Tim cook apl
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SEE APPLE
see broliarchy
SEE BALLROOM TARIFFS
MILLER STRATEGIES
SEE AI AND CRYPTO
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PUBLIC CIT BALLROOM
no lnx
Donor Corporate Sector Federal Enforcement Faced
Apple Big Tech DOJ litigation alleging antitrust violations to monopolize the
smartphone market.
NLRB cases alleging unfair labor practices.
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AN KFF 10 26
A cadre of elite techies, financiers, and high-level Trump administration officials have spent a year quietly charting an extraordinary and rapid campaign to persuade Americans to use apps and other artificial intelligence-powered tools to manage their healthcare and medical records.
As that campaign has unfolded, administration officials have granted tech companies an unusual opportunity to nudge the nation’s health department toward a loosely regulated future for AI health apps in which the government reimburses them for services as it does medical professionals.
In February, federal health officials invited those businesses — including tech giants Microsoft, Anthropic, OpenAI, Apple, and Google — to a listening session on conversational AI products for patients, such as chatbots. Representatives from at least 35 industry organizations attended the meeting held by the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for regulating health apps as medical devices. Companies were prompted in advance to explain their AI products and how they access p
MUCH MORE
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AN 7 26
The twisted vile of Trump’s America exposed in Apple’s new 'Cape Fear'
The twisted vile of Trump’s America exposed in Apple’s new 'Cape Fear'
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some clever quip ai, i'm afraid of Y
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7 26 SOME AI WIN?
onthenode.com
Apple Goes All In on Crypto: What It Means for the Future of Money
May 3, 2025AI-Powered Finance: Apple's AI can create smarter financial tools that work with crypto and open banking systems. Imagine your phone automatically managing your crypto investments or payments with smart suggestions-all while keeping your data private.
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Jun 11, 2024However, Apple's pact with Sam Altman's OpenAI is sealed, promising future AI integration in IOS devices. Apple also announced new AI features and a ChatGPT tie-in that could soon boost AI crypto scene. When Apple finally gets AI, it is set to rocketship the AI crypto narrative, so here
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WIRED
Apple Took Down These ICE-Tracking Apps. The Developers Aren't Giving Up
“We are going to do everything in our power to fight this,” says ICEBlock developer Joshua Aaron after Apple removed his app from the App Store.
The developer behind Eyes Up, one of the many Immigration and Customs Enforcement-related apps removed by Apple in recent days, was busy on Wednesday evening at a local planning session for the nationwide “No Kings” protest, scheduled for later this month. When WIRED eventually reached him by phone, he asked to be only identified by his first name, Mark, for safety reasons. “The administration will act on their grudges,” he says. “And they are not afraid to do so, frequently.”
...Reece Rogers
Lily Hay Newman
Security
Oct 9, 2025 1:22 PM
Apple Took Down These ICE-Tracking Apps. The Developers Aren't Giving Up
“We are going to do everything in our power to fight this,” says ICEBlock developer Joshua Aaron after Apple removed his app from the App Store.
Apple Took Down These ICETracking Apps. The Developers Aren't Giving Up
The developer behind Eyes Up, one of the many Immigration and Customs Enforcement-related apps removed by Apple in recent days, was busy on Wednesday evening at a local planning session for the nationwide “No Kings” protest, scheduled for later this month. When WIRED eventually reached him by phone, he asked to be only identified by his first name, Mark, for safety reasons. “The administration will act on their grudges,” he says. “And they are not afraid to do so, frequently.”
He should know.
Mark’s app, a platform built to serve as a repository for videos and other materials documenting ICE activity, is not alone in getting kicked off Apple’s App Store. Earlier in October, ICEBlock was among the first ICE-related apps Apple removed. The decision followed claims from US attorney general Pam Bondi that such tools endanger ICE officers. Apple has also removed other tracking apps—including Red Dot and DEICER—as well as Eyes Up.
Like Mark, ICEBlock’s developer, Joshua Aaron, is determined to reverse the app store bans. “While I cannot speak to specifics right now, I can tell you that ICEBlock has an incredible legal team behind it and we are going to do everything in our power to fight this,” Aaron tells WIRED.
Apple did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.
Regarding Eyes Up, Mark says he has already appealed Apple’s decision to delist the app, twice.“I will appeal every single time they reject me, until it's back in the App Store,” he says. “Because it's pure cowardice, what they're doing. I'm not gonna let off the gas with Apple.”
The ban ignited a fire under Mark, who’s performing more community outreach to let people know about Eyes Up and encouraging them to upload publicly documented encounters with ICE agents to the app, which is still currently available on the Google Play store and the Eyes Up website.
Rafael Concepcion, who was previously a professor at Syracuse University, first designed DEICER to be a “rights app,” with the ICE-location map added on as an accountability tool. Concepcion was heavily inspired by musician Peter Gabriel and his WITNESS organization, started in the 1990s, that documented human rights violations. While gone from Apple’s App Store, DEICER is also still available via Google Play and a website.
