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☆ A rash of tech billionaires are pivoting to Trump — but not because they’re MAGA bros
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-18 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

But there’s a small, powerful sect of Silicon Valley billionaires who are carving a path for the maybe-Trumpers and the MAGA-curious in the tech world. David Sacks, the billionaire tech investor, co-hosted a fundraiser last month at his San Francisco home and spoke at the Republican National Convention on Monday. In the last election cycle, the few Trump backers that existed in the Valley largely kept their support under the radar. Their numbers are still small, but they’re no longer hiding, and their wallets are open. And, as Kovacevich notes, just because there are a few big names turning toward Trump, “they’re not speaking for everybody.”“In fact, most of the big company CEOs aren’t terribly involved in partisan politics,” Kovacevich says.

Persons: CNN Business ’, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, MAGA, Elon Musk, Trump, David Sacks, San Francisco, Doug Leone, Palantir, Joe Lonsdale, what’s, Adam Kovacevich, ”, “, Biden, Lina Khan, Joe Biden’s, Gary Gensler, who’s, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Trump’s, hasn’t, they’ve, Reid Hoffman, Eric Schmidt, aren’t, ” Kovacevich, “ They’re Organizations: CNN Business, New York CNN, Silicon, Wall Street, Trump, America PAC, San, Republican National Convention, Sequoia Capital, Biden, of, Financial Times, SEC, Big Tech, LinkedIn, Google Locations: New York, Silicon

☆ Congress hasn’t been able to make social media safer. Here’s why
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

This has been true since the early 2010s, when tech companies began realizing the benefits of influencing policymakers on issues including net neutrality and privacy. This week, Microsoft announced its support for the Kids Online Safety Act, a leading social media bill. Even when lawmakers can agree on what the problem is, they often disagree on how to solve it, creating a smorgasbord of half a dozen or more social media bills floating around Congress. That would be a huge down payment on a future social media law, said Balkam. But even that proposal is still subject to many of the same dynamics that make social media regulation hard.

Persons: Washington CNN —, ”, Danny Weiss, Ben Thompson, Adam Kovacevich, “ That’s, hasn’t, Republican stonewalling, Weiss, Kovacevich, ” Kovacevich, I’m, ” Weiss, Chuck Schumer, Mike Johnson, Schumer, Nancy Pelosi’s, “, Johnson didn’t, Evan Greer Organizations: Washington CNN, Big Tech, Tech, Sense, Microsoft, Kids, LinkedIn, of, Republican, CNN Locations: Washington, United States

☆ An antitrust battle over GIFs could be a wake-up call for Silicon Valley
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

But a long-running legal battle over who can control access to them, culminating this week in a rare defeat for Meta (META), the parent of Facebook, could have major ramifications for Big Tech regulation. On Tuesday, UK regulators forced Meta to unwind its 2020 purchase of Giphy, one of the largest searchable internet libraries of GIFs. “The Citadel may have been breached,” said Joel Mitnick, an antitrust attorney at the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. The company said this week that it will continue to explore acquisitions despite the UK ruling. And US courts don’t typically take foreign antitrust rulings into account; their job is to interpret US law.

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