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Arcane’s final season puts an even finer point on its story about revolutionary war. The first season of Netflix and Riot’s Arcane animated series fashioned disparate pieces of League of Legends lore into a beautiful, devastating tale about a society on the brink of collapse. The show infused each of its characters with a depth and complexity that felt unlike anything Riot had done elsewhere in the longrunning franchise. And its commitment to telling its own story made it remarkably easy for new fans to dive in.
There’s a density to Arcane’s second season that feels reflective of the show’s creative team working to bring this juggernaut of a story to a satisfying end in just nine short episodes. Especially since it has been three years since season 1, you might need a refresher on how things became so dire for the citizens of Piltover and Zaun. But while the new season drops you right back into the chaos in a somewhat disorienting way, it does an excellent job of weaving together the many different threads of Arcane’s powerful legend.
Arcane’s first season ended with a literal bang — an explosive attack from Jinx (Ella Purnell) on the elite council members of Piltover just as they were about to sign a peace treaty that would have brought an end to their war on the impoverished people of Zaun. Though Jinx’s attack was rooted in years of personal psychological torment and her growing up as part of Zaun’s abused, disenfranchised underclass, it was a moment that made her sister Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) see truly her as a terroristic monster. It wasn’t clear who might emerge from the smoking rubble in the end, but there was no question about how much harder Piltover would retaliate with its dangerous Hextech weapons.

Arcane’s second season picks up in the immediate aftermath of the attack to emphasize the sheer amount of destruction Jinx caused in her crusade to make Piltover pay for its history of injustices. With so many of Piltover’s political leaders dead, the city’s priorities and its balance of power have to shift in ways that feel necessary to Vi and other survivors like enforcer Caitlyn Kiramman (Katie Leung). But while the new season takes some time to make you appreciate the magnitude of Piltover’s loss, it pushes this act of Arcane’s story into motion by exploring how oppressive societies create the monsters they ultimately come to hate and fear.
Everyone suffers as Arcane moves its characters into a new phase of conflict, but the show uses Vi and Jinx in particular to highlight how profoundly war can unmoor people from their senses of self. It’s easier for the sisters to let one another go than it is for either of them to see themselves in the other’s face. And when presented with chances to channel their feelings into action, it seldom occurs to them how fighting just to hurt the other side is guaranteed to cause self-inflicted wounds.
Arcane repeatedly echoes that idea as it briskly shifts focus to the rest of its cast and brings the devastating danger of Hextech into sharp focus. Inventor Jayce Talis (Kevin Alejandro) and politician Mel Medarda (Toks Olagundoye) can understand the gravity of the escalation her warhawk mother Ambessa (Ellen Thomas) is hungry for. But that foresight can only do so much to keep the calls for a full-on invasion of Zaun at bay.

Netflix / Riot

Arcane’s second season uses the rising tension and Jayce’s fears about what he has helped create to delve deeper into the magical mysteries of Hextech with a subplot that zooms far out into new realms of the League of Legends universe. It’s another way the show reinforces its ideas about actions coming with consequences that aren’t immediately obvious up close. And in some of Arcane’s characters, it crystalizes how heavy a price the planet can pay as humanity wages war.
Hextech also features largely in most of this season’s more visually stunning set pieces, which are once again truly the show’s greatest strength. Though the show as a whole is still utterly gorgeous, the action feels even more brutal this time around. On occasion, the “cool” needle drops feel a bit tone deaf because of how frank Arcane is trying to be in its depiction of a society tearing itself apart. But that has always kinda been Arcane’s vibe, and the season really leaning into it will likely appeal to hardcore fans.
Because the stakes are even higher and all of Arcane’s players are now fully locked into the war, this season’s first three episodes often feel more narratively dense and like they’re moving at a much faster pace. That might be more exhausting if the season was dropping all at once, but Netflix has smartly chosen to split it up into three separate acts set to debut through the end of the month. We won’t know until the end of November just how Arcane’s creators intend to bring this story to a close and whether it might set the stage for whatever’s coming next for the franchise. But this first act is a strong opener for Arcane’s final chapter.

Netflix

Arcane’s final season puts an even finer point on its story about revolutionary war.

The first season of Netflix and Riot’s Arcane animated series fashioned disparate pieces of League of Legends lore into a beautiful, devastating tale about a society on the brink of collapse. The show infused each of its characters with a depth and complexity that felt unlike anything Riot had done elsewhere in the longrunning franchise. And its commitment to telling its own story made it remarkably easy for new fans to dive in.

There’s a density to Arcane’s second season that feels reflective of the show’s creative team working to bring this juggernaut of a story to a satisfying end in just nine short episodes. Especially since it has been three years since season 1, you might need a refresher on how things became so dire for the citizens of Piltover and Zaun. But while the new season drops you right back into the chaos in a somewhat disorienting way, it does an excellent job of weaving together the many different threads of Arcane’s powerful legend.

Arcane’s first season ended with a literal bang — an explosive attack from Jinx (Ella Purnell) on the elite council members of Piltover just as they were about to sign a peace treaty that would have brought an end to their war on the impoverished people of Zaun. Though Jinx’s attack was rooted in years of personal psychological torment and her growing up as part of Zaun’s abused, disenfranchised underclass, it was a moment that made her sister Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) see truly her as a terroristic monster. It wasn’t clear who might emerge from the smoking rubble in the end, but there was no question about how much harder Piltover would retaliate with its dangerous Hextech weapons.

Arcane’s second season picks up in the immediate aftermath of the attack to emphasize the sheer amount of destruction Jinx caused in her crusade to make Piltover pay for its history of injustices. With so many of Piltover’s political leaders dead, the city’s priorities and its balance of power have to shift in ways that feel necessary to Vi and other survivors like enforcer Caitlyn Kiramman (Katie Leung). But while the new season takes some time to make you appreciate the magnitude of Piltover’s loss, it pushes this act of Arcane’s story into motion by exploring how oppressive societies create the monsters they ultimately come to hate and fear.

Everyone suffers as Arcane moves its characters into a new phase of conflict, but the show uses Vi and Jinx in particular to highlight how profoundly war can unmoor people from their senses of self. It’s easier for the sisters to let one another go than it is for either of them to see themselves in the other’s face. And when presented with chances to channel their feelings into action, it seldom occurs to them how fighting just to hurt the other side is guaranteed to cause self-inflicted wounds.

Arcane repeatedly echoes that idea as it briskly shifts focus to the rest of its cast and brings the devastating danger of Hextech into sharp focus. Inventor Jayce Talis (Kevin Alejandro) and politician Mel Medarda (Toks Olagundoye) can understand the gravity of the escalation her warhawk mother Ambessa (Ellen Thomas) is hungry for. But that foresight can only do so much to keep the calls for a full-on invasion of Zaun at bay.

Arcane’s second season uses the rising tension and Jayce’s fears about what he has helped create to delve deeper into the magical mysteries of Hextech with a subplot that zooms far out into new realms of the League of Legends universe. It’s another way the show reinforces its ideas about actions coming with consequences that aren’t immediately obvious up close. And in some of Arcane’s characters, it crystalizes how heavy a price the planet can pay as humanity wages war.

Hextech also features largely in most of this season’s more visually stunning set pieces, which are once again truly the show’s greatest strength. Though the show as a whole is still utterly gorgeous, the action feels even more brutal this time around. On occasion, the “cool” needle drops feel a bit tone deaf because of how frank Arcane is trying to be in its depiction of a society tearing itself apart. But that has always kinda been Arcane’s vibe, and the season really leaning into it will likely appeal to hardcore fans.

