“Everything’s computer!” President Donald Trump said on Tuesday while checking out a Tesla. The president might be right about that, not only regarding the Tesla, but for the future of the American economy: The Trump administration is attempting to usher in the AI economy while bringing the tech giants working on this technology to heel.
Its no small task, and two massive stories from the tech world that corporate media outlets swiftly swept under the rug this week are illustrative. Thus far, however, “it is a loud silence on the part of the media,” Wes Hodges, acting director of the Tech Policy Center at The Heritage Foundation, told me on this week’s episode of ”The Signal Sitdown.”
The first story came from a Facebook whistleblower’s allegations that the tech giant was willing to bend over backward to appease the Chinese Communist Party, even sharing critical technological developments in AI and then “lying about it” to U.S. officials.
The second came from Elon Musk’s X. After X suffered a series of outages on Monday, Musk said the social media platform was the victim of “a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.” Corporate media outlets swiftly trotted out experts to claim Musk’s claims were “garbage,” even though U.S. officials claim they have not yet been able to identify who was behind the cyberattack.
Though the corporate media wants the public to pay no mind to these stories, each provides essential insights into the fight for the future of the American economy, a fight President Donald Trump is fighting on two fronts. The first is with China; the second is with American elites.
“There is a lot of truth to being able to deflect and hide your source of attack with enough time and resources,” he said of those questioning whether the attack actually came from the Ukraine area. Nevertheless, “Musk’s accusation that it came from Ukraine isn’t something that we should rule out,” because of the enemies Musk has made since entering the political arena.
”If there’s some truth to the fact that this comes from Ukraine,” Hodges said (stressing the “if”), “I’ve just got to ask: After you look past missiles and guns, what is most important in a modern war today? And it is connectedness, it’s internet, and you know what is still in the sky right now? It’s Musk’s Starlink giving Ukraine their internet capabilities to be able to fight their war.”
“If there’s any truth to them being partially behind this, what a dumb thing to do,” the tech center director said.
But Musk’s other enemies seem to be putting the heat on Musk, whether through Tesla sell-offs or more covert means.
Hodges’ takeaway? “I think among Big Tech giants and the powers that be do not want something like X to succeed,” he told me. “The knives are out, and this just happens to be one time where they got a punch through.”
“I can’t help but think it comes back to the idea that, for his opponents, they just can’t have him exist because it defeats their narrative,” Hodges said of Musk. “Elon, by his example, infuriates what I’ll just mark up as the elites against him because he is a living example of someone who bucks the trend that can encourage more people to live productive and good lives.”
Meanwhile, other tech titans continue to be exposed for cozying up to the Chinese Communist Party. The latest story comes from a 78-page whistleblower report from a former Facebook employee.
The whistleblower, Sarah Wynn-Williams, worked on Facebook’s China policy team and was fired in 2017. Arguably, the most explosive allegation from the report is that “for many years, Meta has been working hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party [on AI], briefing them on the latest technological developments and lying about it.”
Hodges told me that this is a pervasive practice throughout the industry. “The reality is, you are hard-pressed to find a Big Tech company that hasn’t tried to break into the Chinese market,” he said. “And that’s not a condoning of this. It should be damning.”
Yet, holding Big Tech companies to account is a tricky business for American policymakers, but they have the tools, such as antitrust laws. But deciding which tool to use can be difficult.
“In this circumstance, it certainly shows one of the major downsides [of large corporations], which is, if Meta was one-hundredth its size, this wouldn’t be a problem,” Hodges said. “But because it is so powerful—in terms of scale, users, data—it cozying up to China and giving them access to American data or even just adjusting its incentives to be less free speech-oriented and the possible seeping of that into its American services just shows how big of a threat this is.”
As artificial intelligence is ascendant, Hodges said the right view for policymakers on technology mirrors the Trump administration’s approach and is one the private tech sector should adopt.
“We want to be friends of technology as a positive innovation that isn’t seeking to exploit and addict, but trying to take existing communities and build them up and have a variety of competition and ideas throughout the country that, ultimately, better serves the American public,” he said.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
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