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."
Disney content has gone dark on YouTube TV, leaving subscribers of the Google-owned live streaming platform without access to major networks like ESPN and ABC. That’s because the companies have failed to reach a new licensing deal to keep Disney channels on YouTube TV. Depending on how long it lasts, the dispute could particularly impact coverage of U.S. college football matchups over the weekend — on top of other news and entertainment disruptions that have already arrived. In the meantime, YouTube TV subscribers who want to watch Disney channels could have little choice other than turning to the company’s own platforms, which come with their own price tags.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
Universal Music Group and AI platform Udio have settled a copyright lawsuit and will collaborate on a new music creation and streaming platform. The companies announced on Wednesday that they reached a compensatory legal settlement and new licensing agreements. These agreements aim to provide more revenue opportunities for Universal's artists and songwriters. The rise of AI song generation tools like Udio has disrupted the music streaming industry, leading to accusations from record labels. This deal marks the first since Universal and others sued Udio and Suno last year. Financial terms of the settlement weren't disclosed.
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
