Sylvia Varnham O’Regan

How Greg and Anna Brockman Became MAGA Megadonors In November, Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder, and his wife, Anna, enjoyed a glitzy night out in Washington: a White House state dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The ...

New: How OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife Anna went from having little interest in politics to becoming MAGA megadonors. Deep dive with @jemimamcevoy.bsky.social and @stephpalazzolo.bsky.social www.theinformation.com/articles/gre...

How Greg and Anna Brockman Became MAGA Megadonors In November, Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder, and his wife, Anna, enjoyed a glitzy night out in Washington: a White House state dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The ...

Weekend: The Big Read

How Greg and Anna Brockman became MAGA megadonors.

Read more from @jemimamcevoy.bsky.social, @stephpalazzolo.bsky.social and @sylviavo.bsky.social 👇
https://thein.fo/49NNi0c

TikTok Insiders Bet No. 2, Adam Presser, Will Run New Venture President Donald Trump’s recent announcement that a joint venture will oversee TikTok’s U.S. business left unanswered the important question of who will run the new company. Inside TikTok, executives ...

New: Adam Presser has been named the CEO of TikTok’s new U.S. joint venture, confirming a story Juro Osawa and I wrote in October for @theinformation.com: www.theinformation.com/articles/tik...

Meta created ‘playbook’ to fend off pressure to crack down on scammers, documents show As regulators pressure Meta to verify the identity of advertisers on Facebook and Instagram, the social media giant has drafted a “playbook” to stall them. A Reuters investigation examines its tactics...

We got Meta’s “general global playbook” for defeating advertiser verification regulations, which the company knows would reduce scams. It includes making scam ads “not findable” for regulators searching Meta’s ad library through targeted scrubbing.

www.reuters.com/investigatio...

How the AI Backlash Could Shape the Midterm Elections Lately, Maura Keller—a Democrat running in Georgia’s 3rd Congressional district in next year’s midterm elections—has been going to community meetings where one topic comes up again and again “almost o...

New: I reported on an issue that is only going to get bigger and more interesting over the next year: How the AI backlash could shape the midterm elections. @theinformation.com www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-...

White House Working on Executive Order to Foil State AI Regulations The White House is working on an executive order that will direct the Justice Department to sue states that pass their own laws regulating artificial intelligence, according to a draft of the order re...

Scoop: The White House is working on an executive order that will direct the Justice Department to sue states that pass their own laws regulating AI.

Read more from @sylviavo.bsky.social and @aaronpholmes.bsky.social 👇
https://thein.fo/4pcoF3e

Google’s $2.7 Billion AI Hire Tests Company’s Speech Limits With Inflammatory Posts This spring, Google AI leader Noam Shazeer posted a comment in one of the company’s internal discussion forums, in response to a post about how Google employees could support their transgender and non...

this is like the third or fourth iteration of the James Damore situation at Google and it's interesting how consistently it happens at the company www.theinformation.com/articles/goo...

I went on CNN today to discuss my scoop about TikTok’s plan to build a new app for U.S. users ahead of a planned sale. Read the story here: www.theinformation.com/articles/tik...

What We Know—And Don’t Know—About the New TikTok App On Sunday, our team scooped that TikTok is planning a new version of its app for users in the U.S. ahead of a planned sale of the app to a group of investors.The news is generating a lot of buzz—and a...

Creator Economy: What We Know—And Don’t Know—About the New TikTok App

Read more from @kyurieff.bsky.social and @sylviavo.bsky.social 👇
www.theinformation.com/articles/kno...

Silicon Valley Searches for Its JD Vance Angle As President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” was being debated in the Senate over the past week, cracks were spreading among Republicans over a provision in the bill to block states from regulating artif...

Inside the Silicon Valley-JD Vance dynamics. My latest: www.theinformation.com/articles/sil...

Very interesting to see the DOGE project of dismantling govt still very much ongoing despite Musk’s departure.

At the SEC, they are cutting and injecting AI.

What could go wrong?

@sylviavo.bsky.social:

www.theinformation.com/articles/sec...

SEC Employees Brace For DOGE Restructuring, AI Push Elon Musk may have parted ways with Washington and President Donald Trump, but employees from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are moving forward with a plan to restructure the Securities an...

Exclusive: SEC employees are bracing for a DOGE-led restructuring, as the financial regulator prepares to bring AI tools into the agency.

Read more from @sylviavo.bsky.social👇
www.theinformation.com/articles/sec...

Personal news: I'm changing beats to cover Silicon Valley’s growing influence in Washington D.C. under the Trump administration.

If you have tips, ideas or want to chat, you can contact me securely over Signal: sylviavo.11 or by email sylvia@theinformation.com

TikTok CEO Plans More Streamlining as Talks With Trump Team Continue TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a staff meeting Wednesday evening that he is working closely with the Trump administration to determine the best course of action for the app’s future in the U.S. At th...

