TikTok is now subject to not one, but two Digital Services Act (DSA) investigations. The European Union announced on Tuesday that it has opened a formal proceeding focused on election risks, specifically in the context of recent elections in Romania. The probe will focus on TikTok’s recommender systems, principally “risks linked to the coordinated inauthentic manipulation […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

• Reid Hoffman said there's a "greater than 50% chance" he'll receive retaliation for backing Kamala Harris.
• The LinkedIn cofounder made the remarks on an episode of "The Diary of a CEO" podcast.
• Hoffman was one of the vice president's most prominent Silicon Valley business supporters.

Reid Hoffman, the billionaire LinkedIn co-founder and outspoken Democrat, said he thinks it's likely that he will face retaliation from President-elect Donald Trump for supporting Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.

"I think that there's a greater than 50% chance that there will be repercussions from a misdirection and corruption of the institutions of state to respond to my having tried to help Harris get elected," Hoffman said on an episode of "The Diary of a CEO" podcast that aired on Monday.

Hoffman said that he hopes any retaliation from Trump would be fairly tame, naming possibilities like IRS audits or phone calls from the incoming president trying to hurt his business prospects.

"It could get much worse, but I don't really want to speculate on it because I don't want to give anybody any ideas," he said.

Any repercussions would, he added, be "undemocratic and un-American."

Regardless, Hoffman said that he has no plans to leave the United States.

Nearly 90 top business executives — including Hoffman — signed a letter endorsing Harris' candidacy ahead of the general election, touting her plan to expand tax deductions for small businesses. The letter said that Harris' White House bid was "the best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy."

Hoffman was also part of a cohort of business leaders who put together an initiative to get right-leaning swing voters onboard with Harris' candidacy by stressing her pro-business stances.

On the podcast, Hoffman said he'd spoken to fellow billionaires during the campaign who applauded his political actions but declined to partake themselves for fear of getting "penalized" if Trump won.

"Part of the reason why I think less people were public about it this cycle was because President Trump was threatening personal and political retaliation, and so you had to have a certain degree of courage to stand up — and courage in the public area," he said.

Since winning a second term, Trump has put several Silicon Valley business leaders in prominent roles, from Department of Government Efficiency co-head Elon Musk to newly minted AI and crypto czar David Sacks.

Despite his dislike for Trump and many of his policies, Hoffman said that some of the president-elect's deregulation efforts could broadly benefit entrepreneurs.

"I think they're going to reduce regulation across the board for all entrepreneurs, so I think that's helpful for entrepreneurship," he said.

Representatives for Hoffman and Trump did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• Reid Hoffman said he'd faced threats after Elon Musk fueled a baseless conspiracy theory about him.
• Musk has amplified claims that the LinkedIn cofounder was a client of Jeffrey Epstein.
• Hoffman said he regretted his past association with Epstein and had hired security after threats.

Reid Hoffman, a cofounder of LinkedIn, said he had received threats of violence — and had to hire security — since Elon Musk fueled a baseless conspiracy theory about him.

Musk, the Tesla CEO who worked with Hoffman at PayPal, replied earlier this month to an X post in which a user implied Hoffman had visited the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's private island.

He replied with the "100" emoji to a post saying: "This guy is TERRIFIED about Trump releasing the Epstein Client list after all his visits to Epstein Island."

Musk also made the claim during an October interview with the former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, in which he said Hoffman was among the "billionaires behind Kamala" who were "terrified" by the prospect of Epstein's client list being made public.

Speaking with the British newspaper The Sunday Times, Hoffman said Musk had developed a "conviction with no evidence" that he had a close relationship with Epstein.

"Elon's defamation makes me angry and sad," he said. "Angry because it is an ugly assault. Sad because it comes from someone whose entrepreneurial achievements I continue to admire."

He added that he didn't want to "dignify" the threats he had received by sharing any details but said, "I've hired security staff as a result."

After Epstein's suicide in jail in 2019, Hoffman apologized for inviting him to a dinner party in 2015 with other tech tycoons — including Musk, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Palantir's cofounder Peter Thiel — while fundraising for MIT's renowned Media Lab.

Hoffman said he was told Epstein's involvement in raising donations had been vetted and approved by MIT. But he later wrote in an email to Axios that he regretted not conducting his own research into Epstein, who died while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

"My last interaction with Epstein was in 2015," Hoffman said in the email. "Still, by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice. For this, I am deeply regretful."

He told The Sunday Times that he "went to no Epstein parties" and that he "didn't even know who he was."

Hoffman is a major Democratic donor who used X to voice his support for Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election. "My message for American voters and Russian bots: don't vote for the guy too busy selling you a scamcoin," he wrote in a post on X on Election Day. Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, launched his own crypto coin, World Liberty Financial's wlfi, in October.

Musk has become a close ally of Trump, having been tasked with leading a new advisory committee, the Department of Government Efficiency, alongside the pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Matthew Hiller sells stickers on Etsy for Tesla owners embarrassed by Elon Musk's politics.
• Musk's vocal support for Donald Trump has boosted sales, he told The New York Times.
• MadPufferStickers is a side hustle for the Waikiki Aquarium worker.

Some Tesla owners are embarrassed by Elon Musk's very public support for Donald Trump — and one Etsy seller has found a way to cash in.

Matthew Hiller works in the gift shop of Waikiki Aquarium in Honolulu but also has a side hustle in the form of Mad Puffer Stickers that calls itself "Etsy's #1 Shop For Tesla Drivers!"

Some of the stickers and magnets available on his Etsy store have slogans such as "I Bought This Before We Knew Elon Was Crazy" in all-capital letters, and another that reads: "Anti Elon Tesla Club."

The latter item measures four inches by five inches, costs $339.80 and was bought by 13 people in the past 24 hours as of Thursday. It's suitable for the Tesla Model X, Y, 3 and Cybertruck.

Hiller told The New York Times he used to sell between five and 10 a day, but interest jumped significantly after Musk ramped up his support for Trump ahead of the election. He said he's now sold about 18,000 stickers to buyers in 30 countries.

Hiller had once considered buying a Tesla. Following Musk's takeover of Twitter, now X, he told the Times of his concern about what he called misinformation on the social media platform.

"So I'm like, there's no way I'm buying a Tesla: I don't want to give this guy a penny," he said.

That led Hiller to think some Telsa owners would not "want to endorse anything this guy stands for," and inspired him to add the "I Bought This Before We Knew Elon Was Crazy" sticker. One buyer of that item commented: "Love the car ... can't deal with Musk."

It sits alongside more lighthearted items on Mad Puffer Stickers such as "Don't Talk To Me, I'm a Fishtrovert," and "Eighters Gonna Eight" with an image of an octopus.

Business Insider reported in November that seven current and would-be Tesla owners said they were actively planning or considering selling their vehicles or Tesla shares, or that they were done buying the brand after years of believing in Musk and his EV maker.

