Trump’s confusing crusade against Big Tech
President Trump wanted to ban TikTok. Now he wants to save TikTok. There might even be a plan to save TikTok, though right now it feels more like a “concepts of a plan†situation. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to press hard on regulating Big Tech, while also cozying up to their CEOs — and illegally firing some of the regulators. Companies like OpenAI and Google are trying to convince the White House to go along with their vision for AI, but it doesn’t seem anyone knows where they stand.
So what does the Trump administration want to do with Big Tech? On this episode of The Vergecast, we try and figure it out. But first, Nilay and David open with some other tech news. The Siri-sucks-gate fallout continues inside of Apple, including a fairly important executive shakeup. Pebble smartwatches are back, and poised to be at the center of a fight about how Apple works with watches. Google and Huawei both launched intriguing new phones, and Nvidia remains the white-hot center of the AI industry.
After all that, it’s time for some policy talk. The Verge’s Lauren Feiner joins the show to explain the latest on the TikTok ban, the state of the Broadband Equity, A …