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Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about the most ambitious crossover event of all time: the infinity war between technology and politics. Not subscribed yet? Come on, do it!
Washington might seem slower than Silicon Valley. But that’s because it’s more turbulent. In order to achieve anything, one has to navigate the sheer amount of chaos that emerges when thousands of federal elected officials, staffers, political appointees, lobbyists, corporations, lawyers, journalists, and influencers are trying to push their interests, often at the same time.
For the past 20-odd issues of Regulator, I’ve written weekly about the big stories in tech’s growing influence in Washington, both as a tool used by politicians to achieve power and as an industry trying to bend the laws in its favor. But over the past year, it’s become harder to declare that there’s only one big story every week. So many new technologies are the subject of heated political debate — semiconductors, artificial intelligence, crypto, social media, surveillance, just to name a few — that to single one out every week seems like it barely scratches the surface of the action happening everywhere in town.
So this week, I’m spilling the notes and plotlines I’ve collected in the course of reporting, as well as some of the most eyebrow-raising stories I’ve come across. Shockingly, even though the District is virtually iced in, and even outside of the partial shutdown, there’s been a lot of action…
But obviously, yes, let’s talk about the shutdown first.
Protracted negotiations alert: The House has narrowly voted to avert a partial government shutdown on Tuesday afternoon, but has publicly given its demands for ICE reforms: judge-issued warrants for arrests, enforcement of agents wearing bodycams (a Verge favorite), and making ICE agents remove their masks. The Republicans are countering with a request to revoke funding for “sanctuary cities.” But of course, anything can change in an instant…
Epstein alert: After a testy back-and-forth between their lawyers and the House Oversight Committee, Bill and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify in front of Congress about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein at the end of the month, narrowly avoiding a vote to hold them in contempt. They also agreed to have their testimonies filmed and transcribed, so prepare your ctrl+F keys to search the DOJ’s Epstein Files database for names dropped.
Celebrity alert: Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt will appear with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the passage of Section 230 in a press conference on Capitol Hill.
The future of crypto gets some Clarity
On Monday, the White House held a meeting with the policy directors of several major crypto companies, trade associations, and representatives from traditional financial institutions to hammer out an agreement on the Clarity Act. The crypto market structure bill has been in limbo after Coinbase abruptly revoked its support, citing its current language on stablecoin yields. According to a readout from Cody Carbone of The Digital Chamber, a trade association representing the digital asset industry, “the political rhetoric was toned down” and the invited parties eventually agreed to aim for a compromise by the end of February.
Notably, the negotiation was between the policy directors of these institutions, and not the CEOs of those companies — which makes sense, considering reports from Davos. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong got into several confrontations with Wall Street CEOs during the World Economic Forum who were offended that he’d publicly accused traditional banks of sabotaging the bill against the crypto industry. The most Succession-y kerfuffle: JPMorganChase’s Jamie Dimon interrupting Armstrong’s coffee date with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to accuse him of being “full of shit.” (Personally, I suspect that billionaires prefer fighting in Davos over negotiating in Washington, but that’s just me.)
Who pushed this DOGE out?
Semafor reported Friday that Michael Grimes, a longtime Elon Musk associate and banker, is leaving the Trump administration. Since joining the administration in early 2025, Grimes led the Commerce Department’s venture investment arm, which gutted funding for the CHIPS Act, purchased a stake in Intel, and will eventually hold $1 trillion from East Asian trade deals to invest in other tech companies. (The venture is, incidentally, operating without congressional approval.) The division will now be run by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, as well as a group of Wall Street investors, and is currently scouting new potential investment projects.
This week in “interesting timelines”
The Wall Street Journal reports that just days before Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an extremely powerful Abu Dhabi royal known as the “spy sheikh,” signed off on a deal to purchase a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial — the crypto company owned by the Trump family — for roughly half a billion dollars, paying $187 million upfront to Trump-controlled entities. Shortly thereafter, the United Arab Emirates managed to secure approval to purchase 500,000 advanced AI chips, despite concerns that Tahnoon’s AI firm is slightly too close to the Chinese-owned Huawei for the State Department’s comfort.
Disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted on several counts of financial crimes and sentenced to prison, is trying once again to convince people that he’s actually a Republican victim of the “woke mob,” this time making the case on X. (It’s the second time that the former efficient altruist and Dem megadonor has attempted to look redpilled.)
