European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton (Hans Lucas/Getty Images)

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The EU has absurd guidelines for fining American tech giants

It threatened to fine Elon Musk's X 6% of its global revenue, continuing a trend of massive fines for US tech companies

7/16/24 2:38PM

Last week, Elon Musk’s X came under fire from the European Commission for violating its Digital Services Act, and the commission has threatened to fine the platform up to 6% of its global revenue. From Reuters:

The Commission said X's verified accounts which carry a blue checkmark do not correspond to industry practice and negatively affect users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts they interact with.
After buying the platform then known as Twitter in 2022, Musk altered the use of the blue checkmark, which previously indicated that an account belonged to a public figure whose identity was verified but was changed to indicate it belonged to a paid subscriber.
The commission said X had also failed to comply with a DSA requirement to provide searchable and reliable information about advertisements in a library for easy access.
X was also charged with blocking researchers from accessing its public data. The company, which will have several months to respond to the charges, could face a fine of as much as 6% of its global turnover if found guilty of breaching the DSA.

This is the latest example of the European Union threatening to fine American tech companies a percentage of their global revenue for failing to comply with European mandates.

In March, the EU launched an anti-steering investigation into Apple and Alphabet, claiming that the tech giants have violated its Digital Markets Act by making it difficult for companies using their app stores to steer customers to cheaper subscription options. Fines for violating the DMA can be 10% of a company’s annual worldwide revenue, and 20% for repeat infringements.

Apple also just settled a long-standing mobile payments probe concerning the company not allowing third-party developers to access Apple’s payment technology to build alternative mobile wallets, and the iPhone maker risked a fine of 10% of its annual revenue if it failed to comply.

To put the size of these proposed fines into perspective, Apple’s total net sales in 2023 were $383.3 billion, so a 10% fine of its global revenue would be $38.3 billion. Apple’s entire operating income in Europe is only $36.1 billion. If it failed to comply with the EU’s regulations, Apple would be fined more than it makes in the region.

It seems insane to me that American companies, whose largest markets are North America, could be subject to global revenue fines by European regulators that are more expensive than the companies’ operating incomes on the continent.

Beyond the questionable nature of the fines (while I think the current “pay-to-play” blue check model is inferior, threatening to fine the company that literally invented the “blue checkmark” for not corresponding with an “industry practice” regarding blue checkmarks is absurd), how does the European Union have the right to enforce fines on California-based companies’ revenue generated in New York, Tokyo, and Rio? It makes zero sense.

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Max Knoblauch2/20/26

Report: Amazon’s AI bots have been behind multiple AWS outages

Amazon’s AI tool Kiro, which launched in July and can code autonomously, was behind a 13-hour interruption to Amazon Web Services in December, according to reporting by the Financial Times.

The FT reports that the company’s AI tools have caused AWS service disruptions at least twice in recent months.

In the December outage, which Amazon called an “extremely limited event” that did not have an impact on customer-facing service, engineers allowed Kiro to make changes and the tool opted to “delete and recreate the environment.”

Amazon has a closely tracked internal target that 80% of its developers use AI to code once a week, employees told the FT. The company says the December incident was a “user access control issue” and not an issue with Kiro’s permissions.

AWS accounted for 57% of Amazon’s operating profit in 2025. In December, following a larger outage months earlier, AWS and Google announced a partnership to attempt to prevent massive network outages.

Update, February 20, 5:50 p.m. ET: In a statement to Sherwood News, an AWS spokesperson disputed the report, writing:

“These brief events were the result of user error—specifically misconfigured access controls—not AI. The December service interruption was an extremely limited event when a single service (AWS Cost Explorer—which helps customers visualize, understand, and manage AWS costs and usage over time) in one of our two Regions in Mainland China was affected. This event didn't impact compute, storage, database, AI technologies, or any other of the hundreds of services that we run. We are not aware of any related customer inquiries resulting from this isolated interruption. Following these events, we implemented numerous additional safeguards, including mandatory peer review for production access, enhanced training on AI-assisted troubleshooting, and resource protection measures. Kiro puts developers in control—users need to configure which actions Kiro can take, and by default, Kiro requests authorization before taking any action.”

Amazon service was taken down by AI coding bot

Update, February 20, 5:50 p.m. ET: In a statement to Sherwood News, an AWS spokesperson disputed the report, writing:

“These brief events were the result of user error—specifically misconfigured access controls—not AI. The December service interruption was an extremely limited event when a single service (AWS Cost Explorer—which helps customers visualize, understand, and manage AWS costs and usage over time) in one of our two Regions in Mainland China was affected. This event didn't impact compute, storage, database, AI technologies, or any other of the hundreds of services that we run. We are not aware of any related customer inquiries resulting from this isolated interruption. Following these events, we implemented numerous additional safeguards, including mandatory peer review for production access, enhanced training on AI-assisted troubleshooting, and resource protection measures. Kiro puts developers in control—users need to configure which actions Kiro can take, and by default, Kiro requests authorization before taking any action.”

