI, they're sending their avatars to address quarterly earnings calls instead of themselves, at least partially.

More: TechCrunch, Business Today, and Livemint

Bluesky: @prietschka and @carnage4life

X: @klarnaseb, @thetranscript_, @thetranscript_, and @brij

LinkedIn: Ilana C. Alberico, Georg Zoeller, and Matthew Moynahan. Forums: r/technology

Reuters:

Sources: DOGE is using a customized Grok to analyze US government data, including at DHS where it has not been approved, raising security and privacy concerns — Billionaire Elon Musk's DOGE team is expanding use of his artificial intelligence chatbot Grok in the U.S. federal government to analyze data …

More: Wired, Wired, Raw Story, The Independent, Cryptopolitan, PhoneArena, and New Republic

Bluesky: @katie-drummond, @marypcbuk, @rimaanabtawi, @mollymckew, @moreperfectunion, @dek1, @amysiskind.com, @brbarrett, @originalsp.in, @stopspyingny, @leahmcelrath, @brunojnavarro, @richburroughs.dev, @karenavo, @karenavo, @texasyankee, @stahl, and @justinhendrix

Mastodon: @bruno_j_navarro … and @Gurre@mastodon.nu. Threads: @kolchak

X: @birdyword and @moreperfectus

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

New York Times:

Q&A with Demis Hassabis about how Google I/O became the Gemini show, Google getting “AGI-pilled”, Project Astra, Sergey Brin's shorter AGI timelines, and more — A few years ago, most Google executives didn't talk about A.G.I. — artificial general intelligence, the industry term for a human-level A.I. system.

Bluesky: @dell. X: @modestproposal1, @modestproposal1, and @officiallogank

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Q&A with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi on the trade-offs with Route Share, Uber's business structure, autonomous vehicles, working with fleet operators, and more — Today, I'm talking with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. We recorded this conversation the day Uber announced a big set of product updates …

Bluesky: @edzitron.com, @martinsfp, @marypcbuk, and @reckless

X: @sarthakgh, @sarthakgh, @dannyocean555, and @laurakmiller. Forums: r/SelfDrivingCars

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Discord SVP Peter Sellis says the app is exploring forums and LLM-powered summaries to make discussions easy to follow and shareable outside the platform — It's thinking about something like forums, too. … Discord has become the place for gaming communities on the internet.

More: Neowin and TechCrunch

Bluesky: @dryad.technology and @jaypeters.net. Mastodon: @mcc@mastodon.social

Hugh Son / CNBC:

Monarch, which makes a personal finance app, raised a $75M Series B at a $850M valuation, says its subscribers grew by 20x since Intuit closed Mint in 2023 — The personal finance startup Monarch has raised $75 million to accelerate subscriber growth that took off last year when budgeting tool Mint was shut down, CNBC has learned.

More: Monarch Money and PYMNTS.com

LinkedIn: Wesley Chan and Christina L.. Forums: r/MonarchMoney

Bloomberg:

Sources: CommScope is exploring a sale of its broadband connectivity and cable arm CCS for up to $10B, seeking to unload assets to repay debt — The company is working with an adviser to gauge buyer interest in the business, known as CCS, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information.

More: Reuters

Joseph Menn / Washington Post:

Experts say some Trump officials' plans to amp up cyberattacks against China would risk retaliation the US is increasingly unprepared for amid budget cuts — Some Trump administration officials want to hit back at China for its hacks on U.S. infrastructure — a risky strategy, experts say, amid budget reductions.

Bluesky: @joemenn. LinkedIn: Dave Schroeder and J. Michael Daniel

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

OpenAI says Operator, its AI agent that can use the web to perform tasks, will soon use a model based on o3 after previously using a custom version of GPT-4o — OpenAI is updating the AI model powering Operator, its AI agent that can autonomously browse the web and use certain software within a cloud-hosted virtual machine.