While Apple has not yet commented on its decisions to remove ICE monitoring apps from the App Store, Migrant Insider reported this week that in the case of the DEICER iOS app, the company justified removal under a developer guideline that prohibits “defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content” toward “religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, national/ethnic origin, or other targeted groups.” Google, which has also removed ICE monitoring apps in recent days, told 404 Media last week that it also considers ICE officers to be a vulnerable group.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tools that include a law enforcement monitoring or transparency mechanism are not unprecedented in mobile apps, though. In fact, Apple and Google both develop apps with these features. The driving directions and traffic app Waze—which is owned by Google and can also be downloaded for iOS—has long offered a crowdsourced tool for reporting and receiving alerts about police sightings on public roads. Apple Maps and Google Maps offer similar features.
“I am not in favor of Apple removing ICE-tracking apps from the App Store, nor the app that simply let users archive videos of ICE,” says Riana Pfefferkorn, a policy researcher at Stanford University. “This seems like more needless kowtowing by Tim Cook.” The Apple CEO has appeared at several events with President Donald Trump and reportedly donated $1 million to attend his inauguration.
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Legal experts WIRED spoke with say that the ICE monitoring and documentation apps that Apple has removed from its App Store are clear examples of protected speech under the US Constitution’s First Amendment. “These apps are publishing constitutionally protected speech. They're publishing truthful information about matters of public interest that people obtained just by witnessing public events,” says David Greene, a civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
This hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from attacking the developers behind these ICE-related apps. When ICEBlock first rose to a top spot in Apple’s App Store in April, the Trump administration responded by threatening to prosecute the developer. “We are looking at him,” Bondi said on Fox News of ICEBlock’s Aaron. “And he better watch out.”
Neither the White House nor ICE immediately responded to requests for comment.
Digital rights researchers say that the situation illustrates the dangers when key platforms and communication channels are centrally controlled—whether directly by governments or by other powerful entities like big tech companies. Regardless of what is officially available through the Google Play store, Android users can sideload apps of their choosing. But Apple’s ecosystem has always been a walled garden, an approach that the company has long touted for its security advantages, including the ability to screen more heavily for malicious apps.
For years, a group of researchers and enthusiasts have tried to create “jailbreaks” for iPhones to essentially hack their own devices as a way around Apple’s closed ecosystem. Recently, though, jailbreaking has become less common. This is partly the result of advances in iPhone security, but partly related to the trend in recent years of attackers exploiting complex chains of vulnerabilities that could potentially be used for jailbreaking for malware instead, particularly mercenary spyware.
"The closed ecosystem motivation sort of dwindled as Apple added capabilities that previously required a jailbreak—like wallpapers, tethering, better notifications, and private mode in Safari," says longtime iOS security and jailbreak researcher Will Strafach. “But this situation with ICE apps highlights the issue with Apple being the arbiter and single point of failure.”
Stanford’s Pfefferkorn warns that while US tech companies are not state-controlled, they have in her view become “happy handmaidens” when it comes to “repressing free speech and dissent.”
“It’s especially disappointing,” Pfefferkorn says, “coming from the company that brought us the Think Different ad campaign, which invoked MLK, Gandhi, and Muhammad Ali—none of whom would likely be big fans of ICE today.”
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Reece Rogers is WIRED's service writer, focused on explaining crucial topics and helping readers get the most out of their technology. Prior to WIRED, Reece covered streaming at Business Insider. ... Read More
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Lily Hay Newman is a senior writer at WIRED focused on information security, digital privacy, and hacking. She previously worked as a technology reporter at Slate, and was the staff writer for Future Tense, a publication and partnership between Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University. Her work ... Read More
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biz insider
White House Dinner for the Saudi Crown Prince Includes 50 US Execs - Business Insider
no lnx pix
The guest list for White House dinner for the Saudi Crown Prince included nearly 50 executives
By Lloyd Lee, Shubhangi Goel, and Thibault Spirlet
President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince
The White House hosted the Saudi royal family for dinner on Tuesday. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
:{:{Nov 20, 2025,}:
President Donald Trump hosted a White House dinner for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
The dinner was attended by nearly 50 American CEOs and executives from different industries.
The guest list included Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
Business leaders, including Elon Musk and AMD CEO Lisa Su, joined a dinner with President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday.
The guest list, shared by the White House, included members of the Saudi government and royal family, as well as almost 50 US business executives. Soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo also attended.
The dinner was the Tesla CEO's first public visit to the White House since his bitter feud with Trump this summer, following Musk's departure from his role as leader of the White House DOGE Office.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev were on the guest list, but it is unclear if they attended the event.
Here is a list of US executives who attended the high-profile dinner.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk
Elon Musk attended the White House dinner.