$830B

Max Knoblauch2/19/26

OpenAI is finalizing commitments on a funding round that could climb beyond $100 billion at a valuation of $830 billion, according to a report from The Information.

Per The Information, SoftBank is expected to invest $30 billion into the ChatGPT maker, spread across the year in three installments of $10 billion. Up to $50 billion could come from Amazon and $30 billion from Nvidia (up from the $20 billion Bloomberg reported earlier this month). An additional investment in the low billions could come from Microsoft.

OpenAI was last valued at $500 billion following a fundraising round completed in October. Earlier this month, its rival Anthropic took in $30 billion from investors including Microsoft and Nvidia at a $380 billion valuation.

Max Knoblauch2/17/26

Tesla’s 45 Austin Robotaxis now have 14 crashes on the books since launching in June

Since launching in June 2025, Tesla’s 45 Austin Robotaxis have been involved in 14 crashes, per Electrek reporting citing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.

Electrek analysis found that the vehicles have traveled roughly 800,000 paid miles in that time period, amounting to a crash every 57,000 miles. According to the NHTSA, US drivers crash once every 500,000 miles on average.

The article says Tesla submitted five new crash reports in January of this year that happened in December and January. Electrek wrote:

“The new crashes include a collision with a fixed object at 17 mph while the vehicle was driving straight, a crash with a bus while the Tesla was stationary, a collision with a heavy truck at 4 mph, and two separate incidents where the Tesla backed into objects, one into a pole or tree at 1 mph and another into a fixed object at 2 mph.”

Tesla updated a previously reported crash that was originally filed as only having damaged property to include a passenger’s hospitalization.

Last month, Tesla shares climbed after CEO Elon Musk said in a post on X that the company’s Austin Robotaxis had begun operating without a safety monitor.

Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month — 4x worse than humans

The article says Tesla submitted five new crash reports in January of this year that happened in December and January. Electrek wrote:

“The new crashes include a collision with a fixed object at 17 mph while the vehicle was driving straight, a crash with a bus while the Tesla was stationary, a collision with a heavy truck at 4 mph, and two separate incidents where the Tesla backed into objects, one into a pole or tree at 1 mph and another into a fixed object at 2 mph.”

Tesla updated a previously reported crash that was originally filed as only having damaged property to include a passenger’s hospitalization.

Last month, Tesla shares climbed after CEO Elon Musk said in a post on X that the company’s Austin Robotaxis had begun operating without a safety monitor.

Jon Keegan2/13/26

Ahead of IPO, Anthropic adds veteran executive and former Trump administration official to board

Anthropic is moving to put the pieces in place for a successful IPO this year.

Today, the company announced that Chris Liddel would join its board of directors.

Liddel is an seasoned executive who previously served as CFO for Microsoft, GM, and International Paper.

Liddel also comes with experience in government, having served as the deputy White House chief of staff during the first Trump administration.

Ties to the Trump world could be helpful for Anthropic as it pushes to enter the public market. It’s reportedly not on the greatest terms with the current administration, as the startup has pushed back on using its Claude AI for surveillance applications.

Exclusive | Anthropic Adds New Board Member as It Eyes IPO

Liddel is an seasoned executive who previously served as CFO for Microsoft, GM, and International Paper.

Liddel also comes with experience in government, having served as the deputy White House chief of staff during the first Trump administration.

Rani Molla2/13/26

Meta is bringing back facial recognition for its smart glasses

Meta is reviving its highly controversial facial recognition efforts, with plans to incorporate the tech into its smart glasses as soon as this year, The New York Times reports.

In 2021, around the time Facebook rebranded as Meta, the company shut down the facial recognition software it had used to tag people in photos, saying it needed to “find the right balance.”

Now, according to an internal memo reviewed by the Times, Meta seems to feel that it’s at least found the right moment, noting that the fraught and crowded political climate could allow the feature to attract less scrutiny.

“We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” the document reads.

The tech, called “Name Tag” internally, would let smart glass wearers identify and surface information about people they see with the glasses by using Meta’s artificial intelligence assistant.

Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition Technology to Its Smart Glasses

“We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” the document reads.

The tech, called “Name Tag” internally, would let smart glass wearers identify and surface information about people they see with the glasses by using Meta’s artificial intelligence assistant.

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