TWiT 1089: Robot Butt Crack - Anthropic Banned, But Winning

AI giants are battling not just in code, but in politics, with behind-the-scenes lobbying, strategic naming, and rumors of blockbuster deals at the heart of this week's wildest tech stories. Get the inside scoop on who's pulling the strings.

• Apparently The Real Reason Anthropic's Models Are Offline: A Six-Year-Old Trump Grudge

• Trump says he no longer views Anthropic as a national security threat after G7 meeting