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Amazon is reportedly making a last-minute play to buy TikTok as the ban deadline looms

TikTok is set to be banned in the US on Saturday unless ByteDance divests the incredibly popular social media app or President Trump further extends the deadline.

Nia Warfield

Amazon has reportedly put in a bid to snatch up TikTok, which is set to be banned in the United States this weekend unless ByteDance divests the incredibly popular social media app.

Oracle has appeared to have the inside track on the company, but this last-minute push from Amazon — which has both the means to host TikTok given its sprawling AWS business, as well as a gap in its business where most of its rivals in the tech industry have a social media app — could shake up the process at the eleventh hour.

Shares of Amazon were up 2.5% in recent trading.

Amazon and TikTok already have ties: last August, they teamed up to let users shop Amazon products directly in the TikTok app. In January, JPMorgan analyst Brian Nowak said acquiring TikTok could help Amazon  “build a viable social shopping network,” citing the app’s estimated 32 billion hours of US consumer engagement. 

But good relations may not be enough to seal a deal. TikTok has repeatedly said it’s not for sale, arguing that any forced divestiture would likely be blocked by the Chinese government. TikTok has 170 million US users, equivalent to about half the US population, making its fate a high-stakes issue in Washington.

President Donald Trump, who could also theoretically push the date of the ban again, is set to meet with top White House officials Wednesday to discuss the app’s future.

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Jon Keegan

White House releases AI legislative framework

The White House has released its policy wish list for AI legislation — and what it wants excluded.

Still, the odds of any actual AI regulation getting passed in Congress right now are very slim.

The “National Policy Framework” for AI lays out seven issues that the Trump administration wants to see reflected in any congressional action around AI.

The items listed in the framework include:

  • Child safety protections, age verification, and parental controls for AI.

  • Data center projects voluntarily pay their own way when it comes to power, but incentives should still be encouraged.

  • Copyright laws should allow for training models on copyrighted works, while protecting individuals’ voice and likeness.

  • Free speech should be defended for AI systems, preventing the government from pressuring companies to ban or alter content based on partisan agendas.

  • A light touch to regulation to encourage innovation, and no federal agency to regulate AI.

  • American workers vulnerable to AI job replacement should be retrained and supported.

  • Federal AI rules should preempt any state AI legislation to prevent a patchwork of laws that companies would hate.

The policy list is the latest in a series of proposals from the AI-friendly Trump administration.

The items listed in the framework include:

  • Child safety protections, age verification, and parental controls for AI.

  • Data center projects voluntarily pay their own way when it comes to power, but incentives should still be encouraged.

  • Copyright laws should allow for training models on copyrighted works, while protecting individuals’ voice and likeness.

  • Free speech should be defended for AI systems, preventing the government from pressuring companies to ban or alter content based on partisan agendas.

  • A light touch to regulation to encourage innovation, and no federal agency to regulate AI.

  • American workers vulnerable to AI job replacement should be retrained and supported.

  • Federal AI rules should preempt any state AI legislation to prevent a patchwork of laws that companies would hate.

The policy list is the latest in a series of proposals from the AI-friendly Trump administration.

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Jon Keegan

WSJ: OpenAI rolling everything into one desktop “superapp”

OpenAI is trying to eliminate distractions and focus on building AI that helps with enterprise productivity tasks like coding and organizing spreadsheets.

As part of that effort, the startup is consolidating some of its side quests into one superapp, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The plan is to merge ChatGPT, Codex, and the Atlas browser together, as it seeks to focus its efforts as it competes with Anthropic and Google for lucrative enterprise customers.

OpenAI Head of Apps Fidji Simo told staffers in an internal memo that “we realized we were spreading our efforts across too many apps and stacks, and that we need to simplify our efforts. That fragmentation has been slowing us down and making it harder to hit the quality bar we want,” per the report.

The plan is to merge ChatGPT, Codex, and the Atlas browser together, as it seeks to focus its efforts as it competes with Anthropic and Google for lucrative enterprise customers.

OpenAI Head of Apps Fidji Simo told staffers in an internal memo that “we realized we were spreading our efforts across too many apps and stacks, and that we need to simplify our efforts. That fragmentation has been slowing us down and making it harder to hit the quality bar we want,” per the report.

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