Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics.
$2 billion crypto deal
A detailed report from The New York Times lays out a curious timeline of events in which World Liberty Financial, a crypto-based company launched by the families of Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy to the Middle East, received $2 billion from a government-backed investment firm in the United Arab Emirates before the administration made the controversial decision to sell powerful computer chips to the UAE. The revelations shine a light on the dubious and self-enriching relationships the Trump family has cultivated with Big Tech investors in the Middle East as he and his administration have crafted policy.
Read more at The New York Times.
Trump ditches China hawk
Relatedly, Trump has withdrawn his nomination of China hawk Landon Heid for a key role in the Commerce Department. The role — assistant secretary for export administration, which would have a hand in overseeing any export restrictions on, say, the sale of powerful computer chips to UAE-friendly China — raises “questions about whether the move signals a more dovish approach to Beijing,” according to Reuters.
Read more at Reuters.
Extremism in Evergreen
Police in Colorado say a teenage assailant who shot two students last week in the town of Evergreen was “radicalized by an extremist network.” Various outlets conducted analyses that suggest the shooter had shown interest in Nazis, white supremacist rhetoric and previous school shootings.
Read more at MSNBC.
Apple acquiescence
Politico highlighted the changes Apple appears to have made to its artificial intelligence models to conform with Trump’s assault on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Read more at Politico.
Reported trove of Epstein emails
Bloomberg reported on a trove of emails reportedly belonging to Jeffrey Epstein, adding to the mountain of questions about the late sex offender’s onetime ties to Donald Trump.
Read more at MSNBC.
An anonymous group has created a website that hosts a list of people alleged to have criticized the late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk or celebrated his death. The group, which calls itself the Charlie Kirk Data Foundation, is trying to crowdsource and round up critical comments about Kirk, who was fatally shot last week at a Utah university. Read more at Axios. More than 33 million voters have had their personal information run through a controversial database the Trump administration is purportedly using to determine voter eligibility, according to a report from NPR. Trump and his allies routinely — and falsely — allege that the U.S. electoral system has been undermined by noncitizens swaying elections by casting illegal votes. Read more at NPR. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is demanding answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about a somewhat mysterious and lucrative contract the Pentagon granted to xAI, the Elon Musk-led artificial intelligence company that has been embroiled in numerous scandals — including chatbots that have encouraged violence, promoted antisemitism and held sexually explicit conversations with users. Read more at MSNBC.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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