Elon Musk attended the White House dinner. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Elon Musk made a rare public appearance at the White House since his falling-out with Trump earlier this year, after stepping down as the informal head of the White House DOGE Office.
The world's richest man and head of Tesla, SpaceX, and X, Musk exerts significant influence in technology, energy, and artificial intelligence — industries central to both the US and Saudi economic ambitions.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
Jensen Huang in a suit
Jensen Huang appeared in one of David Sacks' photos of the evening. Yui Mok - Pool/Getty Images
Nvidia chief Jensen Huang attended the White House dinner as one of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence and chipmaking.
Nvidia's CEO's presence underscored the pivotal role of advanced computing in US-Saudi economic relations and the global competition to dominate AI technology.
Apple CEO Tim Cook
Apple CEO Tim Cook
The Apple CEO was among the business leaders seen at the White House dinner. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Apple chief Tim Cook joined the White House dinner as one of the most powerful figures in global business, representing a tech giant that shapes everything from consumer tech to privacy standards.
His appearance highlighted Apple's pivotal role in US innovation — and its importance to any conversation about the future of tech and trade.
AMD CEO Lisa Su
AMD CEO Lisa Su
The AMD CEO also joined the dinner. Brendan Smialowski / AFP
AMD's Lisa Su was among the high-profile executives at the White House dinner, bringing the perspective of one of the world's top chipmakers.
As the leader driving fierce competition in semiconductors — a sector vital to both AI development and global supply chains — Su's inclusion signaled the critical importance of her industry to US strategy.
Late on Wednesday evening, Su shared photos from the dinner, including one of her sitting with Ronaldo.
Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman
Bill Ackman
The hedge fund manager was part of the White House dinner on Tuesday. Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman attended the White House dinner as one of Wall Street's most outspoken figures.
Known for his bold market bets and influence in finance and policy circles, Ackman's presence reflected the growing alignment between political power and the capital shaping global markets.
President of OpenAI Greg Brockman
OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman
OpenAI's President, Greg Brockman, was also in attendance at the dinner. Errich Petersen/Getty Images for SXSW
OpenAI president Greg Brockman joined the White House dinner as a key architect behind the modern AI revolution.
His invitation underscored the growing importance of artificial intelligence in diplomacy and economic strategy, with OpenAI's technology now at the center of global debates about innovation and regulation.
General partner of Craft Ventures, David Sacks
David Sacks at a panel
David Sacks posted a selfie from the dinner on X on Tuesday and said, "Great night! Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
Venture capitalist and White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks was among the attendees at the dinner, reflecting his growing influence at the intersection of tech, politics, and finance.
As both an early investor in major startups and the chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Sacks embodies the blend of innovation and policymaking that defined the evening's guest list.
In December, Trump appointed Sacks as White House's AI and crypto czar, guiding the government on policy and regulation around the digital asset industry.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong
The Coinbase CEO attended the dinner. Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Vanity Fair
Coinbase's chief, Brian Armstrong, attended the White House dinner as the leading voice in America's cryptocurrency industry.
His presence showed the increasing importance of digital assets in global finance and the White House's commitment to engaging with fintech leaders who are shaping the future of money.
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AN 11 25
Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) alluded to a secret tape of a call between President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in his comments on the House floor following a Tuesday Oval Office meeting between the two leaders. Vindman, in his remarks called for the release of the transcripts of the call.
" Trump has the responsibility to release the transcripts of his call with MBS. You will be shocked by what you hear," Vindman posted on X Wednesday.
This comes, reports The Daily Beast, "one day after the president insisted Mohammed bin Salman had nothing to do with Khashoggi’s killing, despite U.S. intelligence officials concluding he ordered the hit, a former Trump national security insider has claimed there is explosive evidence to the contrary."
Vindman was a National Security Council staffer under the first Trump administration, whose work included reviewing certain calls between the president and foreign leaders, The Daily Beast explains.
"Vindman claims that one phone call he reviewed undercut Trump’s astonishing defense of the Crown Prince in the Oval Office on Tuesday, when he said of Khashoggi’s murder by Saudi agents: 'Things happen,'" they report.
“During my tenure on Trump’s White House National Security Council staff, I reviewed many of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders. Of all the calls I reviewed, two stood out as the most problematic,” Vindman says.
"The first, we all know, was between President Trump and President [Volodymyr] Zelensky, which resulted in President Trump’s first impeachment. The second was between President Trump and Mohammed bin Salman," he adds.
“After the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, I reviewed a call between the president and the Saudi crown prince. The American people and the Khashoggi family deserve to know what was said on that call. If history is any guide, the receipts will be shocking," Vindman says.
Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist, was murdered on October 2, 2018, by a team of Saudi government agents inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
His remains have never been found. U.S. intelligence and a UN investigation concluded that bin Salman approved the operation to capture or kill Khashoggi, an assessment Saudi Arabia denies.
