<p>On Thursday, President Trump asked Republican lawmakers to end tax breaks on carried interest.&nbsp; The tax break allows private equity and venture fund managers to treat their earnings from investments at a lower capital gains rate, rather than as ordinary income.&nbsp; The removal of the tax break would be a big hit to the VC [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A group of more than 100 organizations has published an open letter calling on the AI industry and regulators to mitigate the tech&#8217;s harmful environmental impacts just days before leading industry CEOs, heads of state, academics, and nonprofits descend on Paris for a major AI conference. The letter, which bears the signatures of prominent advocacy [&hellip;]</p>

<p>According to a New York Times report, on Thursday, the U.S. government&#8217;s General Services Administration (GSA) removed the spoon emoji as an option that users of its videoconferencing platform can select to express themselves. The move comes a day after workers embraced the digital cutlery to protest the Trump administration&#8217;s “Fork in the Road” resignation [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A 25-year-old Doge staffer resigned over racist posts on X.</p>

<p>A wave of automakers and battery makers — foreign and domestic — have pledged to produce North American–made batteries before 2030. </p>

<p>The European Union has published guidance on what constitutes an AI system under its new AI Act. The risk-based framework for regulating applications of artificial intelligence came into force last summer &#8212; with the first compliance deadline (on banned use cases) kicking in last weekend. Determining whether a particular software system falls within the act&#8217;s [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The mechanical keyboard maker Qwertykeys announced Wednesday that it has suspended all U.S. product shipments owing to new tariffs levied by the Trump administration. The Guangdong-based outfit cites a February 1 announcement of 10% tariffs on imported Chinese goods as the motivating factor. “This new policy replaces all previous tariff exemptions, including the exemption for [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Andreessen Horowitz is defending its decision to hire Daniel Penny, according to an investor memo seen by The New York Times.&nbsp; The venture capital firm caused a stir earlier this week after it announced it would hire Penny, who was acquitted last year after choking a homeless man to death in the New York City [&hellip;]</p>

<p>OpenAI on Thursday launched data residency in Europe, allowing European organizations to meet local data sovereignty requirements while using the AI company&#8217;s products. Data residency refers to the physical location of an organization&#8217;s data, as well as the local laws and policy requirements imposed on that data. Most tech giants and cloud providers offer European [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A day after the European Union dialed up its scrutiny of fast-fashion giant Shein, the bloc&#8217;s executive branch said that it has sent a fresh request for information (RFI) to the e-commerce platform under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The European Commission oversees larger platforms&#8217; compliance with a subset of DSA rules in areas like [&hellip;]</p>

<p>U.S. Democratic Representative Mark Pocan plans to introduce a bill designed to ban “special government employees” like Elon Musk from having federal contracts so they can’t steer spending toward their own self-interest.  The proposed bill is called the ELON MUSK Act, which stands for Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy.&nbsp; “No [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Chinese e-commerce and fast fashion giant Shein is facing fresh scrutiny in the European Union in relation to consumer protection rules following the launch of a coordinated action by the bloc&#8217;s Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPCN). The action is being conducted with reference to the EU&#8217;s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Consumer Rights Directive, Unfair Contracts [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Google removed a pledge to not build AI for weapons or surveillance from its website this week. The change was first spotted by Bloomberg. The company appears to have updated its public AI principles page, erasing a section titled &#8220;applications we will not pursue,&#8221; which was still included as recently as last week. Asked for [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Amid China&#8217;s retaliation to recently announced U.S. tariffs, Intel may find itself in the hot seat with China&#8217;s regulators. China is apparently considering an antitrust probe into semiconductor giant Intel, according to reporting from the Financial Times. This would be in addition to the set of tariffs against the U.S. that China announced on Monday. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The first compliance deadline kicked in a couple of days ago for the European Union&#8217;s AI Act, a risk-based framework for regulating uses of artificial intelligence &#8212; banning a narrow selection of so-called &#8220;unacceptable risk&#8221; use cases of AI, such as social scoring that could lead to detrimental or unfavourable treatment; or harmful manipulation using [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Thomas Shedd, the former Tesla engineer now serving as the director of Technology Transformation Services, reportedly outlined an “AI-first strategy” for the U.S. government department. According to a report from Wired citing multiple sources, the Musk ally described the plan to run the office like a “startup software company&#8221; during a Monday meeting. The New [&hellip;]</p>

<p>China said Tuesday it has launched an antitrust investigation into Google, part of a swift retaliation after the U.S. president Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese goods. The probe by China&#8217;s State Administration for Market Regulation will examine alleged monopolistic practices by the U.S. tech giant, which has had its search and internet [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Adam Candeub, a known critic of Big Tech, looks poised to join the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Candeub will be general counsel of the FCC, reports Semafor, which cites direct confirmation from FCC chairman Brendan Carr. TechCrunch has reached out to the FCC for more information. Candeub has long been a vocal critic of Section [&hellip;]</p>

<p>On Monday, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, one of Canada’s most populous provinces, announced on X that the province&#8217;s government would be “ripping up” its $68 million ($100 million CAD) contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service. The news came soon after President Donald Trump announced a 25% tariff on nearly all Canadian [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to make artificial general intelligence (AGI) &#8212; which is roughly defined as AI that can accomplish any task a human can &#8212; openly available one day. But in a new policy document, Meta suggests that there are certain scenarios in which it may not release a highly capable AI [&hellip;]</p>