Jennifer Schuessler / New York Times: Documents show two DOGE employees used ChatGPT to identify National Endowment for the Humanities grants, worth over $100M, to be cut for being related to DEI — Documents show how A.I. was used to cancel most previously approved grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the agency embraced President Trump's agenda.
New York Times: A look at Cloverleaf, which strikes deals with utility companies and secures land for AI companies and their data center needs; the company has raised $300M — Brian Janous, a former Microsoft executive, and his firm Cloverleaf have become modern-day land men, packaging electricity and land for data centers.
Vivian Wang / New York Times: Unlike in the West, Chinese policymakers and the public appear to be much more optimistic about AI, likely due to a focus on real-world applications of AI — Chinese policymakers and the public have expressed high levels of optimism about A.I., even as many in the West worry …
Amy Fan / New York Times: Analysis: since the end of 2025, Polymarket users have rarely bet large sums on US strikes the next day; before the Iran strikes, 150+ accounts placed such bets — Polymarket users placed hundreds of bets of at least $1,000 predicting an imminent American strike, raising concerns about insider trading.
New York Times: An unpublished draft of Changpeng Zhao's memoir, “Freedom of Money”, details secret negotiations in 2023 that led to his imprisonment and a run-in with ICE — In a draft of his memoir, Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, laid out the secret negotiations that led to his imprisonment and a run-in with ICE.
Jordyn Holman / New York Times: Q&A with Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor on modernizing the platform, attracting new creators, managing a fully remote, four-day-per-week workplace, and more — Everette Taylor took over Kickstarter at a low moment for the crowdfunding pioneer, which made its name with small projects …
Stuart A. Thompson / New York Times: Tests of 12+ AI-detection tools show many capable of spotting basic fakes, but struggle with complex images; few analyze video, and most identified fake audio — Artificial intelligence detectors are increasingly used to check the veracity of content online.
John Yoon / New York Times: South Korea approves Google's request to export detailed geographic data overseas, reversing a longstanding policy that made Google Maps largely nonfunctional — South Korea approved Google's request to export detailed map data, reversing a longstanding restriction that made the tool largely nonfunctional.
Tripp Mickle / New York Times: Letter: 100+ Google DeepMind and other AI employees urge Jeff Dean to block US military deals that use Gemini for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons — More than 100 Google A.I. employees sent a letter to Jeff Dean, a chief scientist, opposing Gemini's use for U.S. surveillance and some autonomous weapons.
Arijeta Lajka / New York Times: An analysis of 1,000+ YouTube Shorts videos recommended to kids: the algorithm pushes bizarre, often nonsensical, AI-generated videos, and many lack disclosures — Experts caution that low-quality, A.I.-generated videos on YouTube geared toward children often feature conflicting information …
New York Times: As China grapples with a shrinking population and low birthrate, some women are finding romance with AI chatbots, leading Beijing to increase AI regulations — As China grapples with a shrinking population and historically low birthrate, people are finding romance with chatbots instead.
Jesse Drucker / New York Times: Court docs: the IRS seeks $16B in back taxes and penalties from Meta, arguing it failed to report ~$54B in overseas profits; in December 2025, Meta sued the IRS — The agency is using real-world profit data to challenge how big companies value offshore intellectual property.
Tripp Mickle / New York Times: How Silicon Valley has long ignored China's looming Taiwan invasion and its chip supply impact; US officials warned Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm about China's plans — Federal officials have for years tried to wean Silicon Valley from its dependence on Taiwan, an island democracy roughly the size …
New York Times: A look at Japan's Team Mirai, a party founded by software engineers that won 11 of 465 parliament seats by promising self-driving buses and high-tech jobs — With a ponytail, an indigo suit and a black T-shirt covered in lines of computer code, Takahiro Anno stands out in the button-down halls of Japan's government.
Adam Sella / New York Times: A look at CISA during Trump's second term as it navigates job cuts, continues to operate without a Senate-confirmed leader, and faces a demoralized workforce — The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has navigated staffing cuts without a Senate-confirmed leader.
Jordyn Holman / New York Times: Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is on an apology tour to quell an outcry over privacy concerns after a Super Bowl “Search Party” ad, calling it a “perfect storm” — Since the commercial aired, Jamie Siminoff has been trying to quell an outcry over privacy concerns with his doorbell cameras.
Emily Steel / New York Times: Sources: Uber is moving to bar drivers with convictions for violent felonies, sexual offenses, and child or elder abuse, after an NYT report in December 2025 — The New York Times revealed in December that the ride-hailing giant approved drivers with many types of criminal convictions, including violent felonies.
New York Times: Inside India's AI Impact Summit: 300+ exhibitors, 500 sessions, 250K visitors, billions in investment, and entrepreneurs touting solutions to real-world issues — The event promised to be a global coming-out party for India's artificial intelligence aspirations.
Meaghan Tobin / New York Times: Analysis: despite investing $150B+ in 10+ years, China is expected to produce 2% of global AI chips in 2026 and 70x less memory storage than foreign chipmakers — More than a decade into Beijing's push for self sufficiency, Chinese firms are producing fewer, lower-performing chips than their foreign competitors.
New York Times: Sources: recently the DHS has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas, which do not need a judge's approval, to tech firms to identify people critical of ICE — The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment …
New York Times: Sources: Meta plans to add facial recognition to its smart glasses as soon as 2026, and considers letting the glasses identify people with public Meta accounts — In an internal memo last year, Meta said the political tumult in the United States would distract critics from the feature's release.
Theodore Schleifer / New York Times: Anthropic donates $20M to Public First, a super PAC pushing for AI guardrails and transparency in opposition to OpenAI-backed PACs, ahead of the US midterms — Anthropic and OpenAI now have their own well-funded political groups that will square off in the midterm elections over artificial intelligence safety and regulation.
New York Times: Sources: some OpenAI executives were surprised by a WSJ report that OpenAI was targeting a Q4 2026 IPO; OpenAI hopes to triple its ~$13B 2025 revenue in 2026 — The maker of ChatGPT hopes to triple its revenue in the coming year because it is planning to spend tens of billions of dollars.
New York Times: xAI all-hands meeting: Elon Musk tells staff that xAI needs a factory on the moon to build AI satellites and a massive catapult to launch them into space — In a meeting with employees at his company xAI, Mr. Musk revealed a vision for a facility that includes a giant catapult to launch his satellites into space.
Lydia DePillis / New York Times: Researchers find Kalshi and Polymarket bettors can more accurately predict economic data, earnings, and political events than analysts, likely due to incentives — Economists at top banks and investment firms who command high salaries to divine the direction of the economy expect …
David Yaffe-Bellany / New York Times: Trump-linked World Liberty Financial's stablecoin, USD1, hit $5B in total circulation in January with 85% held in Binance accounts; Trump pardoned CZ in October — Ties between the exchange and the president's company, World Liberty Financial, have only strengthened since the president pardoned Binance's founder, Changpeng Zhao.
Adam Satariano / New York Times: The EU says that TikTok's “addictive design” is illegal under the DSA, citing the app's infinite scroll and recommendation algorithm, in preliminary findings — European Union regulators said the app's infinite scroll and personalized algorithm led to “compulsive” behavior, especially among children.
Emily Steel / New York Times: A federal jury in Phoenix ordered Uber to pay $8.5M to a passenger who said a driver sexually assaulted her in 2023, the first case where Uber was found liable — In a federal bellwether case, the jury ordered the ride-hailing giant to pay $8.5 million to Jaylynn Dean, who said one of its drivers assaulted her in 2023.
Priya Krishna / New York Times: How food delivery is reshaping US mealtimes, as some users spend thousands; NRA data shows nearly 75% of 2024 restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant — Almost three of every four restaurant orders in the U.S. weren't eaten in a restaurant, according to recent data.
New York Times: China's desire to lead in cutting-edge AI is bumping against its aim to control it; Zhipu warned IPO investors about the burden of complying with 6+ AI rules — Beijing wants to lead the world in developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence, but it also wants companies to adhere to an increasingly complex set of rules.
Theodore Schleifer / New York Times: Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and crypto evangelist Tim Draper plan to spend millions this year on an effort to elect moderate California legislators — Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, two outspoken Silicon Valley leaders, are planning to spend tens of millions of dollars to elect moderate state lawmakers this year.
New York Times: Amazon's $35M marketing campaign for Melania is ~10x the budget for similar documentaries like CNN's RBG; some suggest Amazon is currying favor with Trump — The tech giant is spending $35 million to promote its film about the first lady, far more than is typical for documentaries.
New York Times: Interviews with 100+ therapists and psychiatrists on clients' AI chatbot usage show, while there are some upsides, conversations also deepened negative feelings — Dozens of doctors and therapists said chatbots had led their patients to psychosis, isolation and unhealthy habits.
Cade Metz / New York Times: Ricursive, founded by ex-Google researchers to automate advanced chip design, raised $335M from Sequoia, Radical, Lightspeed, and others at a $4B valuation — One new start-up is called Recursive with an “e.” Another is called Ricursive with an “i.” They are trying to do the same thing …
Benjamin Wallace / New York Times: A look at Kalshi and Polymarket's rise; reports say Polymarket had 491K monthly active traders in December 2025, and <0.04% of addresses took 70% of profits — Two months after quitting his job as a corporate C.P.A. to trade full time in prediction markets, Joel Holsinger, 26, was well along the road to making his first $100,000.
New York Times: Court filing: SEC drops a case against Gemini Trust, founded by the Winklevoss twins, major Trump donors; the case stemmed from Gemini Earn's implosion — The agency says that victims of an investment offering involving Gemini Trust got their money back, though after a regulatory action brought by the New York attorney general.
Meaghan Tobin / New York Times: How Chinese tech companies navigate geopolitical tensions: TikTok and Manus adopted a “China shedding” strategy, while Shein and Meituan seek non-US growth — Chinese firms must contend with geopolitical tensions and mistrust to do business in the United States.
New York Times: NYT and CCDH analysis: Grok created and shared 1.8M+ sexualized images of women between December 31 and January 8, after Elon Musk promoted the feature on X — Over nine days, Elon Musk's Grok chatbot generated and posted 4.4 million images, of which at least 41 percent were sexualized images of women.
Cade Metz / New York Times: Humans&, founded by ex-Anthropic, xAI, and Google staff to build collaborative AI, raised a $480M seed from Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, and others at a $4.48B valuation — As a research scientist at Anthropic, one of the world's leading A.I. companies, Andi Peng was part of a team that tried …
Michael Thomsen / New York Times: How Zynga uses a secretive VIP program with personal account managers and exclusive sweepstake entries to keep top players spending on games like FarmVille — CSR 2 Realistic Drag Racing is a simple game, even by smartphone standards. Players compete in short street races …
Jordyn Holman / New York Times: Q&A with FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam, only the second CEO in the company's history, on humanoid robots, automation, AI, drones, US-China trade tensions, and more — Raj Subramaniam took over three years ago from FedEx's founder, who ran the company for nearly 50 years.
Rob Copeland / New York Times: A look at Michael Saylor's Strategy, known for buying bitcoin via creative financing strategies, as its stock trades way below its peak amid the crypto downturn — Had you glanced too quickly at the crowd packed into Michael Saylor's Tuscan-style Miami compound, you might have assumed it was just another rich dude's party.
Nicole Sperling / New York Times: Q&A with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos about the WBD bid, Trump's involvement in the deal, maintaining a 45-day theatrical window for WBD releases, and more — The company's co-chief executive sat down for an extensive interview for the first time since announcing plans to buy Warner Bros. Discovery's film and TV business.
New York Times: Australia's eSafety Commissioner reports social media platforms “removed access” to ~4.7M accounts under its ban for under-16s, which took effect in December — Governments around the world are watching the rollout of the landmark law, which made it illegal for those under 16 to have accounts.
New York Times: Sources: the US cyberattack that plunged Caracas into darkness during the Maduro mission shows its offensive capabilities; Senators plan to question officials — Senators are expected to ask Lt. Gen. Joshua M. Rudd, President Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. Cyber Command, about the mission in Caracas.
Sharon LaFraniere / New York Times: Polymarket and Kalshi count Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser, and Trump Media plans to launch Truth Predict, raising ethical questions during Trump's second term — Traders in companies with ties to the president's eldest son can bet on the outcome of events the president affects.
New York Times: Sources and filings: Peter Thiel donated $3M to a group to beat California's wealth tax, the first of several expected major donations by tech leaders in 2026 — More large donations from wealthy Silicon Valley figures are expected as they try to marshal opposition to a proposed ballot measure …
Jesse Drucker / New York Times: Sources and US tax lawyers: the IRS's planned audit of private equity and VC firms is faltering under President Trump, as many senior leaders leave the agency — Specialists have left the I.R.S. and audits have been abandoned since the president returned to office.
Theodore Schleifer / New York Times: Sources: wealthy Californians are quietly mobilizing on WhatsApp and calls in a long-shot bid to oust Rep. Ro Khanna, who supports a controversial wealth tax — It's hard right now to be a progressive Democrat in the heart of America's tech industry. — Representative Ro Khanna …
New York Times: A Chinese hospital says Alibaba's PANDA AI tool has analyzed 180,000 CT scans and detected ~24 pancreatic cancer cases since its deployment in November 2024 — A tool for spotting pancreatic cancer in routine CT scans has had promising results, one example of how China is racing to apply A.I. to medicine's tough problems.