Because the stakes are even higher and all of Arcane’s players are now fully locked into the war, this season’s first three episodes often feel more narratively dense and like they’re moving at a much faster pace. That might be more exhausting if the season was dropping all at once, but Netflix has smartly chosen to split it up into three separate acts set to debut through the end of the month. We won’t know until the end of November just how Arcane’s creators intend to bring this story to a close and whether it might set the stage for whatever’s coming next for the franchise. But this first act is a strong opener for Arcane’s final chapter.

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Paul McCartney in 2022. | Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images

The Beatles have been nominated for two Grammys — nearly 50 years after the band officially split up. Their final song, called “Now and Then,” was restored last year with the help of AI, and is now up for record of the year alongside the likes of Beyoncé, Charlie XCX, Billie Eilish, and Taylor Swift. It’s also been nominated for best rock performance, where it goes up against Green Day, Pearl Jam, and The Black Keys.
Released in November 2023, “Now and Then” started as a demo recorded by John Lennon in the late 1970s. This recording, as well as “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love,” was given to Lennon’s three surviving bandmates in the ‘90s, with the hopes of including it in The Beatles Anthology project.
However, “Now and Then” was never released, as technology at the time couldn’t separate John’s vocals and piano to get a clear sound. But in 2021, filmmaker Peter Jackson and his sound team were able to separate the instrumentals and vocals with machine learning technology, allowing Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to finally complete the song.

Though “Now and Then” was finished using machine learning, it still falls within the bounds of The Grammy’s rules surrounding AI. The guidelines currently state that “only human creators are eligible to be submitted for consideration for, nominated for, or win a GRAMMY Award,” but work that contains “elements” of AI material is “eligible in applicable categories.”
It’s a bit strange to see “Now and Then” competing with modern-day music like Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” but it’s been a long time coming. We’ll get to see how the Beatles fare during the 2025 Grammy Awards, which takes place on Sunday, February 2nd.

Paul McCartney in 2022. | Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images

The Beatles have been nominated for two Grammys — nearly 50 years after the band officially split up. Their final song, called “Now and Then,” was restored last year with the help of AI, and is now up for record of the year alongside the likes of Beyoncé, Charlie XCX, Billie Eilish, and Taylor Swift. It’s also been nominated for best rock performance, where it goes up against Green Day, Pearl Jam, and The Black Keys.

Released in November 2023, “Now and Then” started as a demo recorded by John Lennon in the late 1970s. This recording, as well as “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love,” was given to Lennon’s three surviving bandmates in the ‘90s, with the hopes of including it in The Beatles Anthology project.

However, “Now and Then” was never released, as technology at the time couldn’t separate John’s vocals and piano to get a clear sound. But in 2021, filmmaker Peter Jackson and his sound team were able to separate the instrumentals and vocals with machine learning technology, allowing Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to finally complete the song.

Though “Now and Then” was finished using machine learning, it still falls within the bounds of The Grammy’s rules surrounding AI. The guidelines currently state that “only human creators are eligible to be submitted for consideration for, nominated for, or win a GRAMMY Award,” but work that contains “elements” of AI material is “eligible in applicable categories.”

It’s a bit strange to see “Now and Then” competing with modern-day music like Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” but it’s been a long time coming. We’ll get to see how the Beatles fare during the 2025 Grammy Awards, which takes place on Sunday, February 2nd.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube’s premium subscriptions are about to get more expensive for long-time subscribers with legacy plans in more places. In December, YouTube told US subscribers with legacy YouTube Premium plans (stemming from discontinued services Google Play Music or YouTube Red) they’d need to start paying the current $13.99 per month price in the new year.
YouTube Music users in Europe have posted emails they received announcing a price increase for them, too, and just like the US, some report getting three more months at the current price before the hike.
In an email to The Verge, YouTube communications manager Paul Pennington confirmed prices are increasing for both YouTube Premium, which removes ads on the streaming videos and includes access to the music service, as well as the YouTube Music standalone plans:

We’re updating the price for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium for new and current subscribers in Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Uruguay, and Turkey.
Members who signed up originally via Google Play and received early adopter pricing will get three additional months at their current price.

The initial Reddit poster said they were on the legacy plan from a Google Play Music subscription that started before YouTube Music launched (as YouTube Music Key in 2014 with a $7.99 monthly rate in the US), leading to their eventual merger and the shutdown of Google Play Music. Now, their monthly rate as a subscriber in Spain is going up from 7.99 euros to 10.99, which is still less than the rate for new subscribers to the individual music subscription, which is 12.99 euros.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube’s premium subscriptions are about to get more expensive for long-time subscribers with legacy plans in more places. In December, YouTube told US subscribers with legacy YouTube Premium plans (stemming from discontinued services Google Play Music or YouTube Red) they’d need to start paying the current $13.99 per month price in the new year.

YouTube Music users in Europe have posted emails they received announcing a price increase for them, too, and just like the US, some report getting three more months at the current price before the hike.

In an email to The Verge, YouTube communications manager Paul Pennington confirmed prices are increasing for both YouTube Premium, which removes ads on the streaming videos and includes access to the music service, as well as the YouTube Music standalone plans:

We’re updating the price for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium for new and current subscribers in Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Uruguay, and Turkey.

Members who signed up originally via Google Play and received early adopter pricing will get three additional months at their current price.

The initial Reddit poster said they were on the legacy plan from a Google Play Music subscription that started before YouTube Music launched (as YouTube Music Key in 2014 with a $7.99 monthly rate in the US), leading to their eventual merger and the shutdown of Google Play Music. Now, their monthly rate as a subscriber in Spain is going up from 7.99 euros to 10.99, which is still less than the rate for new subscribers to the individual music subscription, which is 12.99 euros.

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“DJI’s $199 Neo selfie drone is going to be everywhere,” we wrote in September — while noting that the budget self-flying drone did have two major weaknesses over the competing $350 Hover X1. First, DJI’s drone didn’t shoot vertical video (a dealbreaker for TikTok and Instagram Reels influencers) and second, it couldn’t track our movements nearly as quickly as the competition.
But DJI is now fixing both, adding vertical video and dramatically increasing the Neo’s flight speed while tracking. According to DC Rainmaker, it’s now so fast it can keep up with cyclists, and surprisingly flies faster in tracking mode than it does with a controller.

Before the firmware update, the drone wasn’t able to keep up with him cycling at even 13 miles per hour (21kph). But after the update, he saw a huge increase to roughly 20 miles per hour (32 kph). That’s faster than you can manually fly the drone, even in Sport mode, so hopefully DJI will soon let us access that speed increase for FPV flying as well.
The vertical mode is arguably more exciting because of the social video platforms where your footage can now more easily live — but a couple caveats you should know. First, limited to the Neo’s fairly grainy 1080p mode, not 4K, though you can go up to 60fps. To my eye, it looks about as good as the Neo’s 1080p horizontal filming mode.

Screenshot by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
“9:16” is vertical.

Second, you’ll need to update your DJI Fly app, not just the drone — otherwise, the option to for 9:16 vertical video simply won’t appear in many flight modes. And if you’re on Android, that means updating the app from the app itself, and possibly reassuring your Android phone that it’s okay to install, because DJI hasn’t put its app on the Google Play app store for some time now.

