For the third time, President Donald Trump has extended the deadline for TikTok to spin out from its Chinese parent company or face a US ban. As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in a statement Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order on Thursday extending the deadline another 90 days, landing the new deadline in mid-September.

The Trump administration will spend the next 90 days “working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure,” Leavitt said.

The extension, first signed on January 20th, theoretically offers legal cover for TikTok’s US service providers who are subject to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act from the hundreds of billions in penalties they could face for keeping the app online and in US app stores. But that legal cover was already shaky given that Trump’s extensions are not codified into the law, which was passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan vote in Congress, and upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court.

As The Verge previously reported, ByteDance and an Oracle-led coalition had nearly hammered out a deal in April, but Trump’s tariffs abruptly blew up the tentative agreement. While trade tensions between the US and China have simmered down, there’s been no recent news about resurrecting that deal or another one. Even when a sale seemed likely, it was unclear whether China would allow ByteDance to sell the valuable algorithm that powers TikTok’s video recommendations.

Several lawmakers, including those who’ve criticized a divest-or-ban law for TikTok and ByteDance, have warned that Trump’s repeated extensions are untenable and illegal. After Trump’s last extension in April, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-VA) told The Verge the move was “against the law” and said “the whole thing is a sham if the algorithm doesn’t move from out of Beijing’s hands.”

Even before the second extension, Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), who oppose a ban of TikTok, wrote Trump that it would be “unacceptable and unworkable for your Administration to continue ignoring the requirements in the law.” They warned, “any further extensions of the TikTok deadline will require Oracle, Apple, Google, and other companies to continue risking ruinous legal liability, a difficult decision to justify in perpetuity.” 

That’s because TikTok service providers in the US can be fined for facilitating access to the app after the ban deadline, and Trump’s extensions fall outside of the mechanisms allowed for in the law. So far, however, these companies appear to be relying on assurances from the administration that they won’t be sued for keeping TikTok online, although it reportedly took a letter from the US attorney general herself to assuage Apple and Google’s concerns.

A court could evaluate whether Trump’s actions are legal, but only if somebody sues to stop the extension — and so far, nobody has. Earlier this month, though, a Google shareholder filed a lawsuit against the company for allegedly failing to share internal records about its decision to flout the law under the Justice Department’s assurances. The same shareholder had already filed suit against the DOJ for allegedly failing to share information about its decision not to enforce the law against Apple and Google.

While members of Trump’s party generally haven’t gone so far as to call his extensions illegal, a dozen House Republicans said in a statement in April that “any resolution must ensure that U.S. law is followed, and that the Chinese Communist Party does not have access to American user data or the ability to manipulate the content consumed by Americans.” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told reporters that month that Trump “ought to enforce the statute and ban TikTok. This middle way, I don’t think is viable.”

But it’s not clear what would prevent Trump from approving indefinite extensions or a deal that doesn’t meet the letter of the law. As Hawley acknowledged while speaking to reporters in April, “Congress, we don’t have an enforcement arm of our own.”

Update June 19th, 12:00 PM: Post has been updated to note Trump signed the order extending the deadline.

Senate Commerce Republicans have kept a ten year moratorium on state AI laws in their latest version of President Donald Trump's massive budget package. And a growing number of lawmakers and civil society groups warn that its broad language could put consumer protections on the chopping block.

Republicans who support the provision, which the House cleared as part of its "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," say it will help ensure AI companies aren't bogged down by a complicated patchwork of regulations. But opponents warn that should it survive a vote and a congressional rule that might prohibit it, Big Tech companies could be exempted from state legal guardrails for years to come, without any promise of federal standards to take their place.

"What this moratorium does is prevent every state in the country from having basic regulations to protect workers and to protect consumers," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), whose district includes Silicon Valley, tells The Verge in an interview. He warns that as written, the language included in the House-passed budget reconciliation package could restrict state laws that attempt to regulate social media companies, prevent algorithmic rent discrimination, …

Read the full story at The Verge.

After the departure of one Republican and one Democratic commissioner on Friday, the Federal Communications Commission is down to two members, falling below the quorum threshold for what's typically a five-person panel.

Commissioners Nathan Simington and Geoffrey Starks stepped down at the end of the week. That leaves Republican Chair Brendan Carr and Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez as the two remaining voting members. President Donald Trump has nominated Republican Senate staffer Olivia Trusty to the commission, but the chamber has yet to vote on her confirmation, which left the agency deadlocked even before these departures. The FCC is in charge of everything from broadband regulations and subsidies funds, to telecommunications mergers enforcement, to spectrum auctions. Without a three-member quorum, some of that work, and the agenda of Trump-aligned Carr, is left in limbo.

Starks and Simington both announced the date of their departures earlier this week, though Starks indicated in March that he planned to step down; neither offered specific reasons for their departure. Carr indicated he intends to keep up the pace, writing in a blog post that "the show must go on."

The …

Read the full story at The Verge.

For five weeks, the Federal Trade Commission asked a federal judge to imagine a world where Instagram and WhatsApp flourished outside Meta's control instead of being acquired by the tech giant. In the sixth and final week of trial, Meta asked Judge James Boasberg to consider that actually, these apps might be as good as they can get.

Meta rested its case Wednesday after a brief four days in court (many of its witnesses were also called by the FTC, so it already had the chance to question them in prior weeks). In those final days, Meta called on WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton and an early Instagram infrastructure executive to explain how Meta helped those apps grow in ways they'd be unlikely to otherwise - countering testimony from Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom, who claimed Meta withheld resources to help the app grow and become safer, and believed Instagram would have still been a hit on its own.

Meta argues that far from becoming competitors that checked Meta's power, Instagram and WhatsApp might have withered, remaining far less useful or accessible to consumers than they are today.

Several Meta witnesses also called out the elephant in the room: TikTok. The FTC says tha …

Read the full story at The Verge.

When Adam Mosseri took over Meta-owned Instagram as CEO in 2018, the app was experiencing what he'd later call "concerning" drops and plateaus in user engagement, thanks partly to fierce competition from a new app: TikTok. Instagram estimated in 2019 that 23 percent of the decline in time spent on Instagram in the US was due to TikTok. Bytedance's video app kept expanding through the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. "We can't explain it all, but what's clear at this point is that we need to adapt, and do so quickly," Mosseri wrote to his team in March 2020. Instagram needed to recover, he testified Thursday in a DC courtroom, because "you're either growing, or you're slowly dying."

Mosseri described the dire situation while testifying in the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust trial against Meta, where the government alleges the company illegally monopolized the market for personal social networking services, a category that it says includes Snapchat but not more entertainment-focused apps like YouTube or TikTok. Mosseri's testimony highlighted how much Instagram sees itself as in competition with TikTok, but it also showed that even as entertainment content becomes a larger port …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The long-awaited antitrust trial between Meta and the Federal Trade Commission kicked off on April 14th. Over about two months, DC District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg is hearing arguments about whether then-Facebook illegally monopolized the market for “personal social networking services” through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

The FTC first brought the case in late 2020. While it was initially thrown out by the judge, he let an amended version move forward after the government beefed up details about why it thinks Meta is a monopoly. This phase of the trial will help the judge determine if Meta is liable for breaking antitrust law. If he finds that to be true, he’ll later rule on how those harms should be remedied. The FTC is pushing for Instagram and WhatsApp should be spun off.

This is the third US trial seeking to break up Big Tech in recent years, following the Justice Department’s two separate cases against Google over its search and ad tech businesses.

Read below for all of our updates on the FTC v. Meta case.

• Court adjourns for the day.
• Cuts to Instagram’s growth staffing came ‘out of the blue,’ Systrom wrote.
• Meta supercharged Instagram’s growth, its former product chief says.
• Messenger exec was ‘not at all’ concerned about WhatsApp becoming a major competitor.
• ‘We’re all terrified.’
• People don’t come to TikTok to connect with real-life friends.
• Meta has grown despite the threat of TikTok.
• Meta throws a jab at Apple over its developer policies.
• Focusing on friends and family wasn’t a great strategy for Meta.
• Ads aren’t a huge cost for users.
• ‘Very little interest’ in Meta’s ad-free subscription in Europe.
• Users don’t really notice when Meta shows them more ads.
• Apple’s privacy changes let users block Meta from tracking them off-app.
• Would Instagram have collected less user data without Meta?
• Meta’s chief revenue officer is up next.
• Users don’t actually want a chronological feed.
• Meta saw a ‘precipitous decline’ in user sentiment after its speech policy changes.
• Media events can impact how users feel about Meta, even if the product doesn’t change.
• House Republicans drop their bid to strip the FTC’s antitrust authority.
• Cambridge Analytica had the ‘most extreme to date’ impact on how users feel about Meta.
• Keeping up with friends is important to Facebook users.
• The TikTok ban is back in court — in Meta’s antitrust trial
• Does Meta care about its users?
• Reworking ByteDance’s systems for a US-only TikTok would be costly.
• The TikTok ban makes another cameo.
• TikTok predicted Instagram would redesign its app to focus on Reels.
• Are YouTube and Instagram the top competitors for TikTok?
• TikTok and Reels are ‘indistinguishable.’
• TikTok’s friends tab is not exactly a hit.
• TikTok’s legal entanglements collide.
• Reels isn’t Instagram’s ‘core’ experience.
• TikTok doesn’t compete with Meta for ‘personal social networking.’
• TikTok’s head of operations takes the stand.
• Yahoo once paid $1 billion for an unprofitable tech startup, too.
• Tumblr’s former CTO tells the court about fandoms.
• Apple lists its messages app under social networking.
• Apple hasn’t considered putting ads in its messaging app.
• ‘Who are all these people?’
• An Apple iMessage exec is up next.
• Meta prepared for a ‘flood in traffic’ ahead of the TikTok ban.
• It’s now ‘extremely easy’ to build a social graph from scratch.
• ‘We wanted it to be one of the biggest apps in the world.’
• Facebook didn’t fear WhatsApp becoming a social competitor.
• Cambridge Analytica hit Facebook’s reputation, but its user numbers saw less impact.
• Meta was willing to sacrifice some Instagram growth to grow the whole pie.
• Facebook worried most about Google or Apple buying WhatsApp.
• Google had a ‘long shot’ chance of becoming competitive in social with WhatsApp.
• Facebook didn’t know how it would make money from WhatsApp.
• Facebook floated starting from scratch on messaging.
• WhatsApp showed ‘absolutely no signs of morphing’ into a social app.
• Facebook exec worried about losing the business to mobile messaging apps.
• ‘I was really worried that this could become the end.’
• ‘This shit is getting scary.’
• Meta COO Javier Olivan kicks off day 10 of trial.
• More cloud talk.
• An AWS exec testifies about how startups can scale with its cloud.
• Facebook execs worried Google would buy WhatsApp and make it ‘a cross-platform iMessage.’
• Pinterest once saw Instagram as an ‘existential threat.’
• Smaller apps don’t need Meta to keep users safe.
• Pinterest is a ‘lifestyle’ app.
• Pinterest’s former head of user growth is up next.
• Reddit doesn’t think it’s a social networking platform.
• Users also post workout content on Facebook and Instagram.
• You won’t find baby photos on Strava.
• A former Strava executive is testifying about its social platform.
• Twitter wasn’t really about sharing with friends and family.
• ‘I can’t believe that’s on the website.’
• Twitter chose to focus on a different use case from Facebook.
• It’s not all about competing for attention.
• Judge Boasberg is getting schooled on how X works.
• An X product executive who built Community Notes is on the stand.
• Here’s who’s closing out Meta’s second week of trial.
• Taking a brief break to tune into the Google search remedies trial.
• Facebook is distinct from other popular social media apps.
• Shutting down Facebook Camera was ‘unrelated to Instagram.’
• Facebook Camera didn’t directly compete with Instagram.
• ‘Facebook squashes competition.’
• Facebook was urgently working on an Instagram competitor months before the deal.
• A former product manager for Facebook’s defunct camera app is testifying.
• Instagram co-founder: Zuckerberg saw us as a ‘threat’ to Facebook
• Kevin Systrom is finished testifying.
• Instagram had its own trust and safety team for what Meta wouldn’t prioritize.
• Becoming part of Meta was a ‘mixed bag’ for Instagram.
• Instagram’s probability of failing without Meta’s help was ‘low.’
• Systrom says Zuckerberg got a ‘screaming deal’ by paying $1 billion for Instagram.
• Negotiating or misleading?
• ‘Sir:’ Systrom resists Meta’s spin on his testimony.
• Systrom explains the importance of network effects.
• Meta made a list of features that helped Instagram and then cut them.
• Zuckerberg had ‘real human’ emotions about Instagram’s growth.
• ‘We were a threat to their growth.’
• Meta cut growth resources to Instagram.
• Zuckerberg wouldn’t give Instagram more integrity staff after Cambridge Analytica.
• Twitter limited Instagram’s integration ‘in direct retaliation’ to Facebook.
• Apple, Google, and Twitter were interested in buying Instagram.
• Systrom pitched ads for Instagram before it was acquired.
• Instagram didn’t have Twitter’s ‘fail whale’ problem.
• Instagram could have added video and messaging without Meta’s help.
• Instagram’s growth didn’t slow until after its first year at Meta.
• It was hard to keep up with Instagram’s early growth.
• Systrom recounts Instagram’s origins as Burbn.
• Kevin Systrom takes the stand.
• Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom takes the stand tomorrow.
• Meta execs discussed whether WhatsApp could ‘wedge’ its way into social media.
• ‘It wasn’t obvious you could make a great return’ by paying as much as Meta did for Instagram.
• Sequoia believed it could have helped Instagram grow independently.
• ‘It was catching lightning in a bottle’ to invest in Instagram.
• Instagram investor testifies about the app’s growth before Meta’s acquisition.
• Putting ads on WhatsApp ‘was not even a discussion point’ before Meta bought it.
• Meta wanted WhatsApp to sign a ‘no shop’ agreement.
• Former Google exec testifies about the company’s attempt to buy WhatsApp.
• Meta is digging through the FTC expert’s personal blog.
• Meta is trying to discredit the FTC’s expert.
• WhatsApp could have threatened Facebook if Google acquired it.
• Judge asks why it’s ‘laughable’ that WhatsApp’s investors could force an ad model.
• WhatsApp likely would have expanded into social networking, even though its founders resisted it.
• Instagram and WhatsApp were ‘highly likely to be successful’ without Meta.
• Meta is starting its second week of trial against the FTC.
• The government doesn’t understand Meta
• Meta gets a Friday breather.
• Big Tech is back on trial
• Does Google think Meta is its competition?
• YouTube strugged with adding social features.
• The FTC calls Google’s Aaron Filner as its next witness.
• Meta didn’t overpay for WhatsApp, according to the app’s investor.
• WhatsApp’s founders ‘shot down’ suggestions of adding social features.
• Facebook considered ad-free subscriptions after the Cambridge Analytica scandal
• Sequoia tried to get WhatsApp to skirt Zuckerberg’s advances.
• Zuckerberg was ‘very concerned’ that Tencent wanted to buy WhatsApp.
• Plenty of companies were interested in WhatsApp before Facebook bought it.
• Sequoia is ‘dramatically better off’ when the startups it backs go public, rather than get acquired.
• WhatsApp investor Sequoia saw Facebook as the app’s ‘most significant threat.’
• Sandberg is done testifying.
• Meta considered a subscription model to address Cambridge Analytica backlash.
• TikTok’s rise lowered Meta’s revenue forecast.
• The FTC’s view of how Meta’s ads work ‘doesn’t make any sense.’
• Ads can be ‘as good as content.’
• Sandberg is back on the stand to kick off day four of trial.
• Zuckerberg tells court he made WhatsApp and Instagram better
• Sandberg says she was wrong about Meta paying too much for Instagram.
• Meta’s network effects hasn’t protected it from competition.
• Cambridge Analytica didn’t impact Meta’s engagement metrics.
• Meta was focused on Instagram’s quality, not its competitive impact.
• The rise of Google Plus was a ‘rallying the troops’ moment.
• Ex-COO Sheryl Sandberg takes the stand.
• Zuckerberg is done testifying.
• Zuckerberg defends his decision to put more ads on Instagram.
• Google, Apple, and Snap aren’t happy about Meta’s poorly-redacted slides
• Buying TikTok’s precursor would have been ‘too complicated’ because of its China ties.
• Zuckerberg’s testimony gives the court his vision of the future.
• Zuckerberg on buying WhatsApp: ‘I’d do it again.’
• WhatsApp’s founders had limited aspirations.
• Meta wasn’t too worried about WhatsApp becoming a rival.
• Zuckerberg can’t rule out that Instagram would have succeeded on its own.
• Instagram grew far larger than Zuckerberg ever imagined.
• Zuckerberg flatly denies that he bought Instagram to squash it.
• ‘Only the paranoid survive.’
• ChatGPT’s image generation gets a shoutout.
• AI is solving Meta’s ‘negative network effects’ problem.
• ‘I don’t like it when our competitors do better than us.’
• Zuckerberg: TikTok slowed Meta’s growth ‘dramatically.’
• Apple, Google, and Snap accuse Meta of being reckless with their confidential info.
• Zuckerberg’s wildest ideas in Meta’s history
• Meta reportedly offered $1 billion to settle the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit.
• We’re done with day two of Zuckerberg’s testimony.
• Your Honor, we sell ads.
• ‘What is MeWe?’
• Zuckerberg takes an opportunity to jab the EU.
• Meta doesn’t ‘optimize directly’ for time spent on its platform.
• Meta’s antitrust trial slide redactions aren’t actually hiding anything
• The FTC is done questioning Zuckerberg for now.
• The FTC is trying to pin Zuckerberg down on its market definition.
• Mark Zuckerberg once suggested wiping all Facebook friends lists to boost usage
• Zuckerberg sees LinkedIn as competition.
• Mark Zuckerberg suggested spinning off Instagram
• Zuckerberg offered to buy Snapchat for $6 billion.
• Meta discussed having a feed that only contains ads.
• Zuckerberg’s ‘crazy idea’ to reset everyone Facebook’s friends to zero.
• People like ads, actually?
• After Snapchat turned Zuckerberg down, he worried about the rise of Stories.
• Zuckerberg: Snapchat would have grown faster with us.
• Meta was worried about early messaging apps expanding into its business.
• Meta considered blocking rival messaging app ads.
• ‘A billion dollars is very expensive.’
• Settlers of Catan makes a cameo.
• Zuckerberg downplays that he wanted to buy Instagram to ‘neutralize a potential competitor.’
• We’re here for day two of the FTC v. Meta trial.
• Mark Zuckerberg takes the stand
• Here’s how the FTC began its case against Meta.
• A slow start to the trial.
• Facebook considered keeping Instagram alive to keep ‘everyone from hating us.’
• ‘I wonder if we should consider buying Instagram.’
• Facebook had interns working on its Instagram competitor.
• Zuckerberg’s testimony trudges through years of social media history.
• “Mission accomplished.”
• Mark Zuckerberg takes the stand.
• Here are the slides Meta used to lay out its defense.
• Facebook and Instagram traffic surged when TikTok went down.
• Meta slams FTC’s ‘grab bag’ case as ‘at war with the facts, and at war with the law.’
• FTC previews evidence that Meta allegedly sought to extinguish Instagram and WhatsApp as threats.
• We’re at the courthouse where Meta is facing its existential antitrust trial.
• Meta goes to trial to avoid a breakup of Instagram and WhatsApp
• FTC chair says he’d ‘obey lawful orders’ if Trump asked to drop an antitrust case like Meta’s
• Judge says the FTC’s Meta monopoly lawsuit can go forward
• Federal court dismisses FTC’s bid to unwind Instagram from Facebook
• The FTC is suing Facebook to unwind its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp

Meta’s latest whistleblower, Sarah Wynn-Williams, got a warm reception on Capitol Hill Wednesday, as the Careless People author who the company has fought to silence described the company’s chief executive as someone willing to shapeshift into whatever gets him closest to power.

The message was one that lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and counterterrorism were very open to. Their responses underscore that amid CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s latest pivot in cozying up to the right, his perception in Washington has not yet totally changed, even as he reportedly lobbies President Donald Trump to drop the government’s antitrust case against the company. 

“He’s recently tried a reinvention in which he is now a great advocate of free speech, after being an advocate of censorship in China and in this country for years,” subcommittee Chair Josh Hawley (R-MO) said, pointing to longtime conservative allegations that Meta has suppressed things like vaccine skepticism and the Hunter Biden laptop story. “Now that’s all wiped away. Now he’s on Joe Rogan and says that he is Mr. Free Speech, he is Mr. MAGA, he’s a whole new man, and his company, they’re a whole new company. Do you buy this latest reinvention of Mark Zuckerberg?”

“If he is such a fan of freedom of speech, why is he trying to silence me?” Wynn-Williams asked in response. Meta convinced an arbitrator to order her to stop making disparaging statements and halt further publishing and promotion of the book, which details Meta’s alleged dealings with the Chinese government and claims of sexual harassment from a top executive. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone has called Careless People  “defamatory,” but the book’s publisher said it would “continue to support and promote it.” 

Wynn-Williams also told Hawley that Zuckerberg “is a man who wears many different costumes. When I was there, he wanted the president of China to name his first child, he was learning Mandarin, he was censoring to his heart’s content. Now his new costume is MMA fighting or free speech. We don’t know what the next costume’s going to be, but it will be something different. It’s whatever gets him closest to power.”

At the hearing, Wynn-Williams testified that during her time at the company between 2011 and 2017, Meta and Zuckerberg were willing to “undermine American national security” in service of currying favor with the Chinese government. She accused Meta of working on “censorship tools” that the Chinese government could use to silence critics and provided the Chinese Communist Party American user data.

In a statement, Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels called Wynn-Williams’ testimony “divorced from reality and riddled with false claims. While Mark Zuckerberg himself was public about our interest in offering our services in China and details were widely reported beginning over a decade ago, the fact is this: we do not operate our services in China today.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said she found it “ironic” that China was a focus of the hearing, given that when she tried to pass a tech antitrust bill, “one of the things that kept being thrown in my face and in those of others that work on this, is that ‘you’re actually going to destroy us and then China will dominate,’” she said. “Your book actually reveals the extent to which Facebook was willing to put growth over the US national interest to gain favor with the Chinese Communist Party.”  

Lawmakers dared Zuckerberg to testify before their committee himself to clear up their issues with her statements. “Stop trying to silence her, stop trying to gag her, stop trying to hide behind your lawyers and millions of dollars in legal fees you’re trying to impose on her,” said Hawley. “Come to this committee, take the oath, sit there, let us question you, and give the American people the truth. We will be waiting for you.”

Wynn-Williams told the subcommittee her testimony “may be the last time I’m allowed to speak” given the legal restrictions. “It’s not going to be the last time you’re allowed to speak if we have anything to do with it,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. “What I would say to Mark Zuckerberg is, stop gagging Ms. Wynn-Williams, let her speak the truth, and you come here and tell us your version of the truth, if you have the guts to do it.”

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has infiltrated the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an agency that has a say over resources Musk needs or could benefit from for some of his private sector business, The Verge has learned. 

Three people who have been identified as DOGE staffers are listed in a public directory called “Finding People at the FCC.” Tarak Makecha, Jordan Wick, and Jacob Altik are all listed in the FCC directory, with email addresses associated with the agency. Each is listed under the office “OCH,” which in other agency documents refers to the Office of the Chairman.

Makecha is a finance executive who, according to LinkedIn, has most recently worked in a drone detection software company and previously worked at Tesla. Makecha has reportedly been involved through DOGE at OPM and the State Department. Wick is a former Waymo engineer who’s reportedly been given access to systems at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Altik is a lawyer who’s reportedly been involved at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 

DOGE has recently expanded into other enforcement agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, as The Verge reported earlier on Friday. The FCC’s authority over radio, TV, broadband, and satellite intersects with Musk’s businesses, like granting certain permissions for SpaceX’s Starlink operations. Its role as a regulator and enforcer also means it stores information on SpaceX and its competitors in order to make decisions. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has previously said that Musk would recuse himself from potential conflicts. The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment about what the DOGE staffers’ role will be at the agency or what restrictions there will be on their data access.