President Donald Trump said the government will investigate Google following an accusation by tech billionaire Peter Thiel that the company is working with China and committing treason.
"A great and brilliant guy who knows this subject better than anyone! The Trump Administration will take a look!" Trump said on Twitter Tuesday morning after a segment on Fox News aired on the issue.
In a speech on Sunday, Thiel reportedly suggested that Google's ($GOOGL) AI operations had been infiltrated by foreign intelligence agencies — especially China's — and said that senior management has made a "seemingly treasonous decision" to work with China.
These questions "need to be asked by the FBI, by the CIA," Thiel said at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington D.C., according to Axios, adding that a probe should be conducted "in a not excessively gentle manner."
Google strongly pushed back against the charge, saying in a statement to Cheddar that "we do not work with the Chinese military. We are working with the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense, in many areas including cybersecurity, recruiting and healthcare."
Thiel, who is on the board of Facebook ($FB) and has been a longtime supporter of Trump, is the co-founder of PayPal ($PYPL) and Palantir Technologies, a data mining firm that works with several U.S. government agencies.
"Treason is a very, very serious word here," Jason Moser, senior analyst at the investor firm The Motley Fool, told Cheddar. "You need to be very careful when you use that language and at least have something to back it up."
Larry Kudlow, the director of the White House's National Economic Council, also pushed back against the accusation, telling Fox Business on Monday that he is "not sure where [Thiel] is going, what [Thiel] is pointing to."
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
Cracker Barrel is sticking with its new logo. For now. But the chain is also apologizing to fans who were angered when the change was announced last week.
Elon Musk on Monday targeted Apple and OpenAI in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the iPhone maker and the ChatGPT maker are teaming up to thwart competition in artificial intelligence.
