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.”

Jon Keegan19h

Meta will begin using your AI chats to target you with ads

When Meta rolls out a new product, the company usually waits until that product has a billion users before turning on the ads.

In May, Meta announced that Meta AI has crossed that threshold, saying that more than 1 billion people are using the product every month. Today, Meta announced that it will begin using your conversations and messages with Meta AI to personalize your recommendations and the ads you see.

Meta currently monetizes your activity on Meta platforms using your interactions (likes, shares, attention) to tailor your exposure to Meta’s massive advertising machine. So if you asked Meta AI about travel tips for your upcoming vacation, you might now see more content and ads related to that place. But what if you’re asking Meta AI about how to deal with your depression?

In a blog post, the company shared:

“When people have conversations with Meta AI about topics such as their religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, as always, we don’t use those topics to show them ads.”

But Meta has a spotty record when it comes to protecting sensitive personal information from leaking into its ad platform. Meta’s pixel-tracking technology has been found to pick up sensitive information regarding mental heath crises, financial information, and medical information.

Meta says you can manage the ads you see via controls in its privacy settings, but it’s unclear if users can opt out of the use of Meta AI conversations and interactions for ads and recommendations altogether.

The company said users will start to see notifications about the changes this month, which will go into effect on December 16, 2025.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Improving Your Recommendations on Our Apps With AI at Meta

In a blog post, the company shared:

“When people have conversations with Meta AI about topics such as their religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, as always, we don’t use those topics to show them ads.”

The company said users will start to see notifications about the changes this month, which will go into effect on December 16, 2025.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rani Molla20h

Tesla sales grow in some European countries for the first time this year

In September, Tesla sales rose in France and Denmark for the first time this year, while they also continued to grow in Norway and Spain, according to early European sales data reported by Reuters.

That’s a notable shift from the declines of previous months, as Tesla benefits from the rollout of its revamped Model Y and the introduction of numerous incentives across the continent, helping to stabilize its earlier sales slump.

Of course, Tesla’s European sales fluctuate dramatically month to month in Europe in part because the company doesn’t sell that many vehicles in Europe. Typically Tesla sells a few thousand vehicles per month per European country. In comparison, the automaker sells tens of thousands of cars in the US each month.

Tesla is up more than 2% in early trading, after having just capped off its best month since the election.

Rising ambitions and skyrocketing costs: Here’s what we know about Project Stargate

As the number of gigawatts and GPUs grows, so do the questions about how the massive data center project will be paid for.

Jon Keegan21h

Rani Molla22h

Apple reiterates plans to “partner with other generative AI chatbots” besides ChatGPT

Apple is playing the field with AI and it wants you to know.

In a filing to dismiss Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s lawsuit accusing the iPhone maker of favoring its partner OpenAI’s ChatGPT on the App Store, Apple said that can’t be the case because it is “widely known that Apple intends to partner with other generative AI chatbots.”

At its developer conference last year, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi previously mentioned that Apple “intends to add support for other AI models in the future.”

Apple currently has a partnership with ChatGPT where users can direct their Siri queries to go through the chatbot. Apple, whose AI strategy has lagged its peers, has also been in talks with Anthropic and Google, and is reportedly considering using Gemini to power Siri.

Apple’s lawyers refuted X Corp.’s claims that Apple cannot partner with OpenAI “without simultaneously partnering with every other generative AI chatbot — regardless of quality, privacy or safety considerations, technical feasibility, stage of development, or commercial terms.” Apple’s legal team added, “Of course, the antitrust laws do not require that.”

Apple has yet to announce who its future AI partners will be.

Apple Denies Harming Musk’s xAI by Teaming Up With OpenAI

At its developer conference last year, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi previously mentioned that Apple “intends to add support for other AI models in the future.”

Apple has yet to announce who its future AI partners will be.

Rani Molla9/30/25

Meta buys chip startup Rivos in effort to lower its reliance on Nvidia

Meta is buying AI chip startup Rivos for an unknown sum, as part of the social media company’s effort to decrease its reliance on graphics processing units from Nvidia, Bloomberg reports. Rivos was seeking funding in August at a $2 billion valuation. Meta has been spending exorbitant sums in an attempt to create AI models that are smarter than humans, an effort that’s involved investing in developing its own AI chips.