When taking questions from journalists following his meeting with bin Salman Tuesday, Trump berated ABC reporter Mary Bruce after she asked the Crown Prince about his involvement in the murder.
"You’re mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen,” Trump said, adding that bin Salman "knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that."
"You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that," Trump snapped.
Trump hosted bin Salman at a state dinner Tuesday night with guests including Elon Musk, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang and billionaire investor Bill Ackerman.
Trump has long-standing financial ties to Saudi Arabia, including past business dealings and recent deals involving his family and the Trump Organization.
These connections have recently drawn scrutiny due to potential conflicts of interest, especially as the Trump family continues to pursue new business opportunities in the kingdom.
Simultaneously, Trump's administration has deepened the US's strategic defense partnership with Saudi Arabia, recently designating it a major non-NATO ally.
Vindman isn't backing down on his calls for the transcript of the call in what some say may be yet another Trump cover-up.
"Speaking on CNN on Wednesday morning ahead of Trump and the crown prince attending a Saudi investment forum, Vindman said the call he reviewed was equally disturbing and shocking 'in light of the enrichment that the Trump family has received in the ensuing years,'" The Daily Beast reports.
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SJMN AN 11 25
As recently as the 1980s, California was still a red state — from Bakersfield to San Diego to Simi Valley to Glendale. Orange County south of Los Angeles was a bastion of conservatism, and the state's famously conservative GOP governors included Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson.
These days, California is a Democratic stronghold. Yet it still has pockets of conservatism, including Silicon Valley tech bros who have allied themselves with President Donald Trump. And according to Mercury News reporter Ethan Baron, that bond is showing no signs of weakening.
Baron, in an article published on November 2, reports, "Silicon Valley technology companies' cozy relationship with President Donald Trump appears to be deepening and bearing fruit, as firms and their leaders show fealty with gifts, policies, and public statements of support, and CEOs show their ability to influence the president on matters of politics and business. In recent weeks, the White House has confirmed that Google, Meta, Apple, and HP donated to the construction of Trump's new White House ballroom, with Santa Clara chip giant Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, later saying he was 'delighted to be part of it'…. Google and YouTube parent Alphabet, in late September, agreed to pay $22 million toward the ballroom, in a settlement over a lawsuit by Trump over his suspension from YouTube after the January 6 insurrection."
Baron adds, "In similar cases, Meta agreed to pay $22 million toward Trump's presidential library, and X agreed to pay a settlement of about $10 million."
Jan English-Lueck, a San Jose State University anthropology professor known for studying the tech industry, told the Mercury News that Silicon Valley tech bros "need to protect the assets of their companies from the very real threats that they could face."
Nolan Higdon, a lecturer at Cal State East Bay lecturer, told the Mercury News, "When they need something, they give him things…. Trump has shown that unless you force him to stop or defeat him, he won’t stop. That begs the question with these tech execs: How much is he going to ask of them and how much are they going to give?"
*Read Ethan Baron's full Mercury News article at this link (subscription required).
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an 1 25
In his farewell address, outgoing US President Joe Biden warned “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy”.
The comment suggests that, under Donald Trump’s second term as president, it will be billionaires rather than the people who shape public policy.
There is certainly some evidence Biden’s ominous caution should be taken seriously. The world’s richest man and the owner of X, Elon Musk, has been a vocal supporter of the Republican candidate. Other billionaire tech moguls to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago mansion after his 2024 election victory include Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai.
There is nothing unusual about business leaders wanting the ear of an incoming president. What has concerned Biden and others is that so many of Trump’s influential backers also own media platforms and have the ability to sway public opinion.
Should these new tech titans be thought of as oligarchs?
What is an oligarchy?
Like many of the academic and scientific categories we still use today, oligarchy was originally defined by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
In The Politics, he argued people are “political animals”, social by nature, and instinctively want to live in a community. He studied different governments of the ancient world and concluded there were six essential types.
A state could be ruled by a single leader, a small group of elites, or through mass participation of the people. If the leadership acted in the common advantage (koinê sumpheron), he termed these constitutions to be monarchy, aristocracy or polity, respectively.
If the constitutions became corrupt and the leadership acted only to advance their own self-interest, he labelled them tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.
[
So for Aristotle, an oligarchy is a corrupt form of government. It is when power is in the hands of a small group of elites who advance their own interests rather than the common good.
In Aristotelian terms, democracy is also a corrupt form of government in which the majority uses its power to abuse minorities. While the term democracy has been rehabilitated and is usually seen as a positive, the word oligarchy has retained its negative connotations.
When the United States was created, the founding fathers looked back to Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero and other ancient thinkers to try and create the best kind of constitution.