Hiller did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour confirmed on a podcast interview that his employees asked social media influencers to promote memes about the FBI’s raid on the home of his archrival, the CEO of Polymarket.  Both companies offer competing events-betting markets, a new kind of betting industry where people wager about the outcomes of events ranging from […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

• Trump has promised to do a variety of different things on "Day One" of his second term.
• Much of his agenda will take time to implement, but there are things he could start immediately.
• Among the first items could be pardons for January 6-related offenses.

President-elect Donald Trump has outlined clear plans on how he plans to spend his first day back in the White House.

He plans to spend his first few hours signing executive orders rolling back some of President Biden's policies, considering pardons for a number of people convicted of January 6-related offenses, and launch his mass deportation program.

Some of the early items on Trump's list are already crossed off. Trump no longer has to fire special counsel Jack Smith, who has moved to dismiss his criminal cases against Trump. Speculation that the president-elect might fire FBI Director Christopher Wray is also moot. Wray announced he would resign before Trump is sworn in.

Other aspects of Trump's agenda, particularly his promises to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits, will require Congress to act.

Trump has also conceded that some of his pledges, like "ending inflation," may be difficult to fulfill. Fellow Republicans are also pressuring the president-elect to expand his agenda to include items like nixing the IRS' free direct tax-filing tool.

Tariffs: Trade wars are likely to return

The president-elect made clear just before Thanksgiving that he intends to use tariffs much like he did during his first term.

In a series of posts, Trump pledged to levy a 25% tariff on all products coming into the US from Mexico and Canada. Chinese imports would get an additional 10%.

He said the tariffs would be among his first actions after being sworn in — meaning he'll likely return to his reliance on a law that allows a president wide discretion to impose tariffs in the event of a national emergency.

Trump said the tariffs are needed to take migration and fentanyl more seriously. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum quickly retorted that her nation may be forced to impose its own retaliatory tariffs.

During his first term, Trump repeatedly threatened to use tariffs as a cudgel, though he did not always follow through.

Executive orders: Immigration and likely legal challenges

Some of Trump's most readily achievable promises are related to immigration, an area where the White House and Executive Branch have a significant say. In the closing days of the campaign, Trump underlined his commitment to getting to work right away on building "the largest deportation force" in the nation's history. The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have said they would challenge Trump's actions in court, meaning that anything begun on Day One will only be the beginning of a potentially long legal fight.

Trump also repeatedly promised to curtail parole, which allows immigrants to temporarily live in the US, often for humanitarian reasons. He also pushed debunked claims about secret "migrant flights," which he also promised to ban on day one.

Trump has promised to issue several executive orders when he takes office, though some of them are likely to be challenged in court.

For example, Trump has pledged to sign an executive order revoking birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

During the Republican primary, he pledged to take executive action "banning schools from promoting critical race theory or transgender insanity."

It's likely that such an action could mirror an executive order President Joe Biden revoked after taking office, which at the time prohibited the federal government and federal contractors from conducting workplace trainings on "divisive concepts." A federal judge later blocked prohibitions on certain trainings.

Pardons and personnel decisions: January 6 rioters could get immediate pardons

Trump said he could take action on January 6-related pardons "within the first nine minutes."

He has long maintained that some people arrested or convicted of offenses related to the Capitol riot were overcharged. Trump is likely to avoid any personal legal consequences at the federal level for his efforts to overturn the election. Smith's 2020-charges against Trump were dismissed in a way that would allow them to be refiled once the president-elect leaves office in 2029.

In an interview with Time Magazine, Trump said his focus is on non-violent offenders and that he will weigh potential pardons on a "case-by-case" basis.

"We're going to look at each individual case, and we're going to do it very quickly, and it's going to start in the first hour that I get into office," Trump said to the publication during a wide ranging interview. "And a vast majority of them should not be in jail. A vast majority should not be in jail, and they've suffered gravely."

Some of Trump's promises are more simple and involve firing government officials he does not like.

At a Bitcoin conference in July, Trump also pledged to fire Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, on "day one" and appoint a replacement. Gensler has angered many in the cryptocurrency community, which Trump and his campaigned courted ahead of the 2024 election. Gensler, too, has headed off a potential showdown by announcing he will resign before Trump's inauguration

Trump has also pledged to pardon January 6 rioters "if they're innocent," which he would be able to do as soon as his first day in office.

"Day One" promises that Trump may not be able to fulfill

Some "day one" commitments are simply not possible.

At times during the campaign, Trump pledged to "end inflation" just hours after taking office. No one, including the president, can single-handedly lower broad price levels set across the entire US economy.

Prices reached record highs earlier in the Biden administration, but since then inflation has continued to cool. Many economists are concerned that Trump's protectionist trade policies could exacerbate inflation. He has repeatedly rejected this view, but conceded lowering grocery prices will be difficult.

"Look, they got them up," Trump said to Time. "I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard. But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down."

• President Biden touted his economic record during a Tuesday speech at the Brookings Institute.
• Biden suggested that he should've had his name printed on the 2021 stimulus checks, similar to Trump in 2020.
• Trump won a second presidential term in November with a heavy economic message for voters.

President Joe Biden during a Tuesday speech said that it was "stupid" of him to have not signed COVID-19 stimulus checks that went out as part of the American Rescue Plan, contrasting himself with President-elect Donald Trump.

While speaking at the Brookings Institute, Biden touted the effects of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, which Congress passed in 2021, as a major economic accomplishment of his administration. But the president also reflected on the actions of Trump, his predecessor and soon-to-be successor.

"I also learned something from Donald Trump — he signed checks for people … and I didn't," he said. "Stupid."

In March 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion bill signed into law by Trump at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic that provided $1,200 relief checks to millions of Americans. Trump's name, controversially, was added to the relief checks by his administration.

This year, many Americans, who yearned for the pre-Covid economic conditions earlier in Trump's first term, chose Trump at the ballot box over Vice President Kamala Harris.

Biden from the earliest days of his administration sought to tackle some of the biggest pandemic-era economic issues.

The American Rescue Plan provided $1,400 checks to most Americans.

But inflation dogged the Biden administration's economic message, and the president was unable to articulate a convincing defense of his policies ahead of the 2024 election. His standing, coupled with concerns over his advanced age, led him to step aside as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in July.

Harris assumed the mantle as the Democratic standard-bearer, but she had to run a 107-day campaign and was unable to overcome Trump's advantage on the economy among a broad swath of voters.

• Donald Trump successfully used podcasts to expand his reach during the 2024 presidential campaign.
• On Election day, Trump ended up boosting his support among men overall compared to 2020.
• A variety of podcast hosts are set to have a substantial level of influence in Trump's second term.

President-elect Donald Trump's love for the media is well-known — just look at how much Trump's early picks resemble a Fox News greenroom.

The president-elect made significant efforts during his campaign to get his message in front of podcasters and influencers. Now that he's set to return to power, these commentators will play a major role in setting and pushing his agenda. Or they'll just stream from the White House.

