Welcome to Wednesday! Here's the latest on Fox, Politico, Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok, The Marshall Project, Alex Cooper, and more...
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Another 'fork in the road' |
Can the U.S. government be downsized just like Twitter? An experiment is underway to find out. The subject line of the email offering buyouts to federal employees was "Fork in the Road," "the same subject line of an ultimatum message Elon Musk sent to his employees at Twitter in 2022," as CNN reported yesterday.
There are lots of similarities between the two messages. (And the differences are interesting, too. The Twitter memo said employees "will need to be extremely hardcore." The Office of Personnel Management memo said employees should be "loyal" and "trustworthy.")
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"Our reporting shows that [Musk] has been deeply involved with the OMB," Jeff Zeleny said on "The Source" last night.
"The question is how much of all this is legal," Zeleny added, "and, how many people are actually going to leave the workforce because of this? Some have been fired. This is going to be as much a legal beat as a White House beat."
Musk – who will be busy reporting Tesla earnings this afternoon – posted about the "fork in the road" on X overnight. "Downsizing government is the most popular issue by far!" he said, pointing to a Reuters/Ipsos poll showing that a clear majority of Americans are opposed to many of Trump's executive actions. But Musk is right that "downsizing the federal government" polled the best by far.
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Recall what happened at Twitter... |
WIRED reporter Zoë Schiffer, who wrote a book about Musk and Twitter, puts it this way: "Elon Musk Is Running the Twitter Playbook on the Federal Government."
His decision to wield an ax – instead of a scalpel – "caused widespread chaos inside the company" back in 2022, she notes. "In some cases, Twitter employees who had quit were later called and asked to reconsider staying." This week's confusion about the impacts of Trump's spending freeze sure has shades of the Twitter shakeup. But let's hope the ending isn't the same: Whatever you think of X, its business is a shell of its former self. The company has lost 80% of its value from when Musk took over, according to Fidelity. And government is supposed to serve the American people, not advertisers...
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Leavitt's audience of one |
Before he took office for the first time, President Trump "told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals," according to a New York Times report from December 2017.
Rereading that passage now, it sure seems to apply to the present day. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt brought that type of energy to the briefing room yesterday – casting Trump as a savior who is singlehandedly solving the nation's problems. Leavitt was polished and practiced, and White House reporters speculated afterward that Trump must have been pleased with the nearly hourlong show. I wrote about the "audience of one" dynamic for CNN.com here...
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A new version of 'Skype seats' |
Hadas Gold writes: Leavitt did not make major structural changes yesterday, but she did say that a prime seat in the briefing room, previously occupied by WH press staff, would become the "new media" seat. She encouraged podcasters and other online content creators to apply for a chance to attend a briefing.
So when she said the first question would go to "new media" instead of The AP, which by tradition always gets called on first, I was fully expecting an influencer filming themselves live on TikTok would ask a question! Instead, it was Axios co-founder Mike Allen – one of DC's most plugged-in journalists. Breitbart's DC bureau chief Matthew Boyle went second.
Do you remember "Skype seats" from Trump's first term? This feels like something similar. I'm personally hoping that Leavitt lives up to her promise – and that we'll see podcasters, influencers, and the like, from all different types of political backgrounds, asking questions and getting answers...
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Top political news outlets continue to fill out their rosters for the busy months to come. Later this morning Politico will announce that Ben Jacobs is joining the staff "as we continue to transform our coverage of Congress." Jake Traylor is also joining the outlet from NBC.
Other comings and goings: Earlier this week Alex Isenstadt moved from Politico to Axios, and CNN alum Daniella Diaz jumped from Politico to NOTUS. As Diaz wrote last night, we are "fully back in the world of news where everything changes every five minutes..."
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🏈 Super Bowl ad prices top $8 million |
Next week's Super Bowl is on Fox, and this morning the network is sharing new info about the frothy ad sales environment. "AI-focused ads are up, and movie spots are down, Fox says, as 30-second ads hit an eye-watering $8 million," another new record, THR's Alex Weprin reports. I'm heading to New Orleans for the game, so hit me up if you'll be in town!
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– The Senate Finance Committee will begin Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s nomination hearing at 10am.
– Trump will hold his first bill signing ceremony, signing the Laken Riley Act into law.
