“Trump Media and Technology Group’s new paid data service launched on Aug. 1, providing faster access to Truth Social posts from President Donald Trump and other top accounts on the platform,” CNBC reports.
Associated Press: Trump stands to profit by selling fast access to his social media posts.
Washington Post: “The finances of America’s technology stalwarts now look very different. To develop and deliver what the companies say is revolutionary artificial intelligence, they’re feeding every available dollar into the cash-incinerating maw of AI machines. Tech superstars that once had oodles of cash left over at the end of each year are now flipping into the red, with enormous stakes for every American and the wider economy.”
”To optimists in Silicon Valley, the White House and beyond, the big AI bet promises an even bigger payoff: huge corporate profits and a society-wide boost to wealth and well-being when AI delivers the promised transformation of life, work and the economy.”
”But questions about that AI vision are now growing more urgent: When, if ever, will this payoff arrive? And what will the fallout be for Americans if the titanic investment doesn’t quickly deliver?”
“The Trump administration is in the middle of finding out that it’s very hard — maybe even impossible — to regulate perceived ‘wokeness’ in artificial intelligence,” NOTUS reports.
“The government’s main procurement agency is a year into trying to translate President Donald Trump’s ban on ‘woke’ AI into contracting language, and technology companies are pouring out in opposition to what they’ve come up with.”
“Investigators believe a cyberattack this week on dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota was probably the work of Iranian hackers, a potential act of aggression that comes at a precarious moment in the U.S. war against Iran,” the New York Times reports.
Washington Post: “In many ways, this is the moment Silicon Valley’s defense entrepreneurs have said they were made for — to be cheaper, quicker and more nimble to the needs of the U.S. fighting force than legacy multibillion-dollar defense contractors.”
“They represent a sharp departure from established firms, which have far more experience managing clunky government acquisition processes and billions of dollars in capital to spend producing weapons en masse and lobbying lawmakers, but can move more slowly, especially in creating new supplies featuring cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence.”
“The Trump administration is accelerating its push to build data centers on federally controlled land — allowing developers and utility companies to sidestep permitting battles and community backlash,” NOTUS reports.
New York Times: “Behind each leap in AI are corresponding jumps in computing power. Today, there are about 20 million AI chips crammed into the data centers that underpin the technology’s growing abilities and usage worldwide… That figure is expected to double roughly every nine months, putting the world on pace to have about 200 million of the chips by the end of 2028 — 10 times current levels.”
“In size and ambition, this moment compares to the building of the railroads in the 1800s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, and the Manhattan Project to create an atomic weapon in the 1940s.”
“It sounds like something that James Bond would use: a gadget that self-destructs if it falls into the wrong hands. But it’s actually an open-source operating system that can be downloaded onto Android phones,” the New York Times reports.
“Federal prosecutors in Atlanta are bringing an obstruction charge against a U.S. citizen who gave customs officers what is known as a duress passcode, which activated software that erased the contents of his phone.”
“Satellite imagery shows damage to two Amazon.com Inc. data centers in Bahrain, supporting Iran’s claims last week that it struck the sites with missiles,” Bloomberg reports.
Wired: “With little interagency coordination in the administration, policy will almost certainly end up being set by the people with the most influence with the president. In an effort to map the forces at play, here’s a list of the current power brokers involved in the race to regulate AI.”
Wall Street Journal: “The push to expand head count, at least modestly, is a reversal from the prevailing corporate messaging during much of the AI era. Major employers largely held back on adding people due to economic uncertainties or a belief that artificial intelligence could shoulder more tasks on the job.”
“But some executives say the costs and limitations of AI now demand that more people be added; others want to hire people back following layoffs.”
“In a decision likely to intensify trans-Atlantic trade tensions, European Union regulators on Thursday hit Google with a $1 billion fine for illegally undercutting competition through its dominance as a search engine,” the New York Times reports.
“President Trump has previously threatened to retaliate against the European Union for what he views as the unfair targeting of American technology companies. The Google decision comes when he is weighing a new batch of tariffs on the European Union and other major trading partners.”
“The trap began with a routine bureaucratic ritual: the head of a family-run contracting company and a small town public-works director trading emails about when the municipality would cut a six-figure check for utility work,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“But lurking online, a cybercriminal pounced with staggering ease. Someone posing as a company employee emailed the director to request an electronic transfer instead. Days later, the town sent $545,598.30 to a Utah bank account that wasn’t the company’s.”
“Surfside Beach had fallen victim to a ‘business email compromise’ scam, a cyber-swindle that cost $3 billion nationally last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation says.”
“In such ruses, fraudsters fool people with malicious software, phishing emails or tweaked digital addresses. Once in, they can spot legitimate email threads about invoices and business matters.”
“A Chinese government spokesperson fired back Wednesday at the Trump administration’s allegations that Chinese researchers are stealing American trade secrets about artificial intelligence,” NBC News reports.
“The Trump administration is split over how to respond to the rapid rise of China’s leading AI models, according to multiple people familiar with deliberations,” Wired reports.
“The debate is broadly divided between parts of the White House, which has pushed for stricter controls on Chinese AI that may soon rival the most powerful U.S. models, and the Commerce Department, which has viewed those restrictions as unworkable.”
“There is an adage in the financial world: The stock market is not the economy,” the New York Times reports.
“Except that, right now, maybe it is.”
“Major stock indexes have set record after record in recent years, fueled by seemingly boundless appetite among investors for anything connected to artificial intelligence. The total value of the U.S. stock market has more than doubled over the past decade to over $75 trillion, roughly two and a half times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, itself a record ratio.”
“Much of that value exists only on paper, bets on future profits that may or may not materialize in the years ahead. But the boom is supporting real economic activity today, pumping trillions of dollars of investment into semiconductor factories, data centers, power plants and transmission lines. And the wealth it is creating is helping to drive consumer spending, particularly among affluent Americans, whose appreciating stock portfolios make them more willing to shell out for luxury vacations, pricey electronics and meals at high-end restaurants.”
Annie Lowrey: “No less an authority than Sam Altman is arguing that we are in an AI bubble. The International Monetary Fund is citing it as a significant risk to financial stability and warning about what might happen when it bursts: diminished investment, tighter credit, reduced consumption, disrupted trade flows.”
“That’s pretty much what happens when any bubble pops, as a Dutch tulip obsessive could have told you in 1637 or a bitcoin evangelist could have told you in 2011, 2013, 2014, 2018, or 2022. Yet the AI bubble is no ordinary bubble. Hyper-rich corporations are stoking it, rather than kitchen-table investors. They’re blowing it up when credit is fairly expensive, not dirt cheap. That might make the bubble less fragile and longer lasting than those of the past. But it won’t make it any less painful when it pops.”
“Progressive groups are opening a vicious new front in the fight over crypto legislation, targeting Sen Kirsten Gillibrand as she tries to broker a compromise on the CLARITY Act, which has unresolved issues on its ethics provisions,” Axios reports.
“The blistering — and deeply personal — attack from Indivisible, Demand Progress and the Revolving Door Project complicates already delicate negotiations.”
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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