If Donald Trump Jr., who hosts his own podcast, gets his wish they might even be seated somewhere in the White House briefing room.

'The Joe Rogan Experience'

The UFC commentator and comedian Joe Rogan has become one of the biggest names in the podcast world. Rogan's persona and massive following (14.5 million followers on Spotify and nearly 19 million subscribers on YouTube) have given him the sort of platform that continues to attract a range of high-profile guests.

Trump's appearance on Rogan's podcast in October allowed him to reach a critical audience — which heavily skews male — ahead of an election where the president-elect boosted his performance with men compared to 2020. Rogan's reach is so substantial that Trump took a few hours off the campaign trail to travel to Austin, Texas, to sit in the studio with the podcast host.

Rogan, shortly before the election, endorsed Trump's candidacy, calling him "the biggest there is."

Many Democrats pushed for Vice President Kamala Harris to appear on the program before the election, but scheduling during the frenetic last weeks of the race precluded her from traveling to Austin to do so, according to a campaign statement at the time.

"My sincere wish is to just have a nice conversation and get to know her as a human being," Rogan said in October.

'Bannon's War Room'

One of the more seasoned podcasters in Trump's orbit, former White House strategist Steve Bannon, started his program during Trump's first impeachment. Trump has said he listens to "Bannon's War Room."

Bannon used the program to foment backlash to then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California. And Kash Patel, Trump's pick to lead the FBI, has made countless appearances on the show.

Former White House Trade Council director Peter Navarro, set to return to Trump's second administration, was among a handful of commentators who kept Bannon's show going while he was in prison. Like Navarro, Bannon was sentenced for his defiance of a subpoena from the House January 6 committee.

'Triggered with Don Jr.'

Donald Trump Jr., the president-elect's eldest son, has confirmed he won't be in the incoming administration. But he remains a key voice in his father's ear.

Trump Jr. pushes his message in multiple forms, including on his podcast, "Triggered With Don Jr.," which he has hosted for almost a year. He's frequently hosted some of Trump's congressional allies, along with top aides like Stephen Miller, who will return to the White House.

In a recent episode, Trump Jr. teased how the president-elect's transition team is eyeing ways to bring conservative podcasters into the White House briefing room.

'This Past Weekend with Theo Von'

In August, the comedian Theo Von hosted Trump on his podcast, "This Past Weekend with Theo Von." On the program, Von spoke openly with Trump about his recovery from drug addiction. It may not have been seen as a typical stop for a presidential candidate, but the conversation was heard by many Americans, providing Trump with another connection to a bloc of male voters who don't consume much mainstream media.

Von received a shout out from UFC president Dana White during Trump's election night victory speech in Florida.

'The Charlie Kirk Show'

Charlie Kirk, a cofounder of the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA, has spent over a decade advocating for limited government and free markets among students on high school and college campuses.

Ahead of the 2024 general election, Kirk used Turning Point Action, the political advocacy arm of Turning Point USA, to boost Trump's bid for a second term and amplify his conservative message. Kirk appeared alongside Trump at campaign events in key swing states like Georgia and Nevada, which the president-elect went on to flip in November.

Kirk hosts "The Charlie Kirk Show" podcast, which serves as an influential vehicle for reaching the sort of young voters who were a key part of Trump's electoral gains.

'Full Send Podcast'

Few shows personify "the manosphere" that Trump spent the summer tapping into more than "Full Send," a podcast started by a group of influencers called the Nelk Boys. Trump has made multiple appearances on Full Send, even stumping with one of its members in Las Vegas. Unlike Bannon and some others on this list, the Nelk Boys are not explicitly political, which made their audience ripe for Trump's 2024 appeals but also means they're unlikely to engage in the day-to-day news cycle.

Adin Ross

Adin Ross, an internet personality and popular streamer, sat down with Trump this past August and in a departure from many interviews — gifted the Republican a gold Rolex watch and a customized Tesla Cybertruck.

Ross became a big name through his livestreams of video games, and Trump's interview with the streamer was one more way that he was able to connect with a male-skewing audience.

'The Dan Bongino Show'

Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, is so firmly entrenched in the conservative space that he was selected to replace the late Rush Limbaugh in his coveted time slot. Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and other influential leaders on the right have pushed Trump to name Bongino to run the agency tasked with protecting the president. In the meantime, Bongino has been a vocal proponent of Trump's other nominees and helped lead a pressure campaign to push Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, to back Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon.

'Verdict with Ted Cruz'

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has repeatedly offered his full-throated support to Trump, a stark contrast to the bitter end to his 2016 GOP primary run. Like Bannon, Cruz launched his podcast amid Trump's first impeachment battle. He has since used his platform to shed light on Congress and to discuss the news of the day.

With a 53-47 Republican Senate majority beginning in January, Trump can't afford many defections if he wants to get his agenda through the upper chamber. Cruz is well-positioned to serve as a narrator for a far more supportive group than the one that repeatedly vexed Trump in his first term.

'The Megyn Kelly Show'

Many in Trump's orbit once detested former Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly after she asked him during a 2015 GOP presidential debate about past inflammatory comments directed toward women.

"You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals," she asked at the time. "Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?"

Trump repeatedly blasted Kelly after the interview.

But in the intervening years, Kelly left Fox and was hired by NBC News before a tumultuous departure. She's since become a major conservative voice in the podcast world and interviewed Trump on her show in September 2023.

Ahead of the 2024 election, she appeared alongside Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, voicing her support for his campaign and calling him a "protector of women."

'All-In Podcast'

Key venture capitalists embraced Trump ahead of the 2024 election, including former PayPal executive David Sacks. Sacks and fellow venture capitalists, Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg, hold court on their podcast, "All-In," which was launched during the pandemic.

It remains to be seen how involved Sacks will be going forward on the podcast now that Trump has named him his AI and crypto czar. Trump made an appearance during a June episode.

• Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump have been at odds over the years.
• However, Bezos says Trump has "probably grown in the last 8 years" and he'd like to help him in "reducing regulation."
• The two men recently had dinner at Mar-a-Lago.

A dinner between Donald Trump and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the latest development in their history, which has seen both men criticize each other publicly.

Bezos has spoken out against Donald Trump in the past — and vice versa. However, Bezos has changed his tune on the president-elect, saying he is feeling optimistic now about Trump's return to the Oval Office.

Speaking at The New York Times' DealBook Summit earlier this month, Bezos said he's "actually very optimistic" about another Trump term.

"What I've seen so far is he is calmer than he was the first time and more settled," he said. "You've probably grown in the last eight years. He has too."

Bezos said he's also encouraged by Trump's deregulation aims, which include his newly created Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, a Trump ally and major donor to his campaign.

"He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help do that, I'm going to help him," Bezos said.

Bezos, alongside fiancée Lauren Sánchez, recently met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago for dinner, joined by Musk.

The billionaire Amazon founder and Trump have been contentious at times. In 2016, Bezos said Trump's wish to lock up Hillary Clinton or refuse to accept a loss in that election "erodes our democracy around the edges."