– DeepSeek has set the stage for a "frenetic tech earnings season," as CNBC notes. Meta, Microsoft and Tesla will all report earnings after the closing bell.
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Coming soon: 'The Jim Acosta Show' |
"Don't give in to the lies. Don't give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth – and to hope."
With that, Jim Acosta signed off from CNN and jump-started a new indie media venture. His first posts on a Substack named "The Jim Acosta Show" suggest he's not keen to take any time off. "To President Trump and his allies," he wrote, "you may think you have silenced me. But guess again."
>> In a statement, CNN said "we want to thank him for the dedication and commitment he's brought to his reporting and wish him the very best in the future."
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>> New from Jeremy Barr: "Rachel Maddow is bringing viewers back to MSNBC — and giving them hope." (Wash Post)
>> Is the post-election ratings slump subsiding? MSNBC says it saw "a 61% ratings boost" after Trump's inauguration... (TheWrap)
>> Max Tani says there are other signs that "opponents of Trump are starting to tune back into the news en masse..." (Semafor)
>> Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly "exploring buying a property in Washington DC..." (FT)
>> Trump's immigration sweeps are not just made for TV, they're also "made for the internet." Here's my column about that... (CNN)
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'TikTok is still on shaky ground' |
That's the headline on Lauren Feiner's latest big-picture story for The Verge. She says "Trump's executive order doesn't provide much legal protection, and it's putting his supporters in a tough spot."
Meanwhile, The Information's Martin Peers asks, "Did we miss the memo that ByteDance has retained Donald Trump to sell TikTok? It's easy to get that impression, given how enthusiastic he is in talking up TikTok's salability." He notes that "despite Trump's comments, it's still unclear where ByteDance and the Chinese government sit..."
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>> While interviewing Elon Musk's AI safety advisor Dan Hendrycks yesterday, Pamela Brown asked, "Who's ahead right now in the AI Race, China or the U.S.?" Hendrycks said "I think it's basically tied, and one can assume that for the intelligence of the models, this will continue to be the case..." (X)
>> Clare Duffy's latest: "Why DeepSeek could mark a turning point for Silicon Valley on AI..." (CNN)
>> "DeepSeek's new AI chatbot and ChatGPT answer sensitive questions about China differently..." (AP)
>> "X seals payments deal with Visa in push toward Musk's 'everything app' goal..." (Reuters)
>> LinkedIn is taking down accounts that "were created for A.I. 'co-workers.'" (404 Media)
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Elon tries to dismiss lawsuits over $1 million giveaway |
Marshall Cohen reports: Elon Musk's lawyers are pushing back against lawsuits stemming from his daily $1 million giveaways to registered voters during the run-up to the 2024 election. His team already defeated an attempt by the Philadelphia district attorney to shut down the sweepstakes before the election – and they’re now using similar arguments to try to dismiss civil lawsuits in Michigan and Texas. The lawyers maintain that this was an elaborate employment offer – a way for people to "earn" $1 million for promoting Musk's super PAC, and not a way to "win" money by pure chance...
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>> Mark Stenberg reports: "In November, the WSJ offered advertisers a performance guarantee, aiming to ease concerns that audiences would pay less attention to ads during the election. Instead, the data found that audiences actually paid more attention." (Adweek)
>> Speaking of the WSJ, Emma Tucker announced another round of structural changes and editor cutbacks. (X)
>> "BBC World Service will cut a net 130 jobs, including in the UK, as it battles to save £6m in the year ahead." (Press Gazette)
>> ABC News staffers unionized with the WGA East "secured new protections governing the use of generative AI in their workplace." (THR)
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>> Spotify "paid out $10 billion to the music industry in 2024 — some $1 billion more than last year, the previous record — making its total around $60 billion since it was founded in 2006." (Variety)
>> As she departs Spotify, Alex Cooper "will debut new exclusive programming on SiriusXM, including a music channel and two live shows..." (THR)
>> "For the second time in two years," the Television Critics Association has canceled one of its tours, evincing "rather retrenchment within the industry that may bode poorly for the event's future." (TheWrap)
>> "The timing couldn’t be better. Just a week after Rupert Murdoch's shock apology and settlement with Prince Harry, ITV has unveiled a phone hacking drama series from Jack Thorne starring David Tennant as investigative journalist Nick Davies." (Deadline)
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