Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 11/07 – More Election Stuff

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

More in depth analysis of what the Trump victory might mean for Silicon Valley, and Elon Musk’s companies in particular. Canadian regulators going after TikTok. Australia wants to make sure no one uses social media until they’re sixteen. France is “aware” of Polymarket. And the reviews of all the new Macs. Sponsors: Promevo.com/techmeme Links: Elon Musk Helped Elect Trump. What Does He Expect in Return? (NYTimes) Canada orders shutdown of TikTok's Canadian business, app access to continue (Reuters) Labor backs 16 as the minimum age to use social media ahead of national cabinet meeting (ABCNews) French Regulator Examines Polymarket After Bets on Trump (Bloomberg) Apple Mac mini review (M4 Pro, 2024): Shockingly small, incredibly powerful (Engadget) Apple MacBook Pro M4 review: the Pro for everyone (The Verge) Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch review (2024): Brace yourself for M4 speed (Engadget) Apple iMac M4 review: More power, same great looks (Tom's Guide) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Thursday, November 7th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough today. More in-depth analysis of what the Trump victory might mean for Silicon Valley and Elon Musk's companies in particular.

Canadian regulators going after TikTok. Australian wants to make sure no one uses social media until they're 16. France is aware of polymarket and the reviews of all the new Macs. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Okay, more election details for the tech industry, this time with a heavy Elon Musk flage. labor today. The Times is reporting that before Trump's victory, Elon Musk asked him to hire SpaceX staff as top government officials, including the Department of Defense, a sign of the benefits Musk may reap after he had a close association with the former president over the last few months of the election. So it's almost like what Musk did with Twitter, bringing in a bunch of

people from his other companies to get things in line. This time, though, with the government. quote, the outreach regarding the SpaceX employees, which hasn't been reported, shows the extent to which Mr. Musk wants to fill a potential Trump administration with his closest confidants, even as his billions of dollars in government contracts pose a conflict to any government role. Mr. Musk and executives at SpaceX and Tesla, his electric vehicle company, did not respond on Wednesday to request for comment. A spokesperson for Mr. Trump's transition team also did not respond to a request for comment. The six companies that Mr. Musk oversees are deeply entangled with federal agencies. They make billions off contracts to launch rockets, build satellites, and provide space-based communication services. Tesla makes hundreds of millions more from emissions trading credits created by federal law, and Mr. Musk's companies are facing at least 20 recent investigations, including one targeting a self-driving car technology that Tesla considers key to its future.

Now Mr. Musk will have the ear of the president who oversees all of those agencies. Mr. Musk could even gain the power to oversee. them himself if Mr. Trump follows through on a promise to appoint him as head of a government efficiency commission. Mr. Trump has told Mr. Musk that he wants him to bring the same scalpel to the federal government that he brought to Twitter after he bought the company and rebranded it as X. Mr. Musk has spoken of cutting at least two trillion dollars from the federal budget, end quote. And further to that end, Kurt Wagner at Bloomberg makes a compelling point. Did Elon overpay for Twitter after all, since he turned his feed into a Trump-inspired billboard for his 200 million-plus followers. Further ingratiating himself to the next administration, it now looks like maybe that was the deal of

this century. So it's become what maybe he wanted all along, a major media platform for his views. Quote, the general belief that Musk was fleeced when he bought Twitter, now X, was flipped on its head this week thanks to Trump's win. The U.S. election highlighted a stark reality that has existed for X since well before Musk ever arrived on the scene. The social network's value is almost impossible to measure because the product's impact on culture and politics is significantly more meaningful than the size of its business. Musk may be losing money, driving away advertisers, and eroding the company's paper value, but it turns out X still holds a significant place in the world of American politics. It appears as though Musk is finally cashing in on what the

Wall Street Journal reported was, quote, the worst buyout for banks since the financial crisis. There's no way to quantify the impact X had in this week's U.S. presidential election. I just know that it felt significant. X's vocal Trump supporting owner did everything he could to get at real Donald Trump reelected. Now comes the payoff. There's a long list of ways that Trump's presidency could eventually benefit Musk's constellation of companies. From friendly regulatory moves to government contracts, there is no doubt that Musk will benefit greatly from Trump's new slash old job. That boon should extend to X2.

Again, those benefits will be hard to quantify, but the last time Trump was in the White House, Twitter was more relevant and consequential than at any other point in the company's history. If Trump returns to his policy by tweeting tendencies, X will be at the center of the global political universe for years, and unlike last time, Trump won't need to worry about how the company will police his account. He's free to say whatever he wants, and will most likely hear an echo from Musk in the process, end quote. And finally, from the Times, Kevin Roos looks at what a Trump victory means for tech writ large. He agrees with me that it feels like the antitrust temperature will be turned way down, except for maybe Google. Quote, it's a safe bet that in a second Trump

administration, the crypto industry will get most of what it wants in Washington, starting with the removal of Gary Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has become a villain among crypto companies for his tough regulation efforts. Crypto companies that were being sued or investigated under the Biden administration may see those cases dropped under a Trump administration, and a pro-crypto voice is likely to hold sway when it comes time to write new rules for the industry. Crypto prices could go to the moon as a result. Already Bitcoin prices are spiking Tuesday night on the news of Mr. Trump's strong early returns. And the investors and crypto executives who poured millions of dollars into electing Mr. Trump and other pro-crypto candidates are likely to feel that they got their money's worth.