"One of the things that makes this country as amazing as it is, we are allowed to criticize and scrutinize our elected leaders," Bezos said at the time.

"An appropriate thing for a presidential candidate to do is say, 'I am running for the highest office in the world, please scrutinize me,'" he continued. "That's not what we've seen. To try and chill the media and threaten retribution and retaliation, which is what he's done in a number of cases, it just isn't appropriate."

Following Trump's election that year, Bezos was one of several tech leaders who met with the president-elect in a summit Bezos later described as "very productive." Introducing himself in the meeting, Bezos added that he was "super excited about the possibilities this could be the innovation administration."

Trump and Amazon

While campaigning for the 2016 presidential election, Trump said Amazon would have "such problems" if he became president.

In 2017, he tweeted that the company was "doing great damage to tax paying retailers" and that "towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt."

He repeated similar sentiments the following year, saying that Amazon was pushing smaller retailers out of business.

Trump has also said on multiple occasions that Amazon should be paying more for USPS deliveries.

"Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer?" he tweeted in 2017. "Should be charging MUCH MORE!"

In 2019, Amazon filed a federal complaint challenging the Department of Defense's decision to award Microsoft a $10 billion contract to move sensitive data to a cloud server rather than Amazon Web Services.

The company said in the complaint that Trump swayed the decision to "pursue his own personal and political ends" and to harm Bezos, "his perceived political enemy." Amazon said Trump made "repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks" about the company and Bezos, who was still CEO at the time.

In 2021, the DoD canceled the contract with Microsoft and announced a multi-vendor contract to seek proposals from Microsoft and AWS as "the only Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) capable of meeting the Department's requirements."

Trump and The Washington Post

Trump has repeatedly criticized The Washington Post, which Bezos owns.

In 2019, Trump bashed Bezos and the Post as he appeared to talk about Bezos' divorce from MacKenzie Scott.

"So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post," Trump wrote on X. "Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!"

For the first time in decades, the newspaper didn't publish an endorsement of a presidential candidate in 2024. Bezos reportedly intervened to block an endorsement of Kamala Harris that had already been drafted.

Bezos later wrote an op-ed defending the newspaper's decision to decline to endorse, saying endorsements "create a perception of bias" and "do nothing to tip the scales of an election."

Trump and Bezos

After the assassination attempt on Trump at a Pennsylvania rally in July 2024, Bezos broke a hiatus of nearly nine months on X, formerly known as Twitter, to write, "Our former President showed tremendous grace and courage under literal fire tonight. So thankful for his safety and so sad for the victims and their families."

Following Trump's second election win, Jeff Bezos congratulated him on "an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory," wishing the president-elect "all success in leading and uniting the America we all love."

CEOs and business leaders quickly began making the journey to Mar-a-Lago in Florida to meet with the president-elect, and Trump mentioned that a dinner with Bezos was planned.

″Mark Zuckerberg's been over to see me, and I can tell you, Elon is another and Jeff Bezos is coming up next week, and I want to get ideas from them," Trump told CNBC's Jim Cramer in December.

After Meta confirmed plans to donate $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund, Amazon followed suit with its own $1 million donation.

Bezos and Trump ended up dining together, and were joined by Musk, who said it was a "great conversation."

• Trump has proposed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada, China, and Mexico.
• Trump said he doesn't "believe" the tariffs would cause price increases at home.
• But, he told Kristen Welker on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, "I can't guarantee anything."

President-elect Donald Trump, in an NBC News interview that aired on Sunday, said he doesn't "believe" his tariff proposal will raise consumer prices for American families but stopped short of making a promise.

"I can't guarantee anything," Trump told "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker in his first major network television interview since the November general election. "I can't guarantee tomorrow."

Trump then said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, he placed tariffs "on a lot of different countries."

"We took in hundreds of billions of dollars and we had no inflation," the president-elect told Welker. "In fact, when I handed it over, they didn't have inflation for a year and a half."

Trump in November floated 25% tariffs on imports from Canada, China, and Mexico, the top three trading partners of the United States. The president-elect has criticized what he says is the free flow of drugs and illegal migrants into the United States from the three countries.

Late last month, Trump also threatened economic sanctions against the BRICS group, a bloc of nine emerging market countries. He said he would institute "100% tariffs" if they sought to "move away" from the US dollar.

Trump, while on NBC, reiterated that he's a "big believer in tariffs" — calling them "beautiful" — and said the United States is subsidizing Canada and Mexico.

"If we're going to subsidize them, let them become a state," the president-elect said. "We're subsidizing Mexico, and we're subsidizing Canada, and we're subsidizing many countries all over the world. And all I want to do is have a level, fast, but fair playing field."

Late last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada traveled to Mar-a-Lago to dine with Trump after his tariff threats. Trudeau later said he had an "excellent conversation" with the president-elect.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also described her recent conversation with Trump as "excellent," stating that the two discussed her country's plans for migration.

The economy was a top issue for voters in the November election, with Trump defeating Vice President Kamala Harris largely due to dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden's handling of inflation. Harris sought to define her economic plan — zeroing in on price gouging and tackling housing affordability — but she could not reverse Trump's advantage on the issue.

Across the United States, Trump cut into traditional Democratic advantages with working-class voters and minority groups, with many siding with him at the ballot box over his focus on inflation.

• The Harris campaign has $1.8 million cash after spending over $1 billion in the 2024 race.
• Harris continually raked in money during her 107-day presidential campaign against Donald Trump.
• But Harris could not overcome the headwinds against her party, coming up short in the swing states.

After President Joe Biden stepped aside as the Democratic nominee last summer, the party felt an enormous jolt of energy as Vice President Kamala Harris embarked on a 107-day presidential campaign against Donald Trump.

Throughout her campaign, Harris raised more than $1 billion, a stunning figure that mirrored the quick rise of her campaign.

But Trump, now the president-elect, defeated Harris in the general election, with the vice president coming up short in the swing states.

New federal filings show that the Harris campaign had $1.8 million remaining in the bank after spending over $1 billion against Trump in the presidential race.

In the filings, the Harris campaign also reported that it had no debts.

The filings reveal the pace of spending for the Harris campaign, which began with heightened enthusiasm from Democrats and major donors who had grown despondent over Biden's chances after a disastrous debate against Trump raised questions about his ability to mount a robust reelection campaign.

From October 17 through November 25, which included some of the most frenzied stretches of the campaign through the postelection period, Harris raised $160 million and spent over $270 million. The Trump campaign raked in nearly $87 million during that same period and spent $113 million, the president-elect's campaign filings indicated.

Harris held large rallies in swing states like Georgia and Pennsylvania throughout her campaign, especially in the immediate weeks leading up to the election. And despite the vice president's financial advantage over Trump, she had to boost her profile to an electorate that had long expected Biden to be the nominee and was uncertain about her positions on various issues — from tackling inflation to her approach to foreign policy.

