power

Jon Keegan7/18/25

White House’s “hands-off” approach to AI includes restricting “woke AI”

The Trump administration is dead set on America dominating AI, and it’s close to releasing its plan.

Axios reports that a forthcoming 20-page document will frame the administration’s “hands-off approach” to AI, clearing the way for companies to get faster permitting for AI data centers, eliminating regulatory hurdles, and “promoting innovation.”

But maybe not entirely hands-off. The Wall Street Journal reported that David Sacks, the AI and crypto czar, is pushing to make sure any AI company that receives federal dollars ensures that their AI isn’t “woke” and is “politically neutral.”

It’s not clear what the test for this might be, but to date, the Department of Defense doesn’t seem to care. It recently awarded contracts worth up to $200 million to Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI.

A recent embarrassing episode with xAI’s Grok chatbot shows just how complicated it can be to try and skew the perceived politics of an AI model, after CEO Elon Musk’s attempt to allow “politically incorrect” responses resulted in the model declaring itself “MechaHitler” and spewing antisemitic posts.

Scoop: What's inside Trump's 20-page AI action plan

Scoop: What's inside Trump's 20-page AI action plan

But maybe not entirely hands-off. The Wall Street Journal reported that David Sacks, the AI and crypto czar, is pushing to make sure any AI company that receives federal dollars ensures that their AI isn’t “woke” and is “politically neutral.”

It’s not clear what the test for this might be, but to date, the Department of Defense doesn’t seem to care. It recently awarded contracts worth up to $200 million to Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI.

A recent embarrassing episode with xAI’s Grok chatbot shows just how complicated it can be to try and skew the perceived politics of an AI model, after CEO Elon Musk’s attempt to allow “politically incorrect” responses resulted in the model declaring itself “MechaHitler” and spewing antisemitic posts.

More Power

Traders are getting more and more pessimistic about the government shutdown ending any time soon

The market expects the shutdown to last well into November.

The Capitol Building in Washington DC

OpenAI’s internal Slack messages could cost it billions in copyright suit

Authors and publishers suing OpenAI over copyright infringement were granted access to internal OpenAI communications about the deletion of a pirated books dataset, and now want to review attorney communications.

Frightened Man

US corporate spending on private flights for executives has ballooned in recent years

The median expense spent by America’s largest companies on air travel jumped 66% from 2020 to 2024.

1990s Business man private jet

power

Claire Yubin Oh10/1/25

OK, so when was the longest shutdown in US history?

The US government officially shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday after senators failed to agree on a last-minute funding bill. Though initially shrugging off the threat of a shutdown during yesterday’s session, stocks were mildly in the red on Wednesday as investors reacted to what is now the 11th shutdown in the government’s history.

Until this latest shutdown, there had been 20 government funding gaps experienced since 1976 — though not all ended in a full shutdown, with full closure averted in half of those cases.

Indeed, prior to the 1980s, funding gaps didn’t typically have major effects on government operations, with agencies continuing to operate on the basis that the funding would come eventually. However, a more stringent interpretation of the rules led to a stricter appropriations process from the early 1980s onward, with many subsequent funding gaps resulting in a shutdown of affected agencies (unless the gaps were quickly fixed or occurred over a weekend).

Obviously, the duration of the latest shutdown is still unclear, but it will continue until Congress passes a funding bill — most likely via a “continuing resolution,” which has ended every shutdown since 1990. Data analyzed by USAFacts suggest that it might not be a one- or two-day affair, as funding gaps have lengthened in recent years.

Government shutdown patterns — Sherwood News

Indeed, the last shutdown, which began in December 2018, ended up becoming the longest in history, at a whopping 34 days. By the time the government reopened in January 2019, about $3 billion (in 2019 dollars) had been wiped from the GDP in Q4, per data from the Congressional Budget Office, with approximately $18 billion in “federal discretionary spending” delayed over the roughly five-week stretch.

power

Max Knoblauch9/24/25

GM climbs following upgrade, report that Trump administration seeks stake in its lithium mine partner

Shares of General Motors rose more than 2% in premarket trading Wednesday following an upgrade of the stock by UBS from “neutral” to “buy.” The firm also hiked its price target for GM by 45% to $81.

Also likely elevating GM was a Reuters report that the Trump administration is exploring taking a 10% stake in Lithium Americas, the automaker’s partner in a yet to open Thacker Pass lithium mine. Shares of Lithium Americas surged 68% in the premarket.

GM, which invested $625 million into the lithium mine last year, holds a 38% stake in the joint venture. The mine is expected to become the Western Hemisphere’s primary lithium source in 2028, when it’s slated to open, producing enough of the metal to make 800,000 electric vehicle batteries.

Prior to its plans for Lithium Americas, the Trump administration last month said it would take a 10% stake in Intel. In July, it announced a 15% stake in rare earths miner MP Materials.

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