“DJI’s $199 Neo selfie drone is going to be everywhere,” we wrote in September — while noting that the budget self-flying drone did have two major weaknesses over the competing $350 Hover X1. First, DJI’s drone didn’t shoot vertical video (a dealbreaker for TikTok and Instagram Reels influencers) and second, it couldn’t track our movements nearly as quickly as the competition.

But DJI is now fixing both, adding vertical video and dramatically increasing the Neo’s flight speed while tracking. According to DC Rainmaker, it’s now so fast it can keep up with cyclists, and surprisingly flies faster in tracking mode than it does with a controller.

Before the firmware update, the drone wasn’t able to keep up with him cycling at even 13 miles per hour (21kph). But after the update, he saw a huge increase to roughly 20 miles per hour (32 kph). That’s faster than you can manually fly the drone, even in Sport mode, so hopefully DJI will soon let us access that speed increase for FPV flying as well.

The vertical mode is arguably more exciting because of the social video platforms where your footage can now more easily live — but a couple caveats you should know. First, limited to the Neo’s fairly grainy 1080p mode, not 4K, though you can go up to 60fps. To my eye, it looks about as good as the Neo’s 1080p horizontal filming mode.

Screenshot by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
“9:16” is vertical.

Second, you’ll need to update your DJI Fly app, not just the drone — otherwise, the option to for 9:16 vertical video simply won’t appear in many flight modes. And if you’re on Android, that means updating the app from the app itself, and possibly reassuring your Android phone that it’s okay to install, because DJI hasn’t put its app on the Google Play app store for some time now.

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A still photo from the film Heretic.

When codirectors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods started thinking about who could play the antagonist in their new horror flick Heretic, they knew he had to have a few specific characteristics. The film is about a man who lures missionaries into his home, eventually turning a pleasant chat about religion into a nightmare scenario. So he had to be able to disarm with charm and humor, before switching gears to become intense and terrifying. “He had to have these moments of feeling dangerous, of feeling safe, contradictory traits that had to coalesce into something,” says Beck.
Early on in the casting process, the pair landed on a surprising name — and they couldn’t let it go. “As soon as we thought about him we were like: ‘This has to be Hugh Grant,’” says Beck. “That’s the only person we could see in this role, because he checked all of those boxes.”

The idea of putting you at ease is pivotal to the movie and character. Heretic starts out with two young Mormon missionaries — Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) — who approach the wrong house while proselytizing door-to-door. At first, Grant’s Mr. Reed seems completely harmless. He wears a cozy cardigan, stumbles over his words, makes silly jokes, and offers his guests Cokes. His home is filled with the smell of a baking blueberry pie. But eventually, the cracks start to show, and Reed shifts to preaching his own beliefs before moving in a much more sinister direction.
The character was inspired by a mix of real-world figures, including notable atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens as well as the cult leader Keith Raniere. The directors spent around four months emailing back and forth with Grant, as he picked apart the character, peppering them with questions about Reed’s origins and beliefs. “I think through those conversations the character started getting clearer and clearer to all of us,” Woods explains.
Raniere, in particular, influenced Grant’s take on Reed. Grant “was interested in the word salad that Raniere is capable of conjuring in a way that makes him almost feel smarter than he actually might be,” says Woods. “He also responded to the way he creates the illusion of listening, which makes him seem less threatening.”

Image: A24

The directors believe that Grant’s past work, particularly his early career as a bumbling romantic comedy star, help set the expectation that this isn’t a character to be feared. “Early in his career… he didn’t feel threatening at all in any of those roles,” Beck says. “But as soon as you’re putting him into a movie that has the aspect of a suspense thriller, and he’s starting to challenge in a way that you’ve never quite seen, it weaponizes what we otherwise know of him.” Woods adds, “We’re leaning heavily on his charisma and charm and all the things we know and love him for.”
In a lot of horror movies, it’s hard to believe characters will stick around in a dangerous situation. But in Heretic, you can understand it; the warning signs are subtle at first, and once they become more overt, well, it’s too late. And that’s due to Grant’s ability to showcase both sides of the character so convincingly, making his guests — and viewers — feel initially comfortable.
“We’re leaning heavily on his charisma and charm and all the things we know and love him for.”
“He’s funny and open-minded, he wants to hear what they have to say,” Woods says of the initial dynamic between Mr. Reed and the two missionaries. “There’s this feeling of two young women that are talking to an older man who appears to be very knowledgeable about their religion and all religions. So we buy that they are sitting there and engaging in this topic. And their best play is to politely listen to him and then extricate themselves from the situation.”
There’s another aspect to Grant’s character that makes him scary, something that will be familiar to anyone who spends much time on the internet: he’s a debate bro. The film is about Reed convincing Barnes and Paxton of his own beliefs. Without spoiling the specifics, he holds a particular disdain for nearly all organized religion. The conversation with the missionaries is almost a game. He has studied for a lifetime so that he can anticipate their questions and defeat them with logic. Reed doesn’t have much interest in hearing what the sisters really have to say — he just wants to prove himself right, using all of the characteristics that Grant embodies so well.
“What scares us the most is somebody that approaches something with so much certainty that they’re unwavering,” says Beck. “The great thing about discourse and debates is that you’re actively listening. Something about the movie that we’re excited about is that we can throw in all of these questions and conversation pieces, and Reed can feel like that guy on Reddit.”
Heretic is in theaters on November 8th.

A still photo from the film Heretic.

When codirectors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods started thinking about who could play the antagonist in their new horror flick Heretic, they knew he had to have a few specific characteristics. The film is about a man who lures missionaries into his home, eventually turning a pleasant chat about religion into a nightmare scenario. So he had to be able to disarm with charm and humor, before switching gears to become intense and terrifying. “He had to have these moments of feeling dangerous, of feeling safe, contradictory traits that had to coalesce into something,” says Beck.

Early on in the casting process, the pair landed on a surprising name — and they couldn’t let it go. “As soon as we thought about him we were like: ‘This has to be Hugh Grant,’” says Beck. “That’s the only person we could see in this role, because he checked all of those boxes.”

The idea of putting you at ease is pivotal to the movie and character. Heretic starts out with two young Mormon missionaries — Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) — who approach the wrong house while proselytizing door-to-door. At first, Grant’s Mr. Reed seems completely harmless. He wears a cozy cardigan, stumbles over his words, makes silly jokes, and offers his guests Cokes. His home is filled with the smell of a baking blueberry pie. But eventually, the cracks start to show, and Reed shifts to preaching his own beliefs before moving in a much more sinister direction.

The character was inspired by a mix of real-world figures, including notable atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens as well as the cult leader Keith Raniere. The directors spent around four months emailing back and forth with Grant, as he picked apart the character, peppering them with questions about Reed’s origins and beliefs. “I think through those conversations the character started getting clearer and clearer to all of us,” Woods explains.

Raniere, in particular, influenced Grant’s take on Reed. Grant “was interested in the word salad that Raniere is capable of conjuring in a way that makes him almost feel smarter than he actually might be,” says Woods. “He also responded to the way he creates the illusion of listening, which makes him seem less threatening.”

The directors believe that Grant’s past work, particularly his early career as a bumbling romantic comedy star, help set the expectation that this isn’t a character to be feared. “Early in his career… he didn’t feel threatening at all in any of those roles,” Beck says. “But as soon as you’re putting him into a movie that has the aspect of a suspense thriller, and he’s starting to challenge in a way that you’ve never quite seen, it weaponizes what we otherwise know of him.” Woods adds, “We’re leaning heavily on his charisma and charm and all the things we know and love him for.”