The new FEC report also seemingly puts to rest any talk that the Harris campaign is heavily in debt, a notion that the campaign rejected last month when it told The New York Times that "there will be no debt" on the filings.

But in the weeks since the general election, Democrats have still received fundraising appeals from the Harris operation. The "Harris Fight Fund" is the postelection operation of the general election "Harris Victory Fund" and is touted as a way to help provide accountability for the Trump administration.

The Democratic National Committee's newest filings revealed that it had over $47 million in cash on hand, while its rival, the Republican National Committee, had nearly $43 million in the bank.

Business Insider reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.

• Elon Musk spent at least $277 million on Trump and the GOP, according to new documents.
• Most of it went toward America PAC, where Musk spent just shy of $239 million.
• But he also gave over $20 million to a group that compared Trump to RBG.

Elon Musk spent at least $277 million in political contributions to support President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, according to documents filed late Thursday.

That sum, totaling more than a quarter of a billion dollars, likely makes Musk the single largest donor of the 2024 election. Other top donors this cycle included Timothy Mellon, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, and Miriam Adelson, all of whom spent more than $100 million supporting Trump and the GOP.

Musk, the owner of X and the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, is now set to co-lead a new "Department of Government Efficiency" initiative under the incoming Trump administration.

Here's a look at where Musk's millions went this election cycle.

Musk poured roughly $239 million into America PAC — and spent $58 million of that on voter giveaways

As of November 25, documents filed with the Federal Election Commission showed that Musk had contributed just shy of $239 million to his personal super PAC, America PAC.

That super PAC, almost entirely funded by Musk alone, would go on to spend $154.5 million directly on canvassing efforts and digital ads to support Trump and oppose Vice President Kamala Harris.

More than $19 million went toward supporting GOP House candidates in 18 battleground districts, 10 of whom ultimately won their races.

The most intriguing revelation from Thursday night's report, however, was the amount of money that went towards America PAC's controversial voter giveaways, in which registered voters received $47 or $100 for signing a petition along with the chance to win $1 million.

Records show that $40.5 million went toward paying voters for signing the petition, while an additional $18 million — $1 million apiece — went to 18 lottery winners, each of whom were paid for being a "spokesperson consultant."

Musk poured $20 million into a mysterious PAC that compared Trump to Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Separately from America PAC, Musk was revealed to be the sole funder of a super PAC that ran ads comparing Trump's position on abortion to that of the late liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Musk contributed $20,500,000 via a trust to "RBG PAC," which ran ads highlighting his pledge that there would be no federal abortion ban under his watch.

Clara Spera, an abortion rights lawyer who's also Ginsburg's granddaughter, told the New York Times in October that the PAC was "an affront to my late grandmother's legacy."

"The use of her name and image to support Donald Trump's re-election campaign, and specifically to suggest that she would approve of his position on abortion, is nothing short of appalling," Spera said.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk's contributions to other GOP groups

While America PAC and RBG PAC represented the bulk of Musk's spending, there's a handful of other groups that have also received money from him this election cycle.

He gave $10 million in October to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC linked to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, along with more than $2.3 million to Sentinel Action Fund. Both groups spent heavily on Senate elections.

Musk contributed $1 million to Early Vote Action PAC, which is led by the pro-Trump activist Scott Presler, along with $924,600 directly to Trump's campaign and hundreds of thousands to House Republican's central campaign committee.

It's likely that Musk spent even more than what's publicly accounted for, including to "dark money" nonprofit groups that aren't required to disclose their donors.

He reportedly contributed to a dark money group that gave $3 million to a super PAC that ran ads portraying Harris as simultaneously supportive and hostile toward Israel.

Correction: December 6, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Sentinel Action Fund's affiliation with the Heritage Foundation. The group was legally separated from Heritage's political infrastructure in 2023.

The European Commission has responded to widespread concerns swirling around the impact of TikTok on elections in Romania by announcing it’s stepping up monitoring of the platform’s compliance with the bloc’s online governance framework, the Digital Services Act (DSA). This follows the shock emergence of Călin Georgescu, an independent, far-right, pro-Russian nationalist, as the lead […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

• TikTok is facing scrutiny in Romania for election interference.
• Romania's defense council says TikTok's algorithm fueled the rise of a far-right candidate.
• TikTok denied the claim that it treated any political candidate's content differently from others.

TikTok is facing accustions from regulators in Romania that content on the platform improperly influenced the country's presidential election.

Romania's Supreme Council of National Defense said in a statement on Thursday that one candidate "benefited from massive exposure due to preferential treatment" from TikTok.

Călin Georgescu, a far-right populist and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, defeated leftist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the heavy favorite, in the first round of presidential voting on November 24. Georgescu, who was virtually unknown before the election, catapulted from obscurity thanks in part to his viral TikTok videos.

The win secured Georgescu a place in a runoff vote scheduled for December 8. The Romanian Constitutional Court ordered a re-verification of the result following his surprise victory.

Georgescu has courted controversy with his pro-Russian and anti-NATO rhetoric, calling Ukraine an "invented country," according to the Associated Press. Romania borders Ukraine and is a NATO member.

In its statement, the Romanian defense council said there is growing interest inside Russia to "influence the public agenda in Romanian society" and disrupt social cohesion.

Georgescu's sudden popularity on TikTok appears to have helped fuel his election victory. One Romanian think tank told the AP that his TikTok following and engagement — his posts garnered over 100 million views in the weeks before the election — appeared "sudden and artificial."

The Supreme Council of National Defense said TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, failed to label the videos of one candidate — presumed to be Georgescu — as campaign content. The defense council said that not labeling the content as campaign-related drastically increased its visibility on TikTok.

"Thus, the visibility of that candidate increased significantly in relation to the other candidates who were recognized by the TikTok algorithms as candidates for the presidential elections, and the content promoted by them was massively filtered, exponentially decreasing their visibility among platform users," the statement said.

The accusation against TikTok in Romania mirrors similar claims against Facebook during the 2016 US presidential election when Russia used the social media platform to sow discord that favored Republicans and Donald Trump.

TikTok has also faced scrutiny in the United States for allowing political ads that included disinformation in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.

TikTok did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider. A spokesperson for the company told Politico that it denies that Georgescu was treated differently by the platform than other candidates.

"It is categorically false to claim his account was treated differently to any other candidate," spokesperson Paolo Ganino told the outlet. Ganino added that Georgescu was treated "in the same way as every other candidate on TikTok, and subject to exactly the same rules and restrictions."

• In the 2024 election, Donald Trump won 312 electoral votes to Kamala Harris' 226 electoral votes.
• Each candidate sought to present themselves as the better steward of the economy.
• But President-elect Trump emerged victorious, sweeping the seven major battleground states.

Headed into Election Day, the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump appeared deadlocked, with polls showing a close race across the seven swing states.

But Trump came out on top, with the president-elect sweeping the battleground states and making critical gains among a broad slice of the electorate, from young voters and Latino men to suburban voters and rural voters.