Following the Aristotelian tradition, they tried to design a mixed constitution where neither the one, the few nor the many could dominate the others. The president has great power. But their power is kept in check by Congress and the judiciary, which is in turn kept in check by the media and, ultimately, the people through regular elections.
Modern oligarchies
In modern politics, the term oligarch is most often used in a Russian context. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, opportunistic tycoons made enormous fortunes from buying up state assets such as energy companies and financial institutions, which also brought them significant political influence as a result.
Since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, however, Russia has become increasingly authoritarian. While there is still an oligarchic class, their power has been reined in. They must not challenge Putin’s power or vision for the state.
Although China is ostensibly a communist state, the Gini index (the measure of social inequality) has blown out in recent years as a small group of elites become increasingly wealthy.
Despite the state’s official commitment to socialist principles, political scientist Ming Xia has argued China is now transitioning into a modern oligarchy.
What about the United States and Australia?
Despite Biden’s warning of a potential oligarchy, political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page argued back in 2014 the US already was one.
The US has the essential features of a liberal democracy (fair and regular elections, freedom of speech, and an independent press). But Gilens and Page worried large businesses and a small group of affluent citizens had a disproportionate influence on policy.
In Australia also, it could be argued an oligarchy is either emerging or has already taken hold.
Australia has a similar-sized economy to Russia and a growing list of billionaires who appear to have significant influence over government policy.
The power of the Murdoch family and their media empire is well-documented. We have also seen increased political activity from other billionaires including Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest and Clive Palmer – who went as far as to start his own political party.
There is no question billionaires in the US and Australia have enormous power and influence. But that in itself does not make an oligarchy.
In Aristotelian terms, the defining feature of an oligarchy is the ruling elite blatantly use their status for their own personal gain rather than the public good.
This is a moral judgement, and one that is increasingly hard to make when so many of the ultra-wealthy own traditional news media and social media platforms that can shape public opinion.
Nevertheless, any shift towards oligarchy should be a cause of alarm to all who value the long democratic tradition in both the US and Australia.
Whether it is a symptom of Trumpism, as Biden suggests, or part of a longer trend, strengthening our democratic institutions and curtailing the disinformation and misinformation that are all too prevalent on social media, is part of the solution.
Benjamin T. Jones, Senior Lecturer in History, CQUniversity Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Trump Inauguration dubbed 'a coronation of our country's descent into oligarchy'
https://www.alternet.org/trump-oligarchs/?utm_source=push_notifications)
an 1 25 common dr
Donald Trump was sworn in Monday as the 47th president of the United States with some of the richest people on the planet standing close behind him on the inaugural platform—a symbol of what observers described as the nation's slide toward oligarchy.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were granted "prime seats" at the event, positioned in front of many lawmakers and Trump Cabinet nominees. Amazon, Google, and Meta each donated $1 million to the president's inaugural fund, and Musk—the world's richest man—spent over $250 million backing the billionaire president's bid for a second White House term.
Tim Cook, Apple's billionaire CEO and a donor to the inauguration, was also in attendance at Monday's event, which was financedby Wall Street banks, tech giants, the pharmaceutical lobby, fossil fuel companies, crypto firms, and other corporate interests.
"Donald Trump's inauguration today is a coronation of our country's descent into oligarchy: billionaires and corporations spending hundreds of millions of dollars lining the pockets of another billionaire—now president—to usher in a presidency governed for and by the wealthy elite," Justice Democrats, a group that works to elect progressives to Congress, wrote in an email to supporters after Trump was sworn in.
"They're buying influence," the group continued. "And they can expect a massive return on their investment. Crypto is already seeing one with Trump promising an executive order handout to the Wall Street-backed Big Tech corporations on Day 1. Banks and developers are already winning out as Trump and Republicans put conditions on aid to desperate Americans who have lost their homes and need immediate disaster relief in California. This administration will be a boon for the already wealthy few and will be crushing to everyday people struggling to get by."
Nabil Ahmed, economic and racial justice director at Oxfam America, described a photo of Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, and Musk standing together on the inaugural platform as "a defining photo for the new Gilded Age."
Trump's inauguration, Ahmed added, "makes clearer than ever the triumph of oligarchy—one that isn't incidental but intrinsic to the politics and policies that we're seeing set out."
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk cheers as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks after being sworn in on January 20, 2025. (Photo: Saul Loeb/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump's second administration, which could be staffed by at least 13 billionaires, is expected to bring a fresh push for large-scale deregulation and another round of tax cuts for the rich and large corporations—a giveaway that's expected to be funded in part by cuts to Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and other key programs.
"Today marks the beginning of an administration dominated by billionaires and corporate interests," Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) executive director David Kass said in a statement. "Unsurprisingly, a billionaire president and his top adviser—the wealthiest person on Earth—will prioritize passing $5 trillion in new tax cuts benefiting themselves and their wealthy allies, all at the expense of everyday Americans."