In a lot of horror movies, it’s hard to believe characters will stick around in a dangerous situation. But in Heretic, you can understand it; the warning signs are subtle at first, and once they become more overt, well, it’s too late. And that’s due to Grant’s ability to showcase both sides of the character so convincingly, making his guests — and viewers — feel initially comfortable.

“He’s funny and open-minded, he wants to hear what they have to say,” Woods says of the initial dynamic between Mr. Reed and the two missionaries. “There’s this feeling of two young women that are talking to an older man who appears to be very knowledgeable about their religion and all religions. So we buy that they are sitting there and engaging in this topic. And their best play is to politely listen to him and then extricate themselves from the situation.”

There’s another aspect to Grant’s character that makes him scary, something that will be familiar to anyone who spends much time on the internet: he’s a debate bro. The film is about Reed convincing Barnes and Paxton of his own beliefs. Without spoiling the specifics, he holds a particular disdain for nearly all organized religion. The conversation with the missionaries is almost a game. He has studied for a lifetime so that he can anticipate their questions and defeat them with logic. Reed doesn’t have much interest in hearing what the sisters really have to say — he just wants to prove himself right, using all of the characteristics that Grant embodies so well.

“What scares us the most is somebody that approaches something with so much certainty that they’re unwavering,” says Beck. “The great thing about discourse and debates is that you’re actively listening. Something about the movie that we’re excited about is that we can throw in all of these questions and conversation pieces, and Reed can feel like that guy on Reddit.”

Heretic is in theaters on November 8th.

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Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge

People across the country received racist text messages in the days after Donald Trump was elected to a second term for president, and now federal authorities are investigating.
“In multiple states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, Black women, men, and students have reported receiving racist text messages from an unknown source, urging them to report to a plantation to pick cotton,” the NAACP said in a press release. Messages said variations of, “You have been selected to be a house slave,” or “You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation,” according to screenshots and news reports. They also often instruct recipients on where to go or when to be ready “With all of your belongings.”
CBS News reports that messages were sent from area codes in at least 25 states, but several were disconnected by Thursday. CBS found active accounts were linked to TextNow, which lets users create free phone numbers. TextNow told CBS it “learned that one or more of our accounts may have been used to send text messages in violation of our terms of service,” and shut them down.
Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel called the messages “unacceptable” in a statement and says the agency’s enforcement bureau was already investigating. “We take this type of targeting very seriously,” she says. The Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier said it was “in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter” and encouraged the public to report threats of violence to local law enforcement.

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge

People across the country received racist text messages in the days after Donald Trump was elected to a second term for president, and now federal authorities are investigating.

“In multiple states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, Black women, men, and students have reported receiving racist text messages from an unknown source, urging them to report to a plantation to pick cotton,” the NAACP said in a press release. Messages said variations of, “You have been selected to be a house slave,” or “You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation,” according to screenshots and news reports. They also often instruct recipients on where to go or when to be ready “With all of your belongings.”

CBS News reports that messages were sent from area codes in at least 25 states, but several were disconnected by Thursday. CBS found active accounts were linked to TextNow, which lets users create free phone numbers. TextNow told CBS it “learned that one or more of our accounts may have been used to send text messages in violation of our terms of service,” and shut them down.

Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel called the messages “unacceptable” in a statement and says the agency’s enforcement bureau was already investigating. “We take this type of targeting very seriously,” she says. The Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier said it was “in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter” and encouraged the public to report threats of violence to local law enforcement.

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Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

It’s “virtually certain” that 2024 will go down in the books as the hottest year yet. The planet is on track to pass a worrying threshold when it comes to global average temperatures, warns the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
After a scorching summer, and with countries making slow progress on climate change, it’s not too surprising that 2024 is going to be off the charts. Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are pushing temperatures higher, forcing communities around the world to adapt to harsh new realities.
“Humanity’s torching the planet and paying the price.”
“Humanity’s torching the planet and paying the price,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in remarks yesterday.
Both Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization released analyses yesterday saying 2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record — passing 2023, which was the record-holder until this year. The average temperature anomaly for the remainder of the year would have to fall close to zero for 2024 not to break the record.
It’s been a year of anomalies. More than 1,300 people died as temperatures soared in Saudi Arabia during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in June. At the time, the Northern Hemisphere was in the middle of its hottest summer on record, beating 2023. While that’s based on a Copernicus analysis of data stretching back to 1940, separate research using markers in ancient tree rings found that the summer of 2023 in the Northern hemisphere was probably the hottest in at least 2,000 years. (Unfortunately, there’s less of this data available in more arid and tropical regions in the Southern Hemisphere.)

Image: Copernicus Climate Change Service
A graph of monthly global surface air temperature anomalies.

This is likely also the first year that global average temperatures have risen more than 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than they were before the industrial revolution. That might not sound like much, but it exceeds the most ambitious target set in the Paris climate accord — an international treaty to keep warming from surpassing 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius over the long term. Our planet’s climate remained relatively stable for the last 11,000 years or so, supporting the rise of agriculture and civilization as we know it, until the industrial revolution. The Paris agreement aims to keep global temperatures within roughly the same temperature range. But without a transition to cleaner energy to get rid greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, global temperatures will continue to rise.
Countries face a deadline to submit updated national climate plans under the Paris agreement next year, and will send delegates to meet in Baku, Azerbaijan next week for the annual United Nations climate summit. The results of the US election this week will make it harder to make progress, however. The US is the world’s biggest historical emitter of planet-heating carbon dioxide, and president-elect Donald Trump has said he’d take the US out of the Paris accord.

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

It’s “virtually certain” that 2024 will go down in the books as the hottest year yet. The planet is on track to pass a worrying threshold when it comes to global average temperatures, warns the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

After a scorching summer, and with countries making slow progress on climate change, it’s not too surprising that 2024 is going to be off the charts. Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are pushing temperatures higher, forcing communities around the world to adapt to harsh new realities.

“Humanity’s torching the planet and paying the price,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in remarks yesterday.

Both Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization released analyses yesterday saying 2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record — passing 2023, which was the record-holder until this year. The average temperature anomaly for the remainder of the year would have to fall close to zero for 2024 not to break the record.

It’s been a year of anomalies. More than 1,300 people died as temperatures soared in Saudi Arabia during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in June. At the time, the Northern Hemisphere was in the middle of its hottest summer on record, beating 2023. While that’s based on a Copernicus analysis of data stretching back to 1940, separate research using markers in ancient tree rings found that the summer of 2023 in the Northern hemisphere was probably the hottest in at least 2,000 years. (Unfortunately, there’s less of this data available in more arid and tropical regions in the Southern Hemisphere.)

Image: Copernicus Climate Change Service
A graph of monthly global surface air temperature anomalies.

This is likely also the first year that global average temperatures have risen more than 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than they were before the industrial revolution. That might not sound like much, but it exceeds the most ambitious target set in the Paris climate accord — an international treaty to keep warming from surpassing 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius over the long term. Our planet’s climate remained relatively stable for the last 11,000 years or so, supporting the rise of agriculture and civilization as we know it, until the industrial revolution. The Paris agreement aims to keep global temperatures within roughly the same temperature range. But without a transition to cleaner energy to get rid greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, global temperatures will continue to rise.

