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Meta agrees with Trump to pay $25 million in settlement of the account suspension suit
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Meta agreed to a $25 million settlement over a 2021 lawsuit President Donald Trump brought against Meta for suspending his accounts after the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol.
The Wall Street Journal broke the news first, and Meta spokeswoman Andy Stone confirmed it to The Verge.According to The Verge, Trump discussed this step with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his recent trip to Mar-a-Lago. One unnamed person told The Journal () that Trump said the lawsuit must be resolved before Zuckerberg can be “brought in the tent.”
Lee Zeldin, who wants to “make America the AI capital of the world” will lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
The new transportation secretary’s first act is to start letting cars pollute more.
Sean Duffy, fresh off his confirmation as Donald Trump’s secretary of transportation, signed a memorandum to “start the process of resetting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which will ultimately lower the price of a car for American consumers and eliminate the electric vehicle mandate,” his office said in a statement. There is no EV mandate, of course, and rolling back federal fuel economy rules will ultimately increase oil consumption and release more carbon dioxide into the environment during a global climate crisis. But at least we’ll get cheap cars! (
We won’tTrump’s media company is getting into fintech, too.
Trump Media
Truth.Fi is being launched as part of its “financial technology and financial services strategy,” but not many details are available about what the company will do. The company plans to invest $250,000,000 in customized exchange-traded fund, along with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.The announcement comes just one day following Elon Musk’s X’s announcement that it will be partnering with Visa in order to launch the X Money service later this year.
Elon Musk saying he’ll ‘bring home’ two astronauts for Trump is as dumb as it sounds.
Ars Technica explains why even as off-the-cuff maybe-trolling, Musk’s recent comments about the ISS crew put a strain on NASA. Here’s the crux:
The “stranded” astronauts on the space station probably could come home as early as next week. But if they were to do so, it would create a lot of headaches for NASA, its international partners, and probably even for Musk’s human spaceflight team at SpaceX.
Another change from Google’s maps team.
Google announced yesterday that Maps in the US will show Gulf of America and Mount McKinley, and
CNBC reports today that the company’s Maps division has added the US on its list of “sensitive countries”. CNBC reports that this classification is reserved for countries with “strict governments and border disputes”, and includes countries such as “China, Russia and Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, among other.”Did Elon Musk write the federal worker buyout email?
The buyout offer that just went out to millions of US federal workers has the subject line, “Fork in the Road,” which is the same subject line Musk used when he gave his “extremely hardcore” ultimatum to Twitter employees in 2022. While it’s unclear if he was involved in the creation of this new email, Musk himself seems to at least be
In the referenceDonald Trump wants to claw back clean energy funding
The Trump administration sent a
Memo instructing agencies to pause grant and loan programs, as well as other financial assistance. It’s a catchall for the wide range of programs that President Donald Trump has railed against. It’s unclear exactly what is in the crosshairs, but it appears to target Biden’s clean energy programs.However, just before the funding was to take effect on February 2, a
The federal judge paused it until the 3rd of February at 5 PM and could extend the suspension after an hearing on Monday. The administrative stay will allow the government to continue disbursing only funds that are already authorized. The freeze was intended to stop funding for policies Trump reversed through executive orders. “Including, but not limited, to financial assistance for nongovernmental organizations, DEI and woke gender ideologies, as well as the green new deal.”DeepSeek wakes up Trump.
The president has called the Chinese AI startup “a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win.” DeepSeek’s models are much cheaper to build than those of leading AI companies and, ever the businessman, Trump sees the appeal: “Instead of spending billions and billions you’ll spend less and you’ll come up with, hopefully, the same solution.”
Trump says Microsoft wants TikTok (again).
Asked by reporters if Microsoft is in talks to take over TikTok’s US arm, the president was succinct: “I would say yes.” The company is reported to be among several investors, including Oracle, working on a joint bid. Microsoft previously tried to buy the social site back in 2020, which CEO Satya Nadella called the “strangest thing I’ve ever worked on.”
Google Maps in the US will change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley
Illustration: The Verge
Google said today that it plans to update Google Maps to reflect President Trump’s January 20th
Executive order renames the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and Mount McKinley to Mount McKinley.the company
Noted on X that the updated nomenclature would appear once the Geographic Names Information System is updated.Read the Article >
Trump says he’ll put tariffs on imported chips ‘in the near future’
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Without going into detail about what might happen to the $52 billion in subsidies from the CHIPS Act under his administration, Donald Trump said tariffs on foreign computer chips, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals are coming “in the near future.” He also namechecked DeepSeek’s AI releases, saying, “…coming up with a faster method of AI and less expensive, that’s good. I view that as a positive if it is fact and it is true, and nobody knows, but I view that as a positive.”
Click Here to Read the Article >
Elon Musk email to X staff: ‘we’re barely breaking even’
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Ever since Elon Musk closed his deal to buy Twitter he’s claimed the company, now called X, is in “a very dire situation from a revenue standpoint.”