More: BleepingComputer, VentureBeat, and OpenAI

X: @openai, @danshipper, @reiinakano, and @sama

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From Mediagazer

Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:

The EU is reviewing Paramount's WBD takeover under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, probing involvement of Middle Eastern funds; a decision is due by July 14

Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:

Fubo and NBCUniversal reach a deal ending a months-long blackout, with NBCU's Spanish-language networks available Wednesday, English-language networks later

William James / Reuters:

After civil unrest in Belfast, Ofcom reminds social platforms to heed the Online Safety Act, including by mitigating risks of content that provokes violence

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Todd Spangler / Variety:

First Lady Melania Trump releases an audiobook of her memoir, with her “official AI voice” created by ElevenLabs, available exclusively in the ElevenReader app

More: Mashable, HOLA!, Cryptopolitan, and The Daily Beast

Bluesky: @harlanbelle. Forums: r/technology

Earlier Picks

Philip Stafford / Financial Times:

UK-based R3, a blockchain tech developer for financial institutions, partners with the Solana Foundation to let it and its customers use the Solana blockchain

More: R3, Bitcoin Insider, Coinspeaker, Ledger Insights, R3, TokenPost, crypto.news, The Block, and CoinDesk

X: @bradyowen_, @muzicluver, @perkinscr97, @gendal, @solana, and @marcosalzmann80

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: companies co-owned by JPMorgan Chase, BOA, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and other large commercial banks are exploring whether to issue a joint stablecoin

More: Decrypt, Blockworks, CNBC, PYMNTS.com, Reuters, Unchained, Bitcoin Insider, The Daily Hodl, DL News, Quartz, ZyCrypto, CryptoSlate, Barron's Online, Yahoo Finance, and Ledger Insights. LinkedIn: Chris Drury

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Bluesky lets “notable and authentic” accounts apply for blue check verification and enables select organizations to become Trusted Verifiers to verify others

More: Bluesky, Fast Company, Forbes, iPhone in Canada, and Engadget

Bluesky: @safety.bsky.app, @safety.bsky.app, @stardustbluepr.com, @ijbaker, @karissabe, @bengoggin, @bengoggin, and @jonbois

LinkedIn: Robin Metcalfe and Eric Michelson. Forums: r/BlueskySocial

Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer:

The US DOJ indicts a Russian national for allegedly leading the Qakbot malware operation that infected 700K+ computers and enabled ransomware attacks for years

More: US Department of Justice, SC Media, The Guardian, Metacurity, The Stack, ITPro, The Register, Reuters, and The Record

Bluesky: @ericjgeller.com and @selenalarson

Jody Godoy / Reuters:

The US FTC drops a case that sought to block Microsoft's $69B acquisition of Activision Blizzard, saying that pursuing the case was not in the public interest

More: The Verge, HotHardware, Yahoo Finance, Washington Examiner, Fast Company, Dexerto, GeekWire, games fray, PCMag, WinBuzzer, iPhone in Canada, Game Developer, and Android Headlines

Mastodon: @Knoebel@mastodon.social. X: @bradsmi, @florian4gamers, @tomwarren, and @games_fray. Forums: r/microsoft

Anthropic:

Anthropic releases new API features for building agents: a code execution tool, an MCP connector, a Files API, and extended prompt caching, all in public beta

More: The Register, MacStories, PayPal Developer, and Anthropic

Bluesky: @timfduffy.com and @tedunderwood.me. Mastodon: @viticci@mastodon …

X: @natolambert, @stevenheidel, @zapier, @codydearkland, @paypaldev, @alexalbert__, @mikeknoop, @hive_echo, and @anthropicai. LinkedIn: Guillaume Princen. Forums: r/RooCode

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

The US DOJ announces criminal charges against 16 individuals allegedly linked to DanaBot, a Russia-based malware operation that infected 300K+ machines globally

More: US Department of Justice, Krebs on Security, WeLiveSecurity, The Record, WebProNews, Security Boulevard, Protos, and Hackread

Bluesky: @couts and @agreenberg

LinkedIn: Martin G. Nystrom, Ryan Kalember, Dharmesh Mehta, Jamie Wendell, and Selena Larson

Forums: r/cybersecurity and Ars OpenForum

Sam Bowman / @sleepinyourhat:

Anthropic says Opus 4 will use an email tool to “whistleblow” if it detects users doing something “egregiously evil”, like marketing a drug based on faked data