Countries face a deadline to submit updated national climate plans under the Paris agreement next year, and will send delegates to meet in Baku, Azerbaijan next week for the annual United Nations climate summit. The results of the US election this week will make it harder to make progress, however. The US is the world’s biggest historical emitter of planet-heating carbon dioxide, and president-elect Donald Trump has said he’d take the US out of the Paris accord.

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Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

We’re flush with great options for noise-canceling headphones that sound good, but if you care most about sound quality (without spending pricey audiophile money) a great choice is the Bowers and Wilkins PX7 S2e — which are on sale for $279 ($120 off) in all five color options at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Bowers and Wilkins.
The PX7 S2e may not have the most charming sounding name, but they do have a clean design and warm, detailed sound that even competes with the much pricier AirPods Max. In addition to sounding excellent and offering niceties like a transparency mode, they favor proper physical buttons and a proper on / off switch over the touch controls found on some other headphones like Sony’s WH-1000XM5. Their 30 hours of battery life is nothing exemplary but more than adequate, and while they lack a 3.5mm jack you can still listen wired for even higher quality audio via USB-C.

More deals? Sure, why not more deals?

Best Buy just launched an early Black Friday sale that include some “doorbuster” deals running only through the weekend. One of such deals is the LG UltraGear 45-inch curved OLED QHD gaming monitor for $999.99 ($700 off). The model 45GS96QB-B monitor may not be 4K, but its 3440 x 1400 resolution is still quite high and in addition to deep, contrasty blacks rendered by its OLED panel it can reach a super-speedy 240Hz refresh rate.
The iRobot Roomba j9 Plus is on sale for $574 ($325 off) at Wellbots when you use promo code VERGEBF325 at checkout through November 16th. The j9 is a former flagship model from a few years back that’s still formidable thanks to its great suction, obstacle avoidance / home mapping software with keep-out zones, and included auto-emptying station.
The Beats Solo Buds in atomic purple are down to just $49.99 ($30 off) at Target. These super affordable earbuds lack noise cancellation, but at their low price they still include multiple silicone ear tips to ensure good passive noise isolation. Plus, have you seen how compact and adorable its little charging case is?

Elgato’s Stream Deck Neo is selling for $84.99 ($15 off) at Target and Best Buy. The more cost-effective Stream Deck comes in a clean white look and features eight programmable LCD keys for supporting your livestreams or everyday productivity. You can myriad more functions into it, though, as the touch buttons besides its display showing the time and date can page through more functions.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

We’re flush with great options for noise-canceling headphones that sound good, but if you care most about sound quality (without spending pricey audiophile money) a great choice is the Bowers and Wilkins PX7 S2e — which are on sale for $279 ($120 off) in all five color options at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Bowers and Wilkins.

The PX7 S2e may not have the most charming sounding name, but they do have a clean design and warm, detailed sound that even competes with the much pricier AirPods Max. In addition to sounding excellent and offering niceties like a transparency mode, they favor proper physical buttons and a proper on / off switch over the touch controls found on some other headphones like Sony’s WH-1000XM5. Their 30 hours of battery life is nothing exemplary but more than adequate, and while they lack a 3.5mm jack you can still listen wired for even higher quality audio via USB-C.

More deals? Sure, why not more deals?

Best Buy just launched an early Black Friday sale that include some “doorbuster” deals running only through the weekend. One of such deals is the LG UltraGear 45-inch curved OLED QHD gaming monitor for $999.99 ($700 off). The model 45GS96QB-B monitor may not be 4K, but its 3440 x 1400 resolution is still quite high and in addition to deep, contrasty blacks rendered by its OLED panel it can reach a super-speedy 240Hz refresh rate.
The iRobot Roomba j9 Plus is on sale for $574 ($325 off) at Wellbots when you use promo code VERGEBF325 at checkout through November 16th. The j9 is a former flagship model from a few years back that’s still formidable thanks to its great suction, obstacle avoidance / home mapping software with keep-out zones, and included auto-emptying station.
The Beats Solo Buds in atomic purple are down to just $49.99 ($30 off) at Target. These super affordable earbuds lack noise cancellation, but at their low price they still include multiple silicone ear tips to ensure good passive noise isolation. Plus, have you seen how compact and adorable its little charging case is?

Elgato’s Stream Deck Neo is selling for $84.99 ($15 off) at Target and Best Buy. The more cost-effective Stream Deck comes in a clean white look and features eight programmable LCD keys for supporting your livestreams or everyday productivity. You can myriad more functions into it, though, as the touch buttons besides its display showing the time and date can page through more functions.

Read More 

That Mac Mini SSD is removable! | Image: X user @L0vetodream

Apple’s redesigned Mac Mini M4 has ditched the previous M2 machine’s SSD that was soldered to the logic board, as confirmed by teardowns like this one posted on X showing it has a single removable SSD module. It’s not Apple’s first desktop computer to go in this direction, as we saw similar modules in the Mac Studio and Mac Pro.

Mac mini M4拆解 对比老款的机器 体积大大的减小 集成度提高很多 大家都在聊 这个机器的硬盘是可拆卸式的 我看了下 确实是 1插槽双盘位 最大颗粒1TB 用的是BGA315硬盘 最大升级容量可以到2T pic.twitter.com/vyhq3ZfGtL— 有没有搞措 (@L0vetodream) November 8, 2024

However, as noted by MacRumors, it’s probably similar to their storage with only the NAND chips on board and the controller is still embedded in the SoC, tightly restricting any possible DIY upgrade or repair options.
In a second video clip, also sourced from Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, the person replaces the NAND chips on the board with larger ones that take it up to 2TB. According to the person who reposted them, they were able to get it working, similar to what we’ve seen from Mac hackers like Dosdude upgrading the storage on the Mac Studio. It also shows how the Mac Mini’s WiFi chip and antenna are mounted directly on the back of its air intake on the bottom of the machine.
The other thing we’ve learned is that the base Mac Mini’s module has two 128GB NAND chips instead of a single 256GB one, which means we don’t expect to see a performance bottleneck compared to the previously released base model M-Series Macs. Apple returned to two 128GB chips on the M3 MacBook Air released last April.

That Mac Mini SSD is removable! | Image: X user @L0vetodream

Apple’s redesigned Mac Mini M4 has ditched the previous M2 machine’s SSD that was soldered to the logic board, as confirmed by teardowns like this one posted on X showing it has a single removable SSD module. It’s not Apple’s first desktop computer to go in this direction, as we saw similar modules in the Mac Studio and Mac Pro.

However, as noted by MacRumors, it’s probably similar to their storage with only the NAND chips on board and the controller is still embedded in the SoC, tightly restricting any possible DIY upgrade or repair options.

In a second video clip, also sourced from Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, the person replaces the NAND chips on the board with larger ones that take it up to 2TB. According to the person who reposted them, they were able to get it working, similar to what we’ve seen from Mac hackers like Dosdude upgrading the storage on the Mac Studio. It also shows how the Mac Mini’s WiFi chip and antenna are mounted directly on the back of its air intake on the bottom of the machine.

The other thing we’ve learned is that the base Mac Mini’s module has two 128GB NAND chips instead of a single 256GB one, which means we don’t expect to see a performance bottleneck compared to the previously released base model M-Series Macs. Apple returned to two 128GB chips on the M3 MacBook Air released last April.