Now, the
Wall Street Journal reported that banks were preparing to sell some of the $13 Billion in debt they had loaned Musk for the deal. It mentions an employee email, confirmed by The Verge ( ), where the Chief Twit stated, “…we have witnessed the power of X to shape national conversations and outcomes.” But also claimed, “Our users growth is stagnant and revenue is unimpressive. We’re barely breakingeven.”Trump bends to the tech oligarchy.
Here is their reward:
How Meta’s MAGA heel turn is a play for global power
Illustration by The Verge
On today’s episode ofDecoder , we’re diving into an especially messy set of ideas. It’s been a chaotic couple of weeks for big tech companies as the second Trump administration kicks off an unprecedented era of how we think about who controls the internet. Meta’s changed its rules to openly allow more slurs and hate speech on its platforms, TikTok was banned and sort of unbanned, and a bunch of tech CEOs attended the second Trump inauguration.
There’s a major collision, or maybe merger, happening right now between billionaire power and state power and everyone who uses tech to communicate — so, basically everyone— is stuck in the middle.
Read Article >
Less Trump, unless you want it.
As The Verge’spolicy editor, I know how exhausting the Trump administration news firehose can be. There’s truly need-to-know stuff like the future of the Paris climate agreement and the TikTok ban. But we’re now collecting some updates in a stream whose posts won’t all appear on the front page, so readers get a break from the full weight of Trump’s random off-the-cuff proposals and his regulators’ antics. That said, we’re entering a new era in tech policy, so I hope you’ll periodically check it out!
Brendan Carr amps up his censorship campaign.
He’s reinstated three complaints against broadcasters that former chair
Jessica Rosenworcel dismissed the as an attempt to influence news coverage.Rosenworcel stated that the commission is rejecting complaints that seek to “weaponize the licensing authority the FCC in a manner that is fundamentally at variance with the First Amendment”. The FCC announced on Wednesday that the complaints were dismissed “prematurely” due to an insufficient investigation record.
The FCC has not reinstated a fourth complaint against a Fox station.
NASA’s climate website is ‘moving.’
It’s “going to look a little different” as it migrates to a more general science site, according to NASA. President Donald Trump has called climate change a “
Researchers have been archiving data on environmental issues in case federal websites start to disappear.Satya Nadella on Elon’s Stargate accusations: “All I know is I’m good for my $80 billion.”
Nadella said he’s “not in the details” of investments in The Stargate Project, confirming only the $80 billion Microsoft will invest annually in building up Azure to handle AI.
Dozens of subreddits are banning links to X
Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Dozens of popular subreddits are banning links to X after Elon Musk made a gesture that historians and human rights groups have described as a Nazi salute. Communities that have instituted a ban on links to X include
r/formula1 ,
r/military,
r/nursing,
TwoXChromosomes (19459389),
r/nintendo.The shift has spread across Reddit since neo Nazis celebrated Musk’s remarks at a rally for Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday. Musk raised his right arm twice during the speech in a salute which was interpreted by many as a neo-Nazi salute.
historians,
The elected officials
Organizations that support Holocaust survivorsobserve this as a Nazi salute. Musk holds his arm in mid-air while he places his hand on the chest of his chest. “My heart goes to you,” he tells supporters. Musk’s supporters have defended him by saying that the gesture was in line with his words.Read the Article >
Trump’s war on electric cars has only just begun
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Just to start out: the federal EV tax credit is still alive and kicking. It was not eliminated by the stroke of Donald Trump’s pen because it can’t be. The tax credit — $7,500 for a new EV, $4,500 for a used one — was passed by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and it would take another act of Congress to do away with it.
Now the bad news: at Trump’s behest, Congress is very likely to do away with the tax credit at some point in the near future. Republican lawmakers have tried several times in the past to kill the credit, most recently in July 2024. But with Democrats in control of the Senate and Joe Biden in the White House, none of those efforts ever went anywhere.
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Elon Musk, White House adviser, says OpenAI deal announced at White House is a sham
Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images
Elon Musk doesn’t miss an opportunity to take a dig at OpenAI — even when the news item in question is supposed to be favorable to President Trump. Just a few hours after yesterday’s White House presser on The Stargate Project wrapped up, Musk posted on X that “they don’t actually have the money.”
Softbank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX have committed to “deploy” $100 billion now and $500 billion toward the AI data center company over the next four years.
Read Article >
A PSA for all those wondering why you’re suddenly following Trump and Vance on social.
There is, alas, no grand conspiracy here. It’s just that every four years, on X, Instagram, and Facebook, accounts like @POTUS, @VP, and @WhiteHouse are transferred to the incoming administration. Here’s how it went down in 2021, and with the first Trump term.
There are people who say they never followed these accounts
And now you suddenly dowhich would be even stranger. I have a theory, but I would like to know if this happened to you!Trump is absolutely going to make ByteDance sell TikTok or shut down again.
Extreme First Amendment issues with having the government own a social platform aside, it’s striking how he keeps talking about “permits” even though nothing in the TikTok bill has anything to do with permits. Once a real-estate guy, always a real-estate guy, I suppose.
During today’s press event, President Donald Trumpsaid that a 10 percent tariff on China was being discussed. This is because they are sending fentanyl from China to Mexico and Canada. The administration “looks at” imposing a tariff on February 1.
You may watch Trump’s remarks about the tariffs at YouTube
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