Neither Mr. Trump nor Ms. Harris said much about artificial intelligence on the campaign trail, but it's a safe bet that AI progress will continue under a second Trump administration, and might even speed up. Some of the tech elites who supported Mr. Trump, including the venture capitalist Mark Andresen, are associated with the accelerationist wing of the AI movement and have opposed any AI regulations that could slow down the industry. To be honest, I'd bet against Mr. Trump's spending much time thinking about AI at all. He might delegate it to Mr. Vance, who does seem to have interest in the subject. But to the extent Mr. Trump's views on AI will be shaped by the people in his orbit, it's likely to be in the direction of encouraging American tech companies to race ahead

of rivals in China and elsewhere and removing regulatory roadblocks that might get in their way. Interestingly, Mr. Musk is a bit of a wild card when it comes to AI. He runs an AI company XAI that would benefit from light touch regulation, but he also worries about existential risk from AI and supported a controversial California bill that would have imposed safety standards on AI models, which many AI companies opposed. Mr. Trump and his allies are likely to get rid of anyone associated with the Biden administration's antitrust battles with the big Silicon Valley tech companies. Already Mr. Musk has said Lena Khan, the head of the Federal Trade Commission, who spearheaded the agency's cases against companies like Amazon and META, will be fired. You'd also expect Mr. Trump

to clear out the Justice Department and replace the enforcers responsible for bringing cases against companies like Apple. The one tech giant that may not benefit from a changing of the antitrust guard is Google. Pro-Trump conservatives, including J.D. Vance, have been angry at Google for years. They have claimed, without much evidence, that the company is biased against conservatives and Mr. Trump supported efforts to break it up during his first term. These days, the company is regularly cast as a punching bag and right-wing culture wars, even for issues such as whether its AI systems can generate racially accurate images of historical figures, and it hasn't been as adept at lobbying Republicans as some of its peers. It's going to be a hard four years for Google in Washington, no matter how

many courtesy calls are made by Sundar Pichai, the company's chief executive. One tech company that may The toasting Mr. Trump's victory is bite dance, the Chinese conglomerate that owns TikTok. Under the TikTok ban bill that was passed by Congress and signed into law this year, bite dance was supposed to sell off TikTok's U.S. operations by January or face a nationwide ban. That probably won't happen now because Mr. Trump, who spent much of his first term in office trying to ban TikTok, changed his mind this year, reportedly after an intense lobbying effort by a major bite dance investor. Since then, he has pledged to save TikTok in the United States. Mr. Trump can't repeal a law without Congress, and TikTok could lose its appeals in court,

so there's still a chance a TikTok ban might go into effect, but Mr. Trump could simply refuse to enforce it or otherwise make good on his pledge to leave the company alone, end quote. But hold up there, TikTok. Canada is ordering TikTok's business in that country to be dissolved, citing national security concerns, but also saying it does not intend to block Canadians' access to the app. TikTok plans to appeal, of course, quoting Reuters. The government is taking action to address the specific national security risks related to bite-dance operations in Canada through the establishment of TikTok Technology Canada, Inc. Innovation Minister Francois Filippe Champagne said in a statement,

Ottawa last year began reviewing TikTok's plan to invest and expand its business in Canada. BiteDance is TikTok's Chinese parent company. Under Canadian law, the government can assess potential risk to national security, from foreign investments such as the TikTok proposal. The law prevents the government from revealing the details of such investments. The decision was based on the information and evidence collected over the course of the review and on the advice of Canada's security and intelligence communities and other government partners. Champagne added.

TikTok said it will challenge the order in court. Shutting down TikTok's Canadian offices and destroying hundreds of well-paying local jobs is not in anyone's best interest, and today's shutdown order will do just that, A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement, Canada has banned the TikTok app from government-issued devices saying it presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security, end quote. And this sounds a tad extreme. Australia plans to introduce legislation that would ban children under the age of 16 from using social media, not exempting those already with accounts or those with parental consent.

Quoting ABC News, the government had previously committed to introducing the legislation that would get kids off social media by the end of the year, but earlier suggested it would not announce a specific cutoff age until after a trial of verification technology. Prime Minister Anthony Albanyes also confirmed on Thursday that the proposed legislation would not include grandfathering arrangements, meaning young people already on social media would not be exempt, nor would it allow for exemptions due to parental consent. A virtual national cabinet meeting will be held on Friday to discuss the changes where states and territory leaders will be asked to support the policy.