The president-elect's victory came as he retained his long-standing advantage on economic issues through Election Day.

Here's a look at why the 2020 race between President Joe Biden and Trump was such a departure from this year's contest between Harris and Trump.

Trump made significant inroads in the suburbs, where the economy was a key issue

In 2020, Biden emerged victorious in the suburbs, winning over voters in this key group 50% to 48%, according to CNN exit polling.

Harris was hoping that strong support from suburban voters, especially among college-educated women, would aid her, with her campaign banking that her prosecutorial background would match up well against that of Trump — who has been embroiled in an array of legal issues over his push to overturn the 2020 election results.

While Harris performed well in many of the suburbs that paved the way for Biden's 2020 election, she simply did not win by the margins she needed to overcome Trump's burst in support from white voters without college degrees, as well as the drop-off in support from Latino and Asian voters compared to the president's performance.

This year, Trump won suburban voters 51% to 47%, per CNN exit polling, a four-point edge that allowed him to hold the line in areas where Democrats were hoping to run up the score. And the shift allowed him to flip Maricopa County, and thus, win back Arizona, which had been one of Biden's most impressive victories in 2020.

Similar to other groups, the economy was critical for suburban voters, with inflation and housing costs being paramount. In Arizona, a state dominated by Phoenix and its vast Maricopa-anchored suburbs, the economy was the second-most important issue for voters, only trailing the issue of democracy.

According to CNN exit polling, 42% of the Arizona electorate said the economy was in "poor" condition, and 89% of those voters backed Trump, compared to 10% for Harris. By comparison, only 6% of respondents considered the economy to be "excellent," and 99% of those voters supported Harris, with only 1% backing Trump.

Trump hammered home an economic message centered on lowering costs, forging ahead with new housing construction on federal land, and cutting government relations that he said hampered growth. In western states like Arizona and Nevada, where housing affordability has been a major issue, the issue took on added resonance. Harris had high-profile economic proposals of her own, including a $25,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, but it wasn't enough to swing the race.

Turnout declined in key Democratic areas

After Biden exited the race in July and Harris stepped into her role as the Democratic Party's standard bearer, she was faced with running a 107-day campaign. While Harris had been Biden's No. 2 for over three years at that point, she was still unfamiliar to a considerable slice of the electorate.

Despite Biden's decline in support with groups that had fueled his 2020 victory — which included Black, Latino, and young voters — he was a known commodity. And Harris, in many ways, had to reintroduce herself to millions of Americans who were open to backing her but had reservations about the Biden administration on issues like inflation and border security.

From Harris' first major rally as a 2024 presidential candidate in Wisconsin to her Election eve turnout push in vote-rich Philadelphia, she crisscrossed the swing states, aiming to hold on to the blue wall battleground states while also eyeing gains in the Sun Belt.

But compared to 2020, turnout declined on the Democratic side.

Four years ago, the Biden-Harris ticket won over 81 million votes, compared to 74 million votes for Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence. So far, Harris has earned just under 75 million votes, compared to a little over 77 million votes for Trump.

Democratic strength in New Jersey and New York fell sharply, with Harris faring worse than Biden in those solidly blue states.

Voters did boost their numbers in several key battlegrounds, though.

Georgia hit a turnout record of almost 5.3 million voters this year, and despite Harris losing the state by 2.2 points (50.7% to 48.5%), she earned more votes in the Peach State than Biden did when he won the state by 0.23 percent (49.47% to 49.24%) in 2020.

Harris won 2,548,017 votes in Georgia this year, compared to Biden's 2,473,633 votes four years ago. But Trump won 2,663,117 votes this year, giving him a 115,100-vote advantage over Harris.

In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, more votes were tallied between the two major-party candidates this year compared to 2020, but this didn't benefit Harris as Democratic strength declined in cities like Detroit and Philadelphia.

For example, Harris won Philadelphia, the most populous city in Pennsylvania, by a hefty 79% to 20% margin. But in 2020, Biden won Philadelphia 81% to 18%. And while Biden earned 604,175 votes in the city, Harris currently has 568,571 votes there, according to NBC News.

Turnout fell across Philadelphia this year, allowing Trump to post gains in what has long been known as one of the most Democratic cities in the country.

• Since law school, JD Vance's wife has been tight-lipped about her political beliefs.
• Usha Vance was a registered Democrat until 2014 and worked at what some consider a progressive law firm.
• Vance has said she has "not given a ton of thought" to the issues she'd focus on as second lady.

Usha Vance's classmates at Yale Law School didn't know much about her politics. Weeks before she becomes second lady, the nation doesn't know much, either.

"She was more tight-lipped, at least in my experience, with her political views," said Marvin Lim, a Democrat in the Georgia House of Representatives who also graduated in 2013. He wasn't close with either of the Vances, but said that they "certainly communicated a great deal."

"I don't remember ever having a political conversation with Usha," Elliot Forhan, a Democrat representative in Ohio who took a small class with Usha but wasn't close friends with her, said. "She just didn't really show her cards with respect to the political stuff."

Vance, 38, will make history as the nation's first Indian American and first Hindu second lady. She'll also be the second-youngest person to fill the role, after Jane Hadley Barkley, wife of former Vice President Alben Barkley in 1949.

Usha Chilukuri met JD Vance while at Yale Law School. The two were in the same small group of approximately 15 students who take all of their classes together, the New York Times reported. They got married in 2014, one year after graduating, and Lim said that their affection for each other was obvious. Less obvious, however, is Usha Vance's political orientation and relationship to the newfound national spotlight.

Vance grew up in a suburb of San Diego, raised by a mechanical engineer and a biologist. One of her family friends, Vikram Rao, told The Times that she was a natural and kind leader, selecting what games they played and setting the rules by age five.

After getting her undergraduate degree from Yale, she studied copyright law at Cambridge. In February of 2006, a campus tabloid magazine at Yale described her "as "of the leftish political persuasion," but noted that she opted for romantic partners who are "tall, handsome, and conservative." One of her friends at Cambridge, Gabriel Winant, said that her social circle was left of center and even dotted with the occasional leftist, the Times reported.

While her political views weren't recognizable to casual peers at Yale Law School, her leadership was evident. Both Forhan and Lim said that she wasn't particularly loud in class, but didn't fade into the background, either. Her drive didn't seem to extend to politics.

"She didn't express political ambitions, but she did have ambition," Lim told Business Insider, noting that she went on to have prestigious judicial clerkships after graduation. "We knew those were things she wanted to do, but not political ambitions."

A representative for Usha Vance declined to comment for this story.

From a 'woke' law firm to conservative clerkships, Vance's political orientations remained murky after law school.

After graduating from law school, Vance clerked for a pre-SCOTUS Brett Kavanaugh from 2014-2015 and Chief Justice John Roberts from 2017-2018. In addition, she worked at the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, but resigned on Monday when her husband became the GOP nominee for vice president. The law firm has since removed her biography, and with it all of her past cases, though the website used to describe her as "a skilled litigator specializing in higher education, local government, and technology sectors."