"Let's be clear: The next four years will be a tremendous challenge," said Kass. "We are committed to fighting back against a second Trump Tax Scam because the first one helped to double billionaire wealth and exploded the deficit. ATF and its coalition members will stand on the frontlines pushing back against these deeply harmful measures and fighting for a tax code and economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few."
Trump's return to the White House comes days after former President Joe Biden, in his farewell address to the nation, belatedly warned of the threat posed by "an oligarchy... of extreme wealth, power, and influence."
According to an Oxfam report released Monday, the world's billionaires saw their wealth surge by $2 trillion last year as progress against global poverty remained stagnant. The United States has more billionaires than any other country, and its campaign finance laws allow the ultrawealthy to pump unlimited sums into elections.
"With the inauguration of President Donald Trump and the installation of his team of billionaires, we must prepare for an administration that's set to pour fuel on already extraordinary inequality," Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, said Monday. "Our country and the world today are extremely unequal; for too long, big corporations and an ultrawealthy few have rigged the system in their own favor, at the expense of ordinary families."
"The Trump-Musk inequality agenda is not the only threat we are facing around the world, as leaders seek to divide us and conflict and climate change increase the number, severity, and duration of humanitarian crises," Maxman added. "But together, we can and must continue our fight against inequality here in the United States and globally."
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/ralph-nader-ranks-the-infinite-greed-power-and-controls-of-giant-corporations
Ralph Nader ranks the infinite greed, power and controls of giant corporations
The combination of greed and power often spin out of control and challenge the enforceable rule of law and the countervailing force of the organized civic community.
When greed and power are exercised by giant multinational corporations that escape the discipline of the nation-state, the potential for evil becomes infinite in nature. Enough is never enough.
Global giant companies, aided and abetted by their corporate attorneys and accountants, can literally decide how little taxes they are going to pay by shifting profits and expenses among different tax haven countries such as Ireland, Luxembourg, and Panama.
These same companies then proceed to lobby any nation, including most prominently the United States. Congress and the White House are pushed to cut formal tax rates, pack the tax laws with loopholes, and lower further the effective tax rate. The formal top tax rate for billions of company profits is now 21%, while the actual tax rate is lower – much lower for banks, insurance companies, drug companies, and behemoth tech companies like Apple that master tax avoidance.
"Generous” is not a word one can associate either with Apple or it’s avaricious, CEO Tim Cook. One of the first moves Tim Cook made, after replacing legendary Apple Founder, the cancer-stricken innovator Steve Jobs, was to arrange a $378 million, 2011 compensation package for himself and launch the biggest stock buyback in corporate history. Apple, which is worth $1.5 trillion has spent $327 billion since 2013 to buy back 2.5 billion shares of stock. Yet Apple has done little to produce productive investments, remediation of used and very toxic Apple products when discarded, or increase pay for the 350,000 serf-labor workers in China toiling under its merciless contractor Foxconn.
Apple made $104 billion in the last 12 months, puffed up by tax-avoidance, tax cuts and a no tariff deal with Trump on its Chinese imports, yet Tim Cook has rejected pleas to spend a little over $2 billion (deductible) to award a full year’s pay bonus to the 350,000 Foxconn workers who build Apple’s iPhones and iPads.
Apple’s massive stock buybacks have, however, increased the metrics to set compensation levels for Tim Cook and his executive sidekicks. Unfortunately, stock buybacks do little to tamp down excessive prices for Apple products. The massive stock buybacks also send a message that Apple’s management has no other uses for its corporate cash – not for R&D, not for improving the nature and security of its workers’ pensions, not for investing in curtailing the damaging side effects of Apple products on the environment and not for reducing other offloaded damage to society.
Tim Cook and Apple are also stingy, given their vast wealth, with charitable contributions. So stingy that Apple’s bosses do not even come close with the company’s charitable deduction limit of five percent of adjusted gross income. In 2018 Apple gave $125 million to charities. Apple’s net income for 2018 was $59.53 billion – a tiny fraction of one percent!
Recently, the New York Times published articles showing how tiny the executive pay cuts were by the very few executives who announced and declared sympathy for their laid-off and impoverished workers.The media has also been reporting illicit maneuvers developed by corporate attorneys to help chain stores get relief payments that should have gone to legitimate small businesses. (Why isn’t the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) speaking out against this abuse and avarice?)
Replacing some of their greed with generosity could be directed to the estimated $6 billion to $11 billion needed this coming school year to give low-income students full equipment and connectivity to the internet for remote learning during the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. States and localities need $4 billion to assure the voting process will be fair and that all votes be counted and on time. The Republicans in the Senate are blocking the money needed to guarantee free and fair elections. Four billion dollars for the profit-glutted Silicon Valley giants Facebook, Google, Apple plus Amazon, and Microsoft, is peanuts. These high-tech digital giants could easily contribute the money needed to avert a widely predicted election time disaster and weeks of understaffed counting after November 3rd. Imagine such a show of patriotism from these companies.