Read More 

Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

Donald Trump’s second term means significant changes for AI, crypto, and EV policy. When Donald Trump is inaugurated as president for the second time in January 2025, he will assume power over the regulation of a tech industry that’s changed significantly since his first term began in 2017. The tech industry’s honeymoon period with the US government has fizzled, and both Trump and his successor, President Joe Biden, took a skeptical stance toward tech CEOs, albeit for different reasons. Their antitrust enforcers initiated some of the first major anti-tech monopoly actions in decades.
Now, the tech industry has wised up. Most CEOs have looked back at the last eight years of techlash and seemed to conclude that they should be as visibly apolitical as possible — though they’re happy to lobby behind the scenes. At the same time, some have gambled that being in Trump’s good graces would be beneficial — and that risk seems to have paid off. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who Trump has literally threatened to send to prison, praised the president-elect’s fist pump after the attempted assassination and has made nice with Republicans about Meta’s content moderation choices. Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos killed an endorsement of Kamala Harris in the paper. And, of course, Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk has made himself one of Trump’s chief allies, securing a promise that he could run a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).
Trump, meanwhile, will have more power than ever — he’s rooted out former supporters who encouraged restraint during his first term, and key allies have sprawling plans for overhauling the administrative state.
All this to say, the next four years of tech policy will be unpredictable and erratic. But even as Trump tries to expand his authority, he’ll need support from the courts and Congress. These are the policies we’ll be tracking as Trump reassumes the presidency and what he could realistically do.

AI
A Trump presidency likely means a less constrained AI industry. Trump has promised to repeal the Biden administration’s AI executive order, which instructed agencies to create testing standards and guardrails to prevent AI from being used in discriminatory ways, like in allocating housing or determining legal outcomes in the criminal justice system. Trump previously signed his own executive order covering AI safety and standards, but it did not touch on discrimination. The second Trump administration will likely deprioritize AI discrimination safeguards and discourage the use of the Defense Production Act to require more transparency, something conservatives have characterized as government overreach.
AI policy is an area where Elon Musk will likely seek to exert his influence, assuming he and Trump remain on good terms. Musk runs xAI and has been critical of incumbent players like OpenAI — a firm he cofounded but later distanced himself from and sued. Musk has supported AI safety measures like California’s controversial and ultimately vetoed SB 1047, and he previously signed a call for a moratorium on major AI developments for safety reasons. But his focus on existential risks has been criticized by some AI researchers as a distraction from more immediate risks like discrimination.
AI policy is an area where Musk will likely seek to exert his influence
It’s also not yet clear how Trump will handle thorny copyright issues surrounding generative AI, including what information large language models are allowed to train on. AI executives, including Musk, could seek to shape how Trump views the issue in a way that’s favorable to them.
Antitrust
Trump’s approach to antitrust enforcement could be based mainly on personal grievances. Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analyst Jennifer Rie writes that “enforcement could be idiosyncratic based on president-elect Donald Trump’s view of the companies or industries involved.” Adam Kovacevich, CEO of the left-of-center tech industry group Chamber of Progress, bluntly said we’ll see a “‘Trump Welfare Standard’: is this company nice to Trump?”
Though Trump’s VP pick, JD Vance, has publicly praised Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, it’s not clear how committed Vance is to this stance or how much sway he will have. If he does get a say here, we could expect a continued crackdown on big tech firms to benefit “little tech” or startups that VCs like Andreessen Horowitz (another Trump supporter) want to see rocket with growth.
“Republicans no longer uniformly lean more business-friendly than Democrats.”
While business leaders may be relieved if Khan leaves the FTC, Rie says we shouldn’t expect “a return to the relaxed antitrust climate of 10 years ago … some aspects of the current aggressive approach will stick. Republicans no longer uniformly lean more business-friendly than Democrats.” Still, while she says it largely depends on Trump’s appointments, merger approvals could become swifter and recently revised merger guidelines could be unraveled.
Trump’s administration will likely continue the existing legal fights against Meta, Google, Apple, and Amazon (including two cases filed during Trump’s first term). But it could pursue more modest remedies, depending on who he appoints — and how Trump feels about a company like Google on any given day. “A slight increase in settlement prospects is possible down the road, especially if the cases don’t seem to be going well for the agencies,” Rie writes. “Trump doesn’t believe Google should be broken up, though we didn’t expect this to happen anyway.” Kovacevich also says Trump could use the cases “as leverage over the companies to get favorable treatment on speech and content concerns.”
TikTok
Perhaps Trump’s greatest flip-flop issue has been his stance on TikTok. Trump championed the original TikTok ban effort, which was shot down by the courts. But he’s more recently said he opposes a ban because it would just benefit Meta. Trump’s turnaround reportedly came after he met with Republican donor Jeff Yass, who has a major stake in ByteDance.
Under the Biden administration, Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill that could ban the social video app unless ByteDance divests it by mid-January, and Biden signed it into law. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is currently deliberating about whether that law can be upheld and will likely release a decision by the end of the year. But TikTok’s chances of dodging a ban only “slightly” improve under a Trump presidency, according to Bloomberg Intelligence litigation analyst Matt Schettenhelm.
The law doesn’t give Trump “much room” to play with
If the DC Circuit decides to uphold the law and the Supreme Court declines to take it up or upholds that ruling, what Trump can do is somewhat limited. He could grant an extension of up to 90 days for ByteDance to complete its divestiture of TikTok, but under the law, he would need to certify to Congress that there’s an actual plan underway. The law does leave the president some discretion to determine whether more apps besides TikTok fall under the divestiture law’s purview and what represents an adequate separation. But TikTok is written into the statute, so Trump can’t just decide it no longer applies.
The law doesn’t give Trump “much room” to play with, Schettenhelm tells The Verge in an email, though he could exercise some judgment in approving TikTok’s divestiture proposal. Even if Trump took the “unusual” step of announcing his Justice Department wouldn’t enforce the law, Schettenhelm writes in a note to clients, “companies that carry the app would be undertaking enormous risk that Trump wouldn’t change his mind and seek crippling penalties. We doubt they’d do so.”
If the court strikes down the law — perhaps because it finds it violates the First Amendment or because Congress didn’t develop a strong enough record in the relatively quick lead-up to its passage — then the legislature would need to do the process over. While the bill had very strong bipartisan support the first time around, now that Trump has said he opposes a TikTok ban, it seems less likely Congress would spend valuable time on a bill that the president may not sign.
Tariffs and China
Trump famously started a trade war with China in his first term in office, and if his campaign rhetoric is to be believed, we’ll see a continuation of such economic policies this time. While Biden has implemented some protectionist economic policies, including export controls on advanced semiconductors, Trump has floated tariffs on goods imported from China at a rate of 60 to 100 percent.
That could have big implications for the many tech companies that use components made in China and for any companies that rely on China for a significant part of their business strategy (like Apple and Tesla). But because of that connection, this is another area where Elon Musk’s influence could be a wild card.
Alongside his promises of mass deportations, Trump’s China tariffs could dramatically change day-to-day life in America, as severe price hikes for imported goods would throw countless people’s lives and livelihoods into chaos. How far the administration will go is an open question, and one that makes predicting the future with any certainty — inside and outside the tech industry — difficult to do.
Net neutrality and telecom policy
Net neutrality — which already faces an uphill battle in the courts after SCOTUS rolled back Chevron deference — is likely dead under a Trump administration. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Nathan Dean predicts a 90 percent chance Trump’s Federal Communications Commission abandons the effort to reclassify broadband providers as common carriers and subject them to greater regulatory scrutiny.
A Republican-led FCC will also likely allow more concentrated control of TV stations, Dean writes, and loosen broadcast merger and acquisition rules. Republican FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, who served during the first Trump administration, has called for big tech companies to pay into the Universal Service Fund — currently funded by telecommunications providers — and suggested punishing TV networks under broadcasting rules.
Musk could seek to limit programs that help Starlink’s competitors
It’s not totally clear yet how Trump’s FCC will handle other key broadband policy issues, including the rollout of the government’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) infrastructure investment program. But once again, Elon Musk’s influence could become important here. Musk runs the satellite internet company Starlink, which has been passed over for some government contracts, but could lobby for more favorable policies under Trump. For example, the BEAD program currently favors fiber broadband, and Musk has critiqued the program as an “outrageous waste of taxpayer money.”
In his government efficiency role or in a more informal way, Musk could seek to limit programs that help Starlink’s competitors, like the Universal Service Fund, according to CNET. That program helps service rural communities with broadband — places where Starlink is well positioned to move in.
Content moderation
Conservatives including Trump have long complained about social media platforms suppressing conservative speech and accused them of bowing to Democratic government pressure to remove things like election or vaccine misinformation. Even before his reelection, platforms like Meta had heeded Republican pushback and loosened their moderation standards.
A Trump administration and Republican legislature could rework the Section 230 liability shield to let them actually punish companies for moderation decisions. In addition to the option of passing actual laws changing Section 230, Brendan Carr suggested in his Project 2025 chapter that the FCC could narrow its protections for a broad range of content moderation decisions. Ultimately, any executive or legislative changes to online speech rules could face the Supreme Court, which has so far upheld the right to conduct content moderation, although it signaled openness to potential legal changes in the future.
Kids online safety
Trump hasn’t said much about where he stands on this topic or on the leading congressional bill on the subject, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). That bill remains stalled in the House after passing through the Senate (in combination with an update to children’s data privacy law), and it’s not yet clear what could happen in future congressional sessions. Current Republican House leadership has expressed concerns that KOSA could unduly limit speech, so a Democratic House might be more open to giving it floor time, but ultimately, the concerns with the bill don’t fall entirely down partisan lines.
Adam Kovacevich, whose group has opposed KOSA, suggests Democrats should be wary of passing the bill under a Trump presidency — pointing to lead cosponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) comments about protecting kids from transgender content online. “Democrats will have to decide whether they want to hand Trump & MAGA state law enforcers a powerful new censorship tool,” he writes.
Electric vehicles
Electric vehicle tax credits and other climate-focused policies will likely be in jeopardy under Trump, though that might be somewhat complicated by his connection with Musk, with Tesla standing to gain from EV-friendly policies. Still, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives previously said that Tesla’s “scale and scope … could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment.”
Tesla’s “scale and scope … could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment”
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Nathan Dean sees just a 30 percent chance of continued EV tax credits under Trump. He predicts continued rhetoric that EVs are “a boon to China’s economy,” alongside efforts to replace the tax credits with consumer incentives that could benefit traditional carmakers like General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis.
Semiconductor policy
Under the Biden administration, Congress passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which injected funds into creating a domestic semiconductor production industry — something experts say is a national security necessity and critical to maintaining control over the supply chain for important technologies including medical tech. But Trump called the bill “so bad” during his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and soon after, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he was open to repealing the law (though he later walked back those comments). Trump can’t undo a law on his own, but he could perhaps instruct his Commerce Department to slow-walk aspects of its rollout.
Crypto
Trump has made significant overtures to the cryptocurrency industry, headlining a major Bitcoin conference this summer and picking up significant support from prominent crypto investors like Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. With Trump’s election, the industry is likely to get its top wish: the ouster of Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, whom the industry views as its chief antagonist. Expect more permissive and hands-off regulation of this industry, as Trump has called for making the US a “Bitcoin superpower.”

Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

Donald Trump’s second term means significant changes for AI, crypto, and EV policy.

When Donald Trump is inaugurated as president for the second time in January 2025, he will assume power over the regulation of a tech industry that’s changed significantly since his first term began in 2017. The tech industry’s honeymoon period with the US government has fizzled, and both Trump and his successor, President Joe Biden, took a skeptical stance toward tech CEOs, albeit for different reasons. Their antitrust enforcers initiated some of the first major anti-tech monopoly actions in decades.

Now, the tech industry has wised up. Most CEOs have looked back at the last eight years of techlash and seemed to conclude that they should be as visibly apolitical as possible — though they’re happy to lobby behind the scenes. At the same time, some have gambled that being in Trump’s good graces would be beneficial — and that risk seems to have paid off. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who Trump has literally threatened to send to prison, praised the president-elect’s fist pump after the attempted assassination and has made nice with Republicans about Meta’s content moderation choices. Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos killed an endorsement of Kamala Harris in the paper. And, of course, Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk has made himself one of Trump’s chief allies, securing a promise that he could run a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).

Trump, meanwhile, will have more power than ever — he’s rooted out former supporters who encouraged restraint during his first term, and key allies have sprawling plans for overhauling the administrative state.

All this to say, the next four years of tech policy will be unpredictable and erratic. But even as Trump tries to expand his authority, he’ll need support from the courts and Congress. These are the policies we’ll be tracking as Trump reassumes the presidency and what he could realistically do.

AI

A Trump presidency likely means a less constrained AI industry. Trump has promised to repeal the Biden administration’s AI executive order, which instructed agencies to create testing standards and guardrails to prevent AI from being used in discriminatory ways, like in allocating housing or determining legal outcomes in the criminal justice system. Trump previously signed his own executive order covering AI safety and standards, but it did not touch on discrimination. The second Trump administration will likely deprioritize AI discrimination safeguards and discourage the use of the Defense Production Act to require more transparency, something conservatives have characterized as government overreach.

AI policy is an area where Elon Musk will likely seek to exert his influence, assuming he and Trump remain on good terms. Musk runs xAI and has been critical of incumbent players like OpenAI — a firm he cofounded but later distanced himself from and sued. Musk has supported AI safety measures like California’s controversial and ultimately vetoed SB 1047, and he previously signed a call for a moratorium on major AI developments for safety reasons. But his focus on existential risks has been criticized by some AI researchers as a distraction from more immediate risks like discrimination.

It’s also not yet clear how Trump will handle thorny copyright issues surrounding generative AI, including what information large language models are allowed to train on. AI executives, including Musk, could seek to shape how Trump views the issue in a way that’s favorable to them.

Antitrust

Trump’s approach to antitrust enforcement could be based mainly on personal grievances. Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analyst Jennifer Rie writes that “enforcement could be idiosyncratic based on president-elect Donald Trump’s view of the companies or industries involved.” Adam Kovacevich, CEO of the left-of-center tech industry group Chamber of Progress, bluntly said we’ll see a “‘Trump Welfare Standard’: is this company nice to Trump?”

Though Trump’s VP pick, JD Vance, has publicly praised Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, it’s not clear how committed Vance is to this stance or how much sway he will have. If he does get a say here, we could expect a continued crackdown on big tech firms to benefit “little tech” or startups that VCs like Andreessen Horowitz (another Trump supporter) want to see rocket with growth.

While business leaders may be relieved if Khan leaves the FTC, Rie says we shouldn’t expect “a return to the relaxed antitrust climate of 10 years ago … some aspects of the current aggressive approach will stick. Republicans no longer uniformly lean more business-friendly than Democrats.” Still, while she says it largely depends on Trump’s appointments, merger approvals could become swifter and recently revised merger guidelines could be unraveled.

