Wall Street Journal: “About 80% of donations from the communications and electronics sector in the last election cycle went to Democrats, with a similar ratio at big tech companies like Google and Microsoft.”
“But the alliance soured for some who opposed the Biden administration’s focus on regulating areas like cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence and are encouraged by President Trump’s policies.”
Anne Neuberger: “American companies are world leaders in technology—be it innovative software, cloud services, artificial intelligence, or cybersecurity products.”
“Yet beginning as many as three years ago, hackers believed to be backed by the Chinese government did something the United States, the tech powerhouse, could not adequately defend against: they gained and maintained access to major U.S. telecommunications networks, copying conversations and building the ability to track the movements of U.S. intelligence officers and law enforcement agents across the country.”
“The attack, dubbed ‘Salt Typhoon,’ constituted a large part of a global campaign against telecoms, and it penetrated systems at many U.S. carriers so thoroughly that officials will almost certainly never know the full scope of the capabilities China achieved to spy on Americans’ communications.”
“Salt Typhoon was more than a one-off intelligence success for China. It reflected a deeper, troubling reality. Mere decades after the widespread adoption of the Internet opened a new realm of geopolitical contestation, China is positioning itself to dominate the digital battle space.”
“Beijing has urged local companies to avoid using Nvidia Corp.’s H20 processors, particularly for government-related purposes, complicating the chipmaker’s attempts to recoup billions in lost China revenue after the Trump administration reversed an effective US ban on such sales,” Bloomberg reports.
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“Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices are expected to pay the United States 15 percent of the money they take in from selling artificial intelligence chips to China, as part of a highly unusual financial agreement with the Trump administration,” the New York Times reports.
“There are few precedents for the Commerce Department agreeing to grant licenses for exports in exchange for a share of revenue. But the unorthodox payments are consistent with Mr. Trump’s increasingly interventionist role in international business deals involving American companies.”
Wall Street Journal: “It is unusual for companies to essentially pay for export licenses. The agreements follow criticism from national-security hawks who fear the chips and other technology will boost China’s AI ecosystem and military.”
CNBC: “The arrangement comes as President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to reverberate through the global economy, underscoring the White House’s willingness to carve out exceptions as a bargaining tool.”
“President Donald Trump and the new AI search tool on his social media network, Truth Social, don’t exactly see eye to eye,” the Washington Post reports.
“Truth Search AI contradicts the president by saying that tariffs are a tax on Americans, the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, and his family’s cryptocurrency investments pose a potential conflict of interest.”
Wired: “Human judgement remains central to the launch of nuclear weapons. But experts say it’s a matter of when, not if, artificial intelligence will get baked into the world’s most dangerous systems.”
“OpenAI is partnering with the U.S. government to make its leading frontier models available to federal employees. Under the agreement, federal agencies can access OpenAI’s models for $1 for the next year,” Wired reports.
“The partnership is the culmination of months of effort on the part of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other OpenAI executives, who have been cozying up to the Trump administration since before President Donald Trump retook the White House in January.”
“President Donald Trump’s administration has dramatically expanded its work with Palantir, elevating the company co-founded by Trump ally Peter Thiel as the government’s go-to software developer,” Wired reports.
“Following massive contract terminations for consulting giants and government contractors like Accenture, Booz Allen, and Deloitte, Palantir has emerged ahead. Now the data analytics firm is partnering with those companies—offering them a lifeline while consolidating its own power.”
“The Senate GOP campaign arm is warning that Apple’s new iOS update could cost them $25 million in fundraising revenue, as well as priceless GOTV opportunities,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Starting in the fall, Apple iOS will include a new message filter that some Republicans fear will punt political texts to a separate inbox without giving the user an alert or notification.”
“This is sparking panic in parts of the Republican fundraising world.”
“You can’t have the Chinese have an app on 100 million American phones, that is just not okay. So, it’s got to move to American ownership…”
— Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, quoted by Reuters, on TikTok.
“The U.S. DOGE Service is using a new artificial intelligence tool to slash federal regulations, with the goal of eliminating half of Washington’s regulatory mandates by the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration,” the Washington Post reports.
“The tool, called the ‘DOGE AI Deregulation Decision Tool,’ is supposed to analyze roughly 200,000 federal regulations to determine which can be eliminated because they are no longer required by law.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) “is taking aim at a recent executive order from President Donald Trump looking to expand artificial intelligence capacities in the U.S., the latest prominent break between the president and one of his most vocal supporters in Congress,” Politico reports.
“Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and his staff are pushing Democratic senators to create TikTok accounts for official purposes, despite a federal law banning the social media app on government devices,” Punchbowl News reports.
“There’s a new warning tucked into the tender offer for Elon Musk’s SpaceX: The billionaire may not be done with politics just yet,” Bloomberg reports.
“The company added the language laying out such “risk factors” in paperwork sent to investors discussing the transaction. It was the first time this language is believed to have appeared in these tender offers, some of these people said.”
“Silicon Valley’s risky bet on President Donald Trump is starting to pay dividends,” the Washington Post reports.
“The White House on Wednesday plans to reveal how it will position the United States to lead a global race to develop artificial intelligence and unveil three executive orders intended to boost the American tech sector.”
“Together, the actions will facilitate exports of U.S. technologies and boost the build-out of data centers — advancing the agenda of executives and investors seeking to cash in on an AI gold rush.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is visiting Washington this week to argue that artificial intelligence is helping Americans be more productive and to promise to keep AI “democratic” by getting it in as many hands as possible, Axios reports.
Washington Post: “The U.S. government and partners in Canada and Australia are investigating the compromise of SharePoint servers, which provide a platform for sharing and managing documents. Tens of thousands of such servers are at risk, experts said, and Microsoft has issued no patch for the flaw, leaving victims around the world scrambling to respond.”
Wall Street Journal: “Just days after President Trump in early June raised the prospect of cutting ties with Musk’s businesses, the Trump administration initiated a review of SpaceX’s contracts with the federal government… The review was intended to identify potential waste in the multibillion-dollar agreements the company has with the government.”
“But administration officials determined that they couldn’t eliminate most of those contracts because they are critical to the Defense Department and NASA… The early assessment underscored the company’s dominance as the world’s pre-eminent rocket launcher and a major satellite-internet provider.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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