The magazine The American Lawyer described Munger, Tolles & Olson as "cool, woke" in 2019, with a "radically progressive" policy on gender and racial diversity in hiring, Vanity Fair reported. Despite his wife's workplace environment, JD Vance championed the "Dismantle DEI Act" in June, 2024, calling the DEI agenda "destructive." In 2022, two colleagues at the firm described Usha Vance as liberal or moderate to The Times.

To make her political affiliations even murkier, Vance was a registered Democrat until 2014, The Times reported. Yet she shifted to the right alongside her husband — in 2021, Federal Election Commission records reveal that she donated to Blake Masters, a conservative Senate candidate in Arizona backed by tech billionaire Peter Thiel. And Thiel has known JD Vance since at least 2011, when the tech magnate spoke at Yale. In 2024, Thiel was instrumental in cementing Vance's spot on the Trump ticket.

Vance hasn't always seemed eager to be center stage.

When JD Vance was himself running for Senate, Usha Vance appeared in his very first campaign ad, sitting in front of a bookshelf and talking about their three children. In an interview with Newsmax during the campaign, she said that her husband has not changed in the many years of their relationship.

After her initial appearance, Vance largely faded out of her husband's campaign, but became more active as voting day neared. The same was true of this year's presidential election: Vance introduced her husband at the Republican National Convention, but didn't speak at other public campaign events, ABC reported. She helped behind the scenes, assisting with debate prep and offering feedback on rallies, according to NBC News.

In an interview on Fox & Friends in June, Usha Vance seemed ambivalent about taking on a public political role. During the conversation, she didn't wholly embrace the possibility of becoming the second lady.

"I don't know that anyone is ever ready for that kind of scrutiny," she said. "I'm not raring to change anything about our lives are right now, but I believe in JD and I really love him, so we'll just sort of see what happens."

She declined to specify what issues she would tackle in the White House, saying that "we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves."

Vance has consistently defended her husband in the face of controversy, like when she called his infamous childless cat ladies comment a "quip."

As the election inched closer, Vance remained vague about her personal political plans.

"This is such an intense and busy experience that I have not given a ton of thought to my own roles and responsibility," she told NBC News in late October when asked what she'd focus on as second lady. "It's just something that I've never really — it's not something I'm terribly familiar with."

Vance went on to say that she'd "collect some information" and circle back to the question after November 5, depending on the election results. With the results in, she has yet share any specific plans.

While Usha Vance's political orientations and interest in life as a national figure remain foggy, her devotion to her husband has seemed strong since her days at Yale Law School.

"In terms of political beliefs, she held that close to her chest, but in terms of being supportive of JD, that does not surprise me," Lim said.

• In December, two Georgia election workers won a $148M defamation judgment against Rudy Giuliani.
• Thanksgiving is the one-month anniversary of Giuliani's deadline to turn over assets.
• Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss have received a car and apartment without the paperwork to sell either.

Last month, a federal judge in Manhattan gave Rudy Giuliani a deadline: he had until October 28 to turn over millions of dollars in real estate, sports memorabilia, cash, and jewelry to the mother-daughter Georgia election workers he defamed after the 2020 election.

It's now exactly one month later — Thanksgiving — and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, still have little to thank him for.

Their lawyers say that, to date, the only thing they've collected free and clear are a handful of Guiliani's watches.

Yes, Giuliani has turned over his Mercedes and he has vacated his New York City apartment — but he has yet to provide Freeman and Moss with the vehicle title and co-op shares they need to turn these two assets into actual cash.

Other Giuliani assets are simply AWOL, including a signed Joe DiMaggio jersey that has apparently vanished among decades of his belongings inside a storage facility in Ronkonkoma, New York.

"If they can't find it, they can't find it," Giuliani, 80, told Business Insider of Joltin' Joe's jersey on Tuesday, after a court hearing on the case. "It's in the warehouse, as far as I know."

The one-time lawyer to Donald Trump meanwhile faces contempt-of-court fines and possibly a jail term for continuing to falsely accuse Freeman and Moss of election rigging on his nightly "America's Mayor" livestreams.

Giuliani — who said Tuesday he still "consults" with the president elect — also continues to call himself a victim.

"I don't have a car, I don't have a credit card, I don't have cash," he complained to the judge in court on Tuesday. "I don't have a penny that isn't tied up by them," he said of Freeman and Moss.

Here, according to court testimony and filings, is the latest on what Giuliani has failed to turn over.

A $5.6M Manhattan apartment

Giuliani's most valuable single asset is a three-bedroom, 10th-floor, corner co-op apartment he owned outright — without a mortgage — on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

He was ordered to turn the property's proprietary lease and co-op share copies to Freeman and Moss by October 28 — along with such valuable furnishings as the signed DiMaggio jersey and signed photos of Yankees Stadium and Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson that used to hang on the apartment walls.

Giuliani's lawyers have since said he has lost his copy of the shares and lease, which are still in the name of "Judith and Rudolph Giuliani." Giuliani divorced Judith Nathan, his third wife, in 2019, but never removed her name from the paperwork when he bought out her share of the co-op, his lawyers said.

Without the updated shares and lease, the apartment cannot be sold.

As for the furnishings, Giuliani's lawyers say these were moved to a patriotic event space and storage warehouse in the Long Island hamlet of Ronkonkoma, New York.

The Freeman-Moss attorneys said Friday that they have been unable to find any of Giuliani's artwork and sports memorabilia for the apartment. If these are indeed in the warehouse, as they put it in court papers two weeks ago, they are "commingled with other property of questionable value," including Giuliani's old drapes, blankets, "Christmas supplies," and a "small cigar box."

"We've sort of run out of patience," attorney Aaron Nathan said in court Tuesday, adding his team searched the warehouse, and the sports memorabilia is still unaccounted for. On Tuesday, a judge ordered Giuliani to separate these items from his other belongings inside the warehouse.

A $3.5M Palm Beach condo

Giuliani has claimed his $3.5 million Palm Beach condo, which he also owns outright, is his primary residence and so exempted under Florida law from civil seizure.

A January 16 trial — before federal Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan — will determine if Giuliani can keep the property.

The trial will also determine if Freeman and Moss will get three Yankees World Series rings — valued at around $50,000 each — that Giuliani says are not his to turn over because he gave them to his son, Andrew, in 2018.

"I told you when I got these that they would be yours someday," the younger Giuliani recalled his father telling him, according to a sworn court filing from last month.

Freeman and Moss have subpoenaed the elder Giuliani's tax accountants, Mazars, USA, to see if he declared gifting the rings to his son.

$2M from Donald Trump's campaign

Giuliani declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy soon after a federal jury in Washington, DC, set his $148 judgment last December — his penalty for the racist death threats and other harassment Freeman and Moss suffered after what the judge said were his "extreme and outrageous" defamation.