Trump’s administration will likely continue the existing legal fights against Meta, Google, Apple, and Amazon (including two cases filed during Trump’s first term). But it could pursue more modest remedies, depending on who he appoints — and how Trump feels about a company like Google on any given day. “A slight increase in settlement prospects is possible down the road, especially if the cases don’t seem to be going well for the agencies,” Rie writes. “Trump doesn’t believe Google should be broken up, though we didn’t expect this to happen anyway.” Kovacevich also says Trump could use the cases “as leverage over the companies to get favorable treatment on speech and content concerns.”

TikTok

Perhaps Trump’s greatest flip-flop issue has been his stance on TikTok. Trump championed the original TikTok ban effort, which was shot down by the courts. But he’s more recently said he opposes a ban because it would just benefit Meta. Trump’s turnaround reportedly came after he met with Republican donor Jeff Yass, who has a major stake in ByteDance.

Under the Biden administration, Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill that could ban the social video app unless ByteDance divests it by mid-January, and Biden signed it into law. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is currently deliberating about whether that law can be upheld and will likely release a decision by the end of the year. But TikTok’s chances of dodging a ban only “slightly” improve under a Trump presidency, according to Bloomberg Intelligence litigation analyst Matt Schettenhelm.

If the DC Circuit decides to uphold the law and the Supreme Court declines to take it up or upholds that ruling, what Trump can do is somewhat limited. He could grant an extension of up to 90 days for ByteDance to complete its divestiture of TikTok, but under the law, he would need to certify to Congress that there’s an actual plan underway. The law does leave the president some discretion to determine whether more apps besides TikTok fall under the divestiture law’s purview and what represents an adequate separation. But TikTok is written into the statute, so Trump can’t just decide it no longer applies.

The law doesn’t give Trump “much room” to play with, Schettenhelm tells The Verge in an email, though he could exercise some judgment in approving TikTok’s divestiture proposal. Even if Trump took the “unusual” step of announcing his Justice Department wouldn’t enforce the law, Schettenhelm writes in a note to clients, “companies that carry the app would be undertaking enormous risk that Trump wouldn’t change his mind and seek crippling penalties. We doubt they’d do so.”

If the court strikes down the law — perhaps because it finds it violates the First Amendment or because Congress didn’t develop a strong enough record in the relatively quick lead-up to its passage — then the legislature would need to do the process over. While the bill had very strong bipartisan support the first time around, now that Trump has said he opposes a TikTok ban, it seems less likely Congress would spend valuable time on a bill that the president may not sign.

Tariffs and China

Trump famously started a trade war with China in his first term in office, and if his campaign rhetoric is to be believed, we’ll see a continuation of such economic policies this time. While Biden has implemented some protectionist economic policies, including export controls on advanced semiconductors, Trump has floated tariffs on goods imported from China at a rate of 60 to 100 percent.

That could have big implications for the many tech companies that use components made in China and for any companies that rely on China for a significant part of their business strategy (like Apple and Tesla). But because of that connection, this is another area where Elon Musk’s influence could be a wild card.

Alongside his promises of mass deportations, Trump’s China tariffs could dramatically change day-to-day life in America, as severe price hikes for imported goods would throw countless people’s lives and livelihoods into chaos. How far the administration will go is an open question, and one that makes predicting the future with any certainty — inside and outside the tech industry — difficult to do.

Net neutrality and telecom policy

Net neutrality — which already faces an uphill battle in the courts after SCOTUS rolled back Chevron deference — is likely dead under a Trump administration. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Nathan Dean predicts a 90 percent chance Trump’s Federal Communications Commission abandons the effort to reclassify broadband providers as common carriers and subject them to greater regulatory scrutiny.

A Republican-led FCC will also likely allow more concentrated control of TV stations, Dean writes, and loosen broadcast merger and acquisition rules. Republican FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, who served during the first Trump administration, has called for big tech companies to pay into the Universal Service Fund — currently funded by telecommunications providers — and suggested punishing TV networks under broadcasting rules.

It’s not totally clear yet how Trump’s FCC will handle other key broadband policy issues, including the rollout of the government’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) infrastructure investment program. But once again, Elon Musk’s influence could become important here. Musk runs the satellite internet company Starlink, which has been passed over for some government contracts, but could lobby for more favorable policies under Trump. For example, the BEAD program currently favors fiber broadband, and Musk has critiqued the program as an “outrageous waste of taxpayer money.”

In his government efficiency role or in a more informal way, Musk could seek to limit programs that help Starlink’s competitors, like the Universal Service Fund, according to CNET. That program helps service rural communities with broadband — places where Starlink is well positioned to move in.

Content moderation

Conservatives including Trump have long complained about social media platforms suppressing conservative speech and accused them of bowing to Democratic government pressure to remove things like election or vaccine misinformation. Even before his reelection, platforms like Meta had heeded Republican pushback and loosened their moderation standards.

A Trump administration and Republican legislature could rework the Section 230 liability shield to let them actually punish companies for moderation decisions. In addition to the option of passing actual laws changing Section 230, Brendan Carr suggested in his Project 2025 chapter that the FCC could narrow its protections for a broad range of content moderation decisions. Ultimately, any executive or legislative changes to online speech rules could face the Supreme Court, which has so far upheld the right to conduct content moderation, although it signaled openness to potential legal changes in the future.

Kids online safety

Trump hasn’t said much about where he stands on this topic or on the leading congressional bill on the subject, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). That bill remains stalled in the House after passing through the Senate (in combination with an update to children’s data privacy law), and it’s not yet clear what could happen in future congressional sessions. Current Republican House leadership has expressed concerns that KOSA could unduly limit speech, so a Democratic House might be more open to giving it floor time, but ultimately, the concerns with the bill don’t fall entirely down partisan lines.

Adam Kovacevich, whose group has opposed KOSA, suggests Democrats should be wary of passing the bill under a Trump presidency — pointing to lead cosponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) comments about protecting kids from transgender content online. “Democrats will have to decide whether they want to hand Trump & MAGA state law enforcers a powerful new censorship tool,” he writes.

Electric vehicles

Electric vehicle tax credits and other climate-focused policies will likely be in jeopardy under Trump, though that might be somewhat complicated by his connection with Musk, with Tesla standing to gain from EV-friendly policies. Still, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives previously said that Tesla’s “scale and scope … could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment.”

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Nathan Dean sees just a 30 percent chance of continued EV tax credits under Trump. He predicts continued rhetoric that EVs are “a boon to China’s economy,” alongside efforts to replace the tax credits with consumer incentives that could benefit traditional carmakers like General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis.

Semiconductor policy

Under the Biden administration, Congress passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which injected funds into creating a domestic semiconductor production industry — something experts say is a national security necessity and critical to maintaining control over the supply chain for important technologies including medical tech. But Trump called the bill “so bad” during his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and soon after, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he was open to repealing the law (though he later walked back those comments). Trump can’t undo a law on his own, but he could perhaps instruct his Commerce Department to slow-walk aspects of its rollout.

Crypto

Trump has made significant overtures to the cryptocurrency industry, headlining a major Bitcoin conference this summer and picking up significant support from prominent crypto investors like Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. With Trump’s election, the industry is likely to get its top wish: the ouster of Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, whom the industry views as its chief antagonist. Expect more permissive and hands-off regulation of this industry, as Trump has called for making the US a “Bitcoin superpower.”

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