Labor's decision to back the higher cutoff age comes after the coalition announced it would support a minimum age of 16 earlier this year. The changes would come into force a year after the legislation is passed by Parliament, Mr. Albanese told reporters, and there will be a review of the rules after they commence. Under the proposed changes, social media companies will bear the onus of enforcing the age limit rather than parents, and there would be no penalties for users. As for what social media platforms would be included in the legislation, Ms. Rollerle, and said platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, and YouTube would likely fall within that definition, end quote. I'm not trying to editorialize here, though, maybe I am, but my gut for why this feels a tad much to me is best summed up by this tweet from James Ball, quote, banning teenagers from doing stuff is always very effective. And 16-year-olds suddenly arriving on

social media with no phased or supervised introduction to it will definitely work out brilliantly, and quote. And more regulatory stuff. Remember how we discussed yesterday the seeming validation of betting markets in this election year? While France's gambling regulator says it is, quote, aware of Polly Market and is, quote, currently examining its operation and compliance, quoting Bloomberg. The scrutiny comes after a pseudonymous trader identified by Polly Market as a French national made large bets on the platform in favor of Donald Trump winning the race. The trader known as the username Freddie 999. 999 is expected to haul in a profit of around $48 million on the bets across four known accounts. Calculations by Bloomberg News show.

Online gambling is tightly regulated in France, although betting on sports and in poker games is permitted. Operating any new gambling market is subject to prior authorization from the ANJ, according to a government website. Trading on New York-based polymarket skyrocketed this year as the race for the White House drew in betters. Wagers on which candidate would be the next president, its most popular market. produced almost $3.7 billion in volume, according to polymarket data. Throughout the final months of the campaign, polymarket's odds on a Trump win were consistently above those in regular polls. Polymarket isn't available to U.S. users following a 2002 settlement with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in which the platform was accused of providing illegal gambling services.

Despite that, American traders flocked to its election markets, Bloomberg reported earlier this year. In practice, polymarket system for blocking U.S. users can be circumvented by users. virtual private networks, and social media is full of instructions on how to do that, end quote. Finally, today, the reviews are out for all the new Macs, and we can't do all of them in depth, obviously, so I'm just going to quote the concluding paragraphs for all the various reviews. Hit the links if you want to read the full reviews for all of the devices. First from Engadget on the Mac Mini with the M4 Pro, So if you're looking for a basic and adorably small Mac desktop, the $59 Mac Mini will likely be all you need.

And if you're looking to do a bit more serious work and can't justify the $1,99 Mac Studio, the 1399 model is a decent value compared to PC workstations. Just be prepared to stomach Apple's upgrade prices. You'll have to spend an additional $400 just to get 32 gigabytes of RAM on the base mini, and another 400 to get a 1 terabyte SSD. That's wildly out of step with prices outside of the Apple EcoSST. system where you can easily find a decent one-terabyte SSD under $100. That said, unlike a laptop connecting a cheap but capacious external drive to the Mini is a more viable option, end quote.

From the Verge on the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M4 chip, quote, the entry-level MacBook Pro doesn't really feel like a compromise, the base configuration has enough memory and storage to be actually worth considering, and it has all the ports and creature comforts of the higher-end pros. Even the nanotexture screen upgrade feels worth it. For the first time, in a long time, it actually feels like a pro, end quote. Then we have in gadget on the 16-inch MacBook Pro, quote, there's no doubt these new MacBook Proes are compelling, especially if you need the raw power of the M4 Pro or conceivably the M4 Max. If you're running an M1 MacBook Pro or still trucking along with an Intel model, you'll definitely see some notable performance gains

from these machines. But if you've got an M2 or M3 MacBook Pro, the M4 hardware is less of a qualitative leap. You're probably better off waiting for the eventual OLED refresh, which is rumored to happen in 2026, end quote. Finally, Tom's guide on the new IMAX, quote, While I wish Apple had done more to make the IMAX M4 the ideal family PC I know it can be, it's hard to complain about an updated version of one of the best all-in-ones on the market. The upgrade to an M4 chip doesn't hugely improve the IMA M4 over the old M3 model or change what it's capable of, but it does deliver great performance. The bump up to 16 gigabytes of RAM minimum is a good one for consumers, as 8 gigabytes just doesn't cut it for most work in 2024.

And while you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the 12-mixel webcam on this model and the old 1080P webcam on the old iMac M3, it's nice to get access to the desk view feature. Ultimately, I can't help feeling like Apple didn't go far enough when improving the iMac for 2024. I'm grateful for the under-the-hood upgrades and the improved camera, but overall it feels like a shuffling half-step forward when I was hoping for a giant leap. end quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow.