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Sure, we've seen millions poured into lobbying and other means of influence during every presidency, but the last two years set a whole new bar. Business leaders, including those from almost every Big Tech company, stepped over themselves to prove fealty to Donald Trump's second administration. It's easy to see why: Their kowtowing was meant to secure regulatory favors, gain tax and tariff advantages and avoid Trump's ire. Ultimately, it was all in the service of appeasing their shareholders. Why else would Apple CEO Tim Cook, someone who typically cultivates a progressive image, hand deliver a gold plaque to the President of the United States?
Before we leave 2025 behind, it's worth documenting the many ways tech companies and leaders debased themselves for political favor with the Trump administration.
Alphabet (Google)Google dropped diversity recruitment goals in February, following Trump's executive orders dismantling DEI programs in the federal government. Google also changed its AI principles to allow AI in weapons and surveillance, a move that is in line with the relaxed artificial intelligence regulation the Trump administration would later adopt for its
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We compared top web hosting services like SiteGround and Hostinger to help you find the best host for your website, whether it's a hobby site, blog or e-commerce store.
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There are way too many online services and subscriptions to keep track of these days, but the flip side is there's a tool for just about everything. Time is just about up to get a physical gift shipped in time for the holidays, so below we've pulled together some of our favorite digital gifts and subscriptions, including time-tested video, music and gaming services as well as tools to clear your mental space and learn new skills. There are also a few subscriptions that provide ongoing, IRL deliveries, if you think your giftee will appreciate the nostalgic charm of a physical object.
Best digital gifts and subscription gifts
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Amazon is in discussions with OpenAI to invest $10 billion in the company while supplying more of its AI chips and cloud computing services, according to The Financial Times. The deal would push OpenAI's valuation over $500 billion but is likely to raise more questions about the company's circular investment agreements involving chips and data centers.
The two companies are also in talks about the possibility of OpenAI helping Amazon with its online marketplace, similar to deals it has made with Etsy, Shopify and Instacart. However, any agreement still wouldn't allow Amazon to market OpenAI's most advanced models on its developer cloud platform, as Microsoft holds the exclusive rights to those until the 2030s.
OpenAI recently restructured its agreement with Microsoft to allow it to use data center capacity from other suppliers. Around the same time, it made a string of deals with NVIDIA, Oracle, AMD and others to build out data center capacity and acquire or rent AI chips.
The new deal would require OpenAI to use Amazon's Trainium AI chips and rent more data center capacity from Amazon Web Services (AWS). That's on top of the $38 billion that OpenAI has already committed to renting servers from AWS over the next seven years.
These deals have sounded alarms among investors considering their circular nature. In many of those, including this latest Amazon deal, OpenAI is taking investment m
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Sometimes you can notice the signs of a failing SSD. For instance, the once-quick transfer speed slows to crawl, there are frequent program or system crashes, or file system access errors or SMART errors occur. If you notice these things, especially in combination, there's a good chance your SSD is on its way out. In that case, it's time to prepare for the worst and do the following:
Back up critical files
It goes without saying that the first thing you'll want to do if you think your SSD is on the blink is to back up your critical data. Backups should be done regularly anyway, but even if you're doing that, you'll still want to make a new backup of your critical files at this point to have them ready to go should your SSD suddenly die.
See our roundups of the best Windows backup software and
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