A bankruptcy judge dismissed the bankruptcy case within six months, citing Giuliani's "failure to provide even basic disclosure" of his assets.

But Giuliani did disclose that his largest debt was $2 million he said the 2020 Trump campaign owed him for his work before and after the election.

It will now be up to Freeman and Moss to pursue the campaign for that money, through still more litigation if necessary.

Lauren Bacall's 1980 Mercedes

Earlier this month, after weeks of what the Freeman-Moss attorneys called "foot-dragging," Giuliani drove 1980 blue Mercedes convertible, once owned by actor Lauren Bacall, to a Florida storage unit.

Problem was, there is no title. Giuliani says he can't find it. On Tuesday, his lawyer said that the title has been lost, and that his client's efforts to get a replacement title have so far failed.

"The car keys without the title is really meaningless, US Court Judge Liman told Giuliani's attorney Joseph Cammarata.

"Your client is a competent person. He was the United States attorney for this district," added Liman. "He knows he can apply for a title for the car."

Giuliani served as US attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989.

Giuliani and his lawyer promised the judge Tuesday they would "immediately" secure a replacement title to the car.

• Kamala Harris' campaign sought an appearance on "Hot Ones," but the show declined.
• Nontraditional media played a large role in the media strategy of both presidential campaigns.
• Harris campaign officials said "Hot Ones" didn't want to delve into politics.

Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign wanted her to appear on the popular internet show "Hot Ones," but the show declined, campaign officials said.

On a "Pod Save America" podcast episode about what went wrong with the Democratic presidential campaign, host Dan Pfeiffer interviewed Jen O'Malley Dillon, the Harris-Walz campaign chair, Quentin Fulks, deputy campaign manager, and senior advisors Stephanie Cutter and David Plouffe.

Pfeiffer, once an advisor to former President Barack Obama, asked about the campaign's media strategy.

"It was my understanding that you guys wanted to do a bunch of the larger, more popular, not specifically political podcasts," Pfeiffer said.

He asked why that may not have happened, citing "Hot Ones" as an ideal fit for the vice president.

"Never in time has there been a candidate better suited for a podcast than Kamala Harris on 'Hot Ones,'" he said.

The show, which has over 14 million YouTube subscribers, involves celebrities eating increasingly spicy wings as they discuss their lives and careers.

Recent guests include Bowen Yang, Paul Mescal, and Jimmy Fallon.

Stephanie Cutter, who spearheaded the campaign's media strategy, said: "I think if I remember correctly, on 'Hot Ones,' they didn't want to delve into politics."

She later elaborated, saying: "'Hot Ones,' which is a great show, they didn't want to do any politics, they weren't going to take us or him," referring to now-President-elect Donald Trump.

BuzzFeed, the owner of First We Feast, which produces "Hot Ones," declined to comment.

In its history, the show has never featured a political candidate.

In the interview, Pfeiffer also touched on Harris' absence from "The Joe Rogan Experience," despite Trump appearing on his podcast during the campaign.

Trump appeared on Rogan's podcast in October and talked with him for three hours.

Harris campaign officials said that Rogan wanted to conduct the interview in Texas, but logistically it was too difficult to make it happen in such a short race.

"What's clear is we offered to do it in Austin, people should know that," Plouffe said on the podcast. "It didn't work out."

This year's presidential election shone a light on a growing trend: politicians moving their fight to new media battlegrounds, everything from podcasts and gaming streams to Substacks and TikTok debates.

Trump pursued an unorthodox media strategy, which involved sitting down for many podcasts and YouTube shows as a way to target a key demographic — undecided and politically disengaged young men.

• Apple CEO Tim Cook is visiting China for the third time this year.
• Cook attended discussions focused on supply chain and trade issues, per Bloomberg.
• China is one of Apple's largest producers and most important markets.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is visiting China for at least the third time this year as the tech giant prepares for president-elect Donald Trump's proposed import tariffs and the impact on global trade.

Cook joined more than 20 top executives on Monday for a roundtable discussion with Chinese Premier Li Qiang ahead of a five-day supply chain conference in Beijing, according to a Bloomberg report.

According to Bloomberg, the discussion was focused on supply chain and trade issues. It is the first high-level roundtable between a senior Beijing official and foreign companies since Trump won the US presidential election earlier this month.

Companies around the world are bracing for the president-elect's proposed tariff policies. Trump has said he would introduce a 60% tariff on Chinese goods and a levy of at least 10% on goods imported from every other country.

China is one of Apple's largest producers and most important international markets. Previous estimates have indicated that over 95% of its iPhones, AirPods, Macs, and iPads are made in China.

"I value them very highly. We could not do what we do without them," Cook said of Apple's partners in China in an interview on Monday posted by a social media account connected to China Central Television.

Apple has also been grappling with a sales slowdown in China over the past year as local rivals such as Huawei take more market share.

It has also faced pressure from the Chinese government as employees were told not to use iPhones at work. The government has previously denied these reports.

Cook has made at least three public appearances in China this year to show his commitment to the country. He was previously in Beijing last month to discuss increasing investment in China.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• T.J. Maxx is set to benefit from Trump's proposed tariffs on imports.
• The tariffs could lead to earlier inventory orders, benefiting T.J. Maxx's stock purchases.
• Its diverse sourcing and strong earnings position it well against economic challenges.

T.J. Maxx could end up benefiting from Trump's suggested tariffs.

The president-elect's proposed levies on imports will likely lead to stores ordering inventory into the US earlier than usual to avoid the extra costs.

This means more opportunities for T.J. Maxx to buy stock as excess inventory kicks around the market. Moreover, by positioning itself as a lower-cost option, it stands to benefit if competitors raise prices to account for tariffs and customers trade down.

Trump has said he would introduce a 60% to 100% tariff on Chinese goods and a levy of at least 10% on goods imported from every other country. While it is unclear how prices may change, the proposals would significantly change the way retailers do business.

"It would be a massive upheaval to most of the cost structures for these companies," Chris Walton, a former Target executive and cofounder of Omni Talk, previously told BI.

Bank of America analyst Lorraine Hutchinson wrote in a note to clients on Thursday that direct imports are a small portion of T.J. Maxx's business and sources inventory from a variety of countries outside of China.

This means that it may benefit from not having to raise prices as high as competitors heavily reliant on Chinese imports.

For consumers forced to trade down or priced out of their usual retail spots, T.J. Maxx might present itself as the perfect option.

TJX, the parent company of T.J. Maxx, Marshall's, and Home Goods, beat Wall Street's estimates in the third quarter, reporting revenue of $14.1 billion, up 6% from the previous year.

"After a long run of success, one of the questions being asked is how long TJX can keep the growth engines churning," Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, wrote in a note to clients.

"TJX can trade well against any economic backdrop as consumers, especially in the US, like snagging a bargain," he added.

Even if household finances improve, the customer base at TJX stores will continue to shop there because they appreciate the value, he said.