Then there are the matters of woefully inadequate supplies, facilities, and training programs to counter the spreading Covid-19 pandemic that is crumbling the economy. These record-setting profitable companies, with soaring stock prices due to their monopolistic powers or consumer-gouging, should return some of Trump’s giveaway tax cuts of 2017 and the burgeoning corporate welfare payments from crony-capitalistic Washington, D.C. to help their afflicted or vulnerable fellow Americans. Many of these people are their own workers, friends, and relatives.
Economists should develop a “Hedonistic Index,” to rank the “greed-with-power” status of the 500 largest U.S. corporations.
People have the right to know how CEOs and major corporations do on the “Hedonistic Index” of greed and power. After all, at the end of the day, we are all paying the price of the full measure of the infinite avarice spiraling from these corporate supremacists and their private governments of control.
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...Ms. Sandberg also reached out to Ms. Klobuchar.She had been friendly with the senator, who is featured on the website for Lean In, Ms. Sandberg’s empowerment initiative. Ms. Sandberg had contributed a blurb to Ms. Klobuchar’s 2015 memoir, and the senator’s chief of staff had previously worked at Ms. Sandberg’s charitable foundation.
But in a tense conversation shortly after the ad legislation was introduced, Ms. Sandberg complained about Ms. Klobuchar’s attacks on the company, said a person who was briefed on the call. Ms. Klobuchar did not back down on her legislation. But she dialed down her criticism in at least one venue important to the company: After blasting Facebook repeatedly that fall on her own Facebook page, Ms. Klobuchar hardly mentioned the company in posts between November and February.
A spokesman for Ms. Klobuchar said in a statement that Facebook’s lobbying had not lessened her commitment to holding the company accountable. “Facebook was pushing to exclude issue ads from the Honest Ads Act, and Senator Klobuchar strenuously disagreed and refused to change the bill,” he said.
In October 2017, Facebook also expanded its work with a Washington-based consultant, Definers Public Affairs, that had originally been hired to monitor press coverage of the company. Founded by veterans of Republican presidential politics, Definers specialized in applying political campaign tactics to corporate public relations — an approach long employed in Washington by big telecommunications firms and activist hedge fund managers, but less common in tech.
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Definers had established a Silicon Valley outpost earlier that year, led by Tim Miller, a former spokesman for Jeb Bush who preached the virtues of campaign-style opposition research. For tech firms, he argued in one interview,a goal should be to “have positive content pushed out about your company and negative content that’s being pushed out about your competitor.”
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Facebook quickly adopted that strategy. In November 2017, the social network came out in favor of a bill called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, which made internet companies responsible for sex trafficking ads on their sites.
Google and others had fought the bill for months, worrying it would set a cumbersome precedent. But the sex trafficking bill was championed by Senator John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota who had pummeled Facebook over accusations that it censored conservative content, and Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and senior commerce committee member who was a frequent critic of Facebook.
Facebook broke ranks with other tech companies, hoping the move would help repair relations on both sides of the aisle, said two congressional staffers and three tech industry officials.
When the bill came to a vote in the House in February, Ms. Sandberg offered public support online, urging Congress to “make sure we pass meaningful and strong legislation to stop sex trafficking.”
Opposition Research
In March, The Times, The Observer of London and The Guardian prepared to publish a joint investigation into how Facebook user data had been appropriated by Cambridge Analytica to profile American voters. A few days before publication, The Times presented Facebook with evidence that copies of improperly acquired Facebook data still existed, despite earlier promises by Cambridge executives and others to delete it.
Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg met with their lieutenants to determine a response. They decided to pre-empt the stories, saying in a statement published late on a Friday night that Facebook had suspended Cambridge Analytica from its platform. The executives figured that getting ahead of the news would soften its blow, according to people in the discussions.
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They were wrong. The story drew worldwide outrage, prompting lawsuits and official investigations in Washington, London and Brussels. For days, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg remained out of sight, mulling how to respond. While the Russia investigation had devolved into an increasingly partisan battle, the Cambridge scandal set off Democrats and Republicans alike. And in Silicon Valley, other tech firms began exploiting the outcry to burnish their own brands.
“We’re not going to traffic in your personal life,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in an MSNBC interview. “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty.” (Mr. Cook’s criticisms infuriated Mr. Zuckerberg, who later ordered his management team to use only Android phones — arguing that the operating system had far more users than Apple’s.)
Facebook scrambled anew. Executives quietly shelved an internal communications campaign, called “We Get It,” meant to assure employees that the company was committed to getting back on track in 2018.
Then Facebook went on the offensive. Mr. Kaplan prevailed on Ms. Sandberg to promote Kevin Martin, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman and fellow Bush administration veteran, to lead the company’s American lobbying efforts. Facebook also expanded its work with Definers.
