Trump’s first 100 days: all the news affecting the tech industry

5 days ago 44

Elon Musk v. Marco Rubio, who you got?
While Musk and Rubio beefed about who should really be in charge of the state department, an unelected billionaire or the secretary of state, “the president sat back in his chair, arms folded, as if he were watching a tennis match.” The result of the meeting was the first attempt to put any brakes on Musk’s power. Good luck with that!
Crypto funds seized by the government may go into a ‘digital Fort Knox’
Image: The Verge
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to establish a Bitcoin reserve held by the US government. The reserve, which crypto czar David Sacks has likened to a “digital Fort Knox,” will include the assets the government collected as part of criminal or civil forfeitures – currently estimated at around 200,000 Bitcoin.
Along with Bitcoin, the executive order requires the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a stockpile for other digital assets. It will also allow the government to explore ways to acquire more Bitcoin as long as it doesn’t “impose incremental costs on United States taxpayers,” presumably meaning the US shouldn’t use taxpayer dollars to buy up Bitcoin.
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Donald Trump signs executive order for a ‘Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.’
The New York Times reports Trump signed an EO Thursday evening to “establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile” consisting of crypto assets owned by the Treasury forfeited in criminal or civil cases.
In a video, the president prepared to sign as a voice offscreen called it “like a digital Fort Knox for digital gold,” however CoinDesk notes that not everyone in crypto feels like they got what they paid for yet, with one exec calling it “the most underwhelming and disappointing outcome we could have expected for this week.”
The Trump tariffs on Mexico and Canada are mostly on hold.
The suspension effectively abandons many of the tariffs that Mr. Trump had placed on Canadian and Mexican products — levies he said were necessary to stem the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States.
Now Trump tells Cabinet members they’re in charge of agency staffing, not Elon.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump said DOGE is “headed by Elon Musk,” despite DOJ lawyers arguing he isn’t its administrator or even an employee. Now Politico reports he told the top members of his administration that Musk “was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy.”
Of course, as CNN reports, Trump also told reporters later:
“We’re going to be watching them, and Elon and the group are going to be watching them, and if they can cut, it’s better,” Trump said. “And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.”
Trump’s federal real estate sale listed a complex tied to a ‘secret’ CIA facility.
As part of the DOGE-directed reshaping of the federal government, General Services Administration listed more than 400 federal properties “designated for disposal” earlier this week, before replacing them with a “coming soon” message.
That could be because 14 of them were in a warehouse complex also housing “the worst-kept secret in Springfield,” a U-shaped building that Bloomberg Law says “doesn’t appear in federal property records but has long been associated with the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Wired has more details.
Marco Rubio will use AI to revoke student visas of pro-Palestine protesters.
The new State Department program, called “Catch and Revoke,” will use AI to review the social media accounts of tens of thousands of students who are in the US on visas, Axios reports. State Department sources tell Axios that officials plan on combing through internal databases to see if any international students were arrested in pro-Palestine demonstrations since October 2023 — and that the department is working with the Department of Homeland Security to ensure a “whole of government and whole of authority approach.”
Rubio, the new Secretary of State, has been calling for the revocation of student visas for pro-Palestine protesters since October 2023.
Social Security Administration staffers can no longer read the news at work.
Workers are now barred from browsing general news, online shopping, and sports websites on government devices, unless they get an exception for a legitimate business need, according to an email to SSA employees obtained by Rolling Stone.
Apparently this will help “better protect the sensitive information entrusted to us in our many systems,” which might include some of the same systems the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reportedly tried to access.
The Take It Down Act isn’t a law, it’s a weapon
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
It’s internet safety law season again. After a narrow failure to pass the Kids Online Safety Act in 2024, Congress is now advancing the Take It Down Act, which criminalizes nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII, once dubbed “revenge porn,” including AI-generated content) and sets requirements for web platforms to remove it. The bill has gained support from First Lady Melania Trump, and President Donald Trump touted it during his joint address to Congress on March 4th, promising he would sign it. In a normal world, this could be a positive step towards solving the real problem of NCII, a problem that AI is making worse.
But we are not in a normal world. Parts of the Take It Down Act are more likely to become a sword for a corrupt presidential administration than a shield to protect NCII victims — and supporters of both civil liberties and Big Tech accountability should recognize it.
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Trump’s ‘transgender mice’ don’t exist.
During the State of the Union address Tuesday night and in a post on the White House website published Wednesday, Donald Trump and his administration tried to claim that the government was spending millions on “transgender animal experiments.”
However, as this Rolling Stone article points out, the National Institutes of Health grants cited as examples of “examples of waste, fraud, and abuse” aren’t for that at all, with the White House misleadingly referring to studies of transgenic (not transgender) mice, and others about the effects of hormones that again, did not create transgender animals.
This air monitoring program saved hundreds of millions of dollars in medical costs. The Trump administration killed it.
Trickle-down cryptonomics.
It’s not surprising that the government’s crypto reserve involves Bitcoin and Ethereum, but the other three coins seem kind of random — Cardano (have you heard of it???), XRP, and Solana.
Popular Information dug deeper and identified a few politically-connected entities involved. There’s Ripple, the company that created XRP, which donated tens of millions to Republican super PACs and candidates like Trump in the 2024 election. Then there’s Solana, which backs memecoins like $TRUMP and $MELANIA. And to nobody’s surprise, David Sacks is also all up in the mix.
Car prices expected to increase by as much as $12,000 thanks to Trump’s tariffs
Image: Getty Images
Car prices are already at record highs, and President Donald Trump’s tariffs — if they stay in place — could send them into the stratosphere. The situation remains extremely fluid, with Trump administration officials today announcing a one-month reprieve for the auto industry, according to Politico.
