“Elon Musk’s polarizing political actions since acquiring Twitter, later rebranded X, in 2022 dramatically hurt the automaker’s U.S. sales, underscoring how deeply its fortunes are intertwined with the billionaire’s persona,” CNN reports.

“The findings quantify for the first time how the political actions of the world’s wealthiest person – including his role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration – may have cost Tesla billions in lost vehicle sales while benefiting rival electric carmakers.”

“ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok are serving users propaganda from Russian-backed media when asked about the invasion of Ukraine,” Wired reports.

“The sensitive personal details of more than 450 people holding ‘top secret’ U.S. government security clearances were left exposed online,” Wired reports.

“The people’s details were included in a database of more than 7,000 individuals who have applied for jobs over the last two years with Democrats in the United States House of Representatives.”

“Several quantum-computing companies are in talks to give the Commerce Department equity stakes in exchange for federal funding, a signal that the Trump administration is expanding its interventions in what it sees as critical segments of the economy,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Wired: “With just $800 in basic equipment, researchers found a stunning variety of data — including thousands of T-Mobile users’ calls and texts and even US military communications — sent by satellites unencrypted.”

“Apple on Thursday night said that it was removing ICEBlock and other apps from its App Store that can be used to anonymously report sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents,” CNBC reports.

“The move came after pressure on Apple from Attorney General Pam Bondi, and amid controversy over the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement of immigration law with ICE agents and other authorities.”

Derek Thompson: “Some people think artificial intelligence will be the most important technology of the 21st century. Others insist that it is an obvious economic bubble. I believe both sides are right. Like the 19th century railroads and the 20th century broadband Internet build-out, AI will rise first, crash second, and eventually change the world.”

“The numbers just don’t make sense. Tech companies are projected to spend about $400 billion this year on infrastructure to train and operate AI models. By nominal dollar sums, that is more than any group of firms has ever spent to do just about anything.”

“The Apollo program allocated about $300 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars to get America to the moon between the early 1960s and the early 1970s. The AI buildout requires companies to collectively fund a new Apollo program, not every 10 years, but every 10 months.“

Google appears to have blocked AI search results for the query “does Trump show signs of dementia” as well as other questions about his mental acuity, even though it will show AI results for similar searches about other presidents, The Verge reports.

“The Trump administration has signed a deal with Elon Musk’s xAI that would allow the artificial intelligence tool to be used widely across government, signaling a thaw in relations between the president and his billionaire backer,” the Financial Times reports.

Said Musk in a statement: “Thanks to President Trump and his administration, xAI’s frontier AI is now unlocked for every federal agency empowering the U.S. Government to innovate faster and accomplish its mission more effectively than ever before.”