On a conservative news site called the NTK Network, dozens of articles blasted Google and Apple for unsavory business practices. One story called Mr. Cook hypocritical for chiding Facebook over privacy, noting that Apple also collects reams of data from users. Another played down the impact of the Russians’ use of Facebook.
The rash of news coverage was no accident: NTK is an affiliate of Definers, sharing offices and staff with the public relations firm in Arlington, Va. Many NTK Network stories are written by staff members at Definers or America Rising, the company’s political opposition-research arm, to attack their clients’ enemies. While the NTK Network does not have a large audience of its own, its content is frequently picked up by popular conservative outlets, including Breitbart.
Mr. Miller acknowledged that Facebook and Apple do not directly compete. Definers’ work on Apple is funded by a third technology company, he said, but Facebook has pushed back against Apple because Mr. Cook’s criticism upset Facebook.
If the privacy issue comes up, Facebook is happy to “muddy the waters,” Mr. Miller said over drinks at an Oakland, Calif., bar last month.
On Thursday, after this article was published, Facebook said that it had ended its relationship with Definers, without citing a reason.
In public, Facebook was more conciliatory. Mr. Zuckerberg agreed to testify on Capitol Hill. The company unveiled a gauzy advertising campaign, titled “Here Together,” to apologize to its users. Days before Mr. Zuckerberg’s appearance in Congress in April, Facebook announced that it was endorsing Ms. Klobuchar’s Honest Ads bill and would pre-emptively begin disclosing political ad buyers. It also informed users whose data had been improperly harvested by Cambridge Analytica.
But Mr. Zuckerberg’s good-will tour was bumpy. Thanks to intensive coaching and preparation, the company’s communications team believed, he had effectively parried tough questions at the April hearing. But they worried he had come off as robotic — a suspicion confirmed by Facebook’s pollsters.
Mr. Zuckerberg spoke with Representative Greg Walden during a break in an April hearing, telling him he was surprised at the tough line of questioning.
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Mr. Zuckerberg’s political instincts were no more well-tuned. During a break in one hearing, he buttonholed Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican who leads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, to express his surprise at how tough on Facebook Democrats had been.
Mr. Walden was taken aback, said people who knew of the remark. Facebook’s leader, Mr. Walden realized, did not understand the breadth of the anger now aimed at his creation.
Personal Appeals in Washington
Some colleagues believed that Ms. Sandberg — whose ambitions to return to public life were much discussed at the company — was protecting her own brand at Facebook’s expense. At one company gathering, said two people who knew of the event, friends told Ms. Sandberg that if Facebook did not address the scandals effectively, its role in spreading hate and fear would define her legacy, too.
So Ms. Sandberg began taking a more personal role in the company’s Washington campaign, drawing on all the polish that Mr. Zuckerberg sometimes lacked. She not only relied on her old Democratic ties, but also sought to assuage skeptical Republicans, who grumbled that Facebook was more sensitive to the political opinions of its work force than to those of powerful committee leaders. Trailing an entourage of as many as 10 people on trips to the capital, Ms. Sandberg made a point of sending personal thank-you notes to lawmakers and others she met.
Her top Republican target was Mr. Burr, whose Senate committee’s Russia investigation had chugged along. The two spoke by phone, according to a congressional staff member and a Facebook executive, and met in person this fall. While critics cast Facebook as a serial offender that had ignored repeated warning signs about the dangers posed by its product, Ms. Sandberg argued that the company was grappling earnestly with the consequences of its extraordinary growth.
She made the same case in June at a conference of the National Association of Attorneys General in Portland, Ore. At the time, several attorneys general had opened or joined investigations into the company. Facebook was eager to head off further trouble.
The company organized several private receptions, including what was billed as a conversation with Ms. Sandberg about “corporate citizenship in the digital age” and a briefing on Cambridge Analytica.
While Facebook had publicly declared itself ready for new federal regulations, Ms. Sandberg privately contended that the social network was already adopting the best reforms and policies available. Heavy-handed regulation, she warned, would only disadvantage smaller competitors.
Some of the officials were skeptical. But Ms. Sandberg’s presence — companies typically send lower-ranking executives to such gatherings — persuaded others that Facebook was serious about addressing its problems, according to two who attended the conference.
Facebook also continued to look for ways to deflect criticism to rivals. In June, after The Times reported on Facebook’s previously undisclosed deals to share user data with device makers — partnerships Facebook had failed to disclose to lawmakers — executives ordered up focus groups in Washington.
In separate sessions with liberals and conservatives, about a dozen at a time, Facebook previewed messages to lawmakers. Among the approaches it tested was bringing YouTube and other social media platforms into the controversy, while arguing that Google struck similar data-sharing deals.
Deflecting Criticism
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