But if tariffs stay in place, sticker prices could skyrocket by as much as $12,000, according to one analysis. Dealerships could be stuck with a bunch of trucks and SUVs that no one can afford. Some models could vanish from showrooms altogether. Many of these changes won’t take effect right away, as dealerships work through their vehicle stock. But the net impact could still be devastating.
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Trump says he’d sign the Take It Down Act to combat deepfakes.
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CFPB lets banks off the hook and drops Zelle lawsuit
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today dismissed a lawsuit against Early Warning Services, the company that runs the Venmo-like Zelle payment platform, as well as the three banks that share ownership of it, reports CNBC.
The CFPB, which enforces regulations against the financial services industry, had claimed in its December 2024 lawsuit that the organizations had not effectively protected Zelle users “from widespread fraud,” causing customers of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo to lose a combined $870 million since Zelle launched in 2017.
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Starlink could be eligible for more rural broadband funding.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick plans to make an internet infrastructure investment program “technology-neutral,” according to The Wall Street Journal, meaning Elon Musk’s Starlink could more easily benefit. The program currently favors investment in fiber.
CFPB staff and leaders clash about whether they’re allowed to work
Leadership and staff at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are clashing in court over whether the Trump administration is seeking to wind down the agency and if it has allowed workers to continue their legally required duties. Now, a key agency executive is expected to testify in a hearing next week, after a judge expressed concerns the agency would be shut down before she had a chance to weigh in.
The CFPB has been targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with Elon Musk posting “RIP” to the agency in early February, and a lawsuit filed by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) seeks to halt its effective shutdown. Last week, several CFPB employees — some anonymous but who offered to provide their identities to the judge under seal — submitted sworn statements that the Trump administration is trying to fire the “vast majority” of agency workers and make it so “that the CFPB would exist in name only.”
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TSMC announces $100 billion investment in US chipmaking
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. – the world’s biggest chipmaker – will invest at least $100 billion to expand chip manufacturing in the US. During a press conference on Monday, President Donald Trump said the funding would go toward building two additional chip manufacturing facilities in Phoenix, Arizona.
The $100 billion investment builds upon the $65 billion TSMC has already committed to building three Arizona factories, as well as the $6.6 billion the Biden administration awarded to TSMC under the CHIPS Act. TSMC began producing 4-nanometer chips at its Arizona plant in January, but its future factories are expected to make chips using “2nm or even more advanced process technology” by the end of the decade, according to the company’s website.
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FTC workers are getting terminated, including consumer protection and antitrust staff
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
At least a dozen probationary staffers at the Federal Trade Commission were terminated last week, The Verge has learned.
The terminations took place across the agency, according to two sources familiar with the matter, one of whom said that included both the Bureau of Consumer Protection and Bureau of Competition. The sources did not definitively link the terminations to actions by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but the move followed a familiar DOGE playbook: apparently indiscriminate cuts targeting probationary employees, who may be new to the agency or a specific role. The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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The US faces ‘devastating’ losses for weather forecasts, federal workers say
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
The federal agency that produces weather forecasts and leads research on climate and the oceans has canceled leases for research centers and slashed its staff to “devastating” effect, current and former employees tell The Verge.
Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) laid off hundreds of probationary employees, who make up roughly 10 percent of its workforce. The agency has plans to lay off around 50 percent of its staff in total, according to Andrew Rosenberg, a former deputy director at NOAA and co-editor of the SciLight newsletter.
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Trump reportedly plans to announce $100 billion chip deal with TSMC.
The Wall Street Journal reports that this afternoon, we’ll hear about how the chipmaker that Apple, Nvidia, and many others rely on “intends to invest $100 billion in chip manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the next four years,” likely linked to the president’s tariffs.
US government tech group 18F shuts down.
The US General Services Administration (GSA) laid the team off in an overnight email explaining the decision came from “top levels of leadership within both the Administration and the GSA,” reports NextGov.
Verizon becomes the FCC’s next DEI target.
Agency chair Brendan Carr criticized Verizon’s “lack of progress” on ending DEI initiatives in a letter telling its executives to contact FCC staff working on its pending Frontier acquisition, according to Bloomberg. That implies the merger’s approval is tied to Carr’s DEI agenda, fellow Commissioner Geoffrey Starks told the outlet in a statement critical of the move.
DEI is also at the center of the FCC’s Comcast probe.
Disclosure: Comcast is an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.
Trump names Bitcoin and others as part of coming ‘Crypto Strategic Reserve’
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
In a pair of social media posts today, President Donald Trump named some cryptocurrencies he says will be part of a Crypto Strategic Reserve being created by an executive order he signed in January. Those include Bitcoin and Ether, which he says “will be the heart of the Reserve.”
Trump said in the first of his two Truth Social posts that his order “directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve” that also includes XRP, Solana (SOL), and Cardano (ADA). Trump hinted at such a reserve on the campaign trail, telling attendees of a crypto conference last year that the US would never sell its Bitcoin holdings.
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FAA staff reportedly ordered to find funding for deal with Musk’s Starlink
Officials at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday ordered staff “to begin finding tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal” to upgrade air traffic control communications, anonymous sources have told Rolling Stone. The story follows reports that Starlink may be taking the job from Verizon, which already has a multibillion-dollar contract with the government to improve the system.
According to Rolling Stone, the talks “have mostly, if not entirely, been delivered verbally,” something its sources say is “unusual for a matter like this.” One person the outlet spoke with suggested that it looked like “someone does not want a paper trail.” Rolling Stone says it’s not clear whether the Verizon contract has ended yet, nor if any Starlink deal is official. Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which DOGE head Elon Musk owns.
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