Joined By Elon Musk, Trump Holds First Cabinet Meeting Of His Second Term

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency, attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Calling in a favor

Report: FAA to cancel Verizon contract in favor of Elon Musk’s SpaceX

Remember when Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman said they didn’t think Musk would use his position in government to hurt competition?

Rani Molla

2/27/25 9:57AM

Remember a few long months ago when Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos (who competes with Elon Musk in his AI and rocket businesses) and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (who competes with Musk in his AI business) downplayed the likelihood that Musk would use his government position to hurt competitors?

The Washington Post is reporting that the Federal Aviation Administration is close to canceling its 2023 $2.4 billion communications system overhaul contract with Verizon, and giving the contract instead to Musk’s SpaceX, whose Starlink satellite business competes with Verizon.

It appears Musk, who recently posted on his social media platform, “The Verizon system is not working and so is putting air travelers at serious risk,” might in fact be using his leadership position at the Department of Government Efficiency to hurt others and help himself.

To reiterate, in December, Altman said:

“It would be profoundly un-American to use political power — to the degree that Elon has it — to hurt your competitors and advantage your own businesses. I don’t think people would tolerate that and I don’t think Elon would do it.”

Bezos at the time said:

“I take it at face value what has been said, which is that he is not going to use his political power to advantage his own companies or to disadvantage his competitors. I could be wrong about that but I think it could be true... I’ve had a lot of success in life not being cynical, and I’ve very rarely been taken advantage of. It’s happened a couple of times, but not very often.”

For what it’s worth, even Verizon doesn’t quite seem to understand what’s happening to it.

Verizon Executive Vice President Joseph Russo said at an event earlier this week that Starlink’s efforts at the FAA might work in unison with Verizon’s.

“I think that can be complementary to what we’re trying to build to really run the FAA infrastructure,” Russo said. “We’re in the midst of rolling out that network. It is not operational yet today but will be shortly as we continue to build in additional reliability and performance at the FAA.”

Rani Molla21m

Apple is reportedly working on a wearable AI pin

Move over OpenAI, Apple is reportedly also developing a mysterious AI powered wearable device: a pin that looks like a "thin, flat, circular disc with an aluminum-and-glass shell.”

The Information reports that the device is the size of an AirTag, and has two cameras, a speaker, three microphones, and wireless charging. It could be available by early 2027.

Apple, which has lagged its peers in AI and recently teamed up with Googleto support its upcoming Siri revamp, is hoping to keep up with ChatGPT and Google, which, like Apple, has an AI smartphone. Metaand Google are both also pushing into smart AI glasses.

It’s not to be mistaken with OpenAI’s secretive wearable AI device, which is being made in conjunction with former Appledesigner Jony Ive and is expected to debut in late 2026. The latest rumors suggest the unnamed device, meant to eventually compete with smartphones, might be earbuds.

Apple Developing AI Wearable Pin

Jon Keegan

As public pushback against data centers grows, AI companies promise they’ll be good neighbors

Communities concerned with energy prices, pollution, and water usage are starting to push back on Big Tech’s AI data center building spree. The companies are trying to assure the public that they will pay their way.

Rani Molla5h

Morgan Stanley expects Tesla to have 1,000 Robotaxis by the end of 2026. Musk had predicted 1,500 by the end of 2025

Ahead of Tesla’s earnings report next week, Morgan Stanley has released a note estimating that the company will scale its Robotaxi fleet much more slowly than CEO Elon Musk has said. The firm thinks the automaker will have 1,000 vehicles in its Robotaxi service by the end of 2026 — 500 fewer than Musk estimated a few months ago Tesla would have by the end of 2025.

More key to Tesla’s success, however, will be removing the safety monitors from those rides, which Morgan Stanley says will be a “precursor to personal unsupervised FSD [Full Self-Driving] rollout.” Musk, of course, had also promised to remove safety drivers in Austin by the end of 2025, but driverless rides are still in the testing stage.

Rani Molla7h

Meta says it’s delivered new AI models internally this month and they’re “very good”

Meta’s last AI model release, Llama 4, was marred by delays and accusations of rigged benchmarks, but the company says the latest models built by its Superintelligence Labs team look promising. CTO Andrew Bosworth told reporters at the World Economic Forum that the team delivered new models internally in January and they’re “very good.”

Bosworth didn’t specify what the models are, though The Wall Street Journal has reported that Meta is working on a large language model and an AI image and video model code-named Avocado and Mango, respectively.

Exclusive: Meta's new AI team delivered first key models internally this month, CTO says

Rani Molla8h

Two charts that show why Amazon is building a giant physical store

This week Amazon received approval to build a hybrid big-box store and fulfillment center outside Chicago that’s roughly twice the size of a typical Target. Why would the e-commerce giant want to wade into a costly and cumbersome physical store, especially after earlier brick-and-mortar iterations like Amazon Go have failed?

There are at least two reasons. First, despite e-commerce’s rapid growth, the vast majority of retail purchases still happen in physical stores, according to Census Bureau data:

Second, Amazon’s own customers regularly shop at competing big-box retailers: Consumer Intelligence Research Partners found that 93% have also shopped at Walmart. And as Amazon pushes further into groceries — a category still dominated by in-person shopping — CIRP estimates that basically all Amazon customers buy groceries elsewhere.