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 …

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Umar Shakir / The Verge:
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Earlier Picks

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