Big Tech

A group of powerful tech companies are working to outmaneuver Sacramento and other state capitals on artificial intelligence laws — using Washington as their weapon.

As California and other states move to regulate AI, companies like OpenAI, Meta, Google and IBM are all urging Washington to pass national AI rules that would rein in state laws they don’t like. So is Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist firm closely tied to President Donald Trump.

The European Union fined Apple AAPL 2.39%increase; green up pointing triangle and Meta META 4.74%increase; green up pointing triangle Platforms hundreds of millions of dollars and ordered the companies to comply with the bloc’s tech rules in a move that risks ratcheting up tensions with the Trump administration as officials pursue trade talks. 

Things are about to get uncomfortable in Washington for Google.

Top Republicans in Congress are leaning hard on the tech giant to make its content policies friendlier to the GOP, after winning that fight with social media companies Meta and X.

Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz of Texas and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio are now putting pressure on Google and its parent company Alphabet, which owns both the internet’s dominant search engine and the popular YouTube video platform.

Mark was poking around in an online forum for tech-company founders recently when he spotted a fawning post about Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

As the founder of a tech company himself, Mark is part of a community of startup types in the Bay Area, and considers his politics to be pretty middle-of-the-road. He understands the instinct to want to modernize government. But Musk’s approach at DOGE — which he saw as a slash-and-burn rampage through the federal workforce — seemed, to him, “absurd.”

For years, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has called out tech companies, arguing they exploit users' private information.

The senior senator from Missouri says individuals should have control over their information, not big tech. "If they want to purchase it from us, fine," Hawley told NPR. "If they want to compensate us in some way, sure. But what's happening now, with our entire model based on taking this information from us and targeting our kids, we just can't let that go on."

Hawley also argues that these platforms have censored conservative voices.

Like a child custody battle in a throuple, U.S. tech companies are getting pulled in three directions as the Trump administration abandons its predecessor's tacit tolerance, if not always explicit approval, for official censorship in the European Union and Brazil.

Will the new presidential administration play nice with large technology companies?

For now, it looks like there are some warm feelings — as President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a major investment in artificial-intelligence infrastructure that calls for OpenAI, SoftBank Group Corp. 9984 SFTBY and Oracle Corp. ORCL to create a joint venture named Stargate that will focus on data centers and other infrastructure projects.

President-elect Donald Trump has picked Brendan Carr, a critic of the Biden administration’s telecom policies and Big Tech, as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, he said in a statement on Sunday.

Carr, 45, is currently the top Republican on the FCC, the independent agency that regulates telecommunications.

High-powered lawyers representing Big Tech clients have co-hosted a series of blue-chip fundraisers for Kamala Harris’s campaign as the 2024 presidential election draws near – and antitrust watchdogs are crying foul.

Last Thursday, a group of “antitrust lawyers and economists for Harris” held a virtual fundraiser featuring an appearance by former US Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta. Ticket prices ranged as high as $6,600, according to a copy of an invitation obtained by The Post.