Scoop: At ByteDance's internal all-hands meeting last night, TikTok's CEO said they were working with a "key person" in the Trump administration to find a solution to the ban law. He also talked about removing "unnecessary layers" in the company. www.theinformation.com/articles/tik...

Meta Platforms Readies Staff for Layoff Announcement Monday Meta Platforms is preparing to implement on Monday previously announced job cuts of 5% of its workforce. In a message to staff on Friday, Meta said employees who are laid off will be cut off from the ...

Icymi: Meta has notified employees in an internal post about what they can expect Monday, when the company is due to implement previously announced job cuts affecting 5% of its workforce.

www.theinformation.com/briefings/me...

Scoop: Meta Overhauls Reality Labs Business Unit Ahead of Earnings Report

Meta is transferring oversight of Reality Labs’ business operations to Meta Chief Operating Officer, Javier Olivan, away from Reality Labs’ COO, Dan Reed.

Read more from @sylviavo.bsky.social 👇

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg explores purchase of Washington DC property Billionaire founder of social media group seeks to work more closely with Trump administration

Scoop: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is exploring buying a property in Washington DC, as part of a push to work more closely with the Trump administration

He joins a growing group of tech titans - Elon Musk, David Sacks - seeking bases close to the White House

www.ft.com/content/9310...

Exclusive | DOGE’s Top Lawyer to Depart Bill McGinley, the group’s counsel, is planning to return to the private sector

DOGE’s top lawyer is out: www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Exclusive: TikTok in Last-Minute Dash to Prepare Retailers, Staff for Ban

TikTok is organizing a last-minute effort to handle the business of millions of creators and merchants on the app once it shuts off in the U.S.

Read more from @kyurieff.bsky.social and @sylviavo.bsky.social👇

TikTok confirms our scoop from Tuesday. "Unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19." www.theinformation.com/articles/tik...

Not much to see here, just Mark Zuckerberg making sure that Stephen Miller, of all people, greenlights Facebook's new hiring policies.

Gift link to this excellent NYT piece: www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/u...

TikTok Prepares for Immediate Shut-Off in the U.S. on Sunday TikTok plans to shut off its app for U.S. users on Sunday, the day a federal law will ban the app, unless the Supreme Court intervenes to block the ban, according to two people familiar with TikTok’s ...

TikTok plans to shut off its app in the US Sunday, rather than allowing people who have already downloaded it to continue using it, unless SCOTUS intervenes to block the ban, @sylviavo.bsky.social scoops at @theinformation.bsky.social.

It's part of an effort to rally users to oppose the ban.

Scoop: TikTok Prepares for Immediate Shut-Off in the U.S. on Sunday

TikTok plans to turn off its app for U.S. users on Sunday, when it is due to be banned. That will bring home the impact to all users immediately.

Read more from @sylviavo.bsky.social and @kyurieff.bsky.social👇

TikTok Prepares for Immediate Shut-Off in the U.S. on Sunday TikTok plans to shut off its app for U.S. users on Sunday, the day a federal law will ban the app, unless the Supreme Court intervenes to block the ban, according to two people familiar with TikTok’s ...

Scoop w/ @kyurieff.bsky.social:

TikTok plans to shut off its app for U.S. users on Sunday, unless the Supreme Court intervenes to block the ban. Abruptly switching off the app will bring home the impact of the ban to all TikTok’s users. www.theinformation.com/articles/tik...

3. I have fired Meta as a client. While I think they are on the right side in the generative AI copyright dispute in which I represented them, and I hope they win, I cannot in good conscience serve as their lawyer any longer 4/4

Tech Turns the Page:

Amazon scrubbed a reference to benefits for transgender staff from its corporate site, as more tech companies adapt to a new political climate.

Read more from @theowayt.bsky.social, @sylviavo.bsky.social and Nick Wingfield 👇

At today's Trump presser, a reporter brought up Mark Zuckerberg's Trump-friendly changes at Meta and asked, "Do you think he's directly responding to the threats you've made in the past?" Trump said "probably."

TikTok Promises Ban Refunds to Keep Advertisers Spending

As some advertisers pull back from TikTok, the app is telling big ad buyers it will refund ad money if it is banned in the U.S. this month.

Read more from @sylviavo.bsky.social, @siz.bsky.social and Catherine Perloff👇

As we reported in Character Limit, Emil Michael, the former embattled COO at Uber, was considered as CEO at Twitter/X before Linda Yaccarino. Now if confirmed, he’ll work for Trump.

Google CEO Expected to Meet with Trump Thursday Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to fly to the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.,Thursday to meet with President-elect Donald Trump, according to a person briefed on the plans. The meeting comes...

Destination: Mar-a-Lago

Google's CEO is set to meet with Donald Trump in Florida after the president-elect selected antitrust officials who have criticized the company.

www.theinformation.com/articles/goo...

From @aaronpholmes.bsky.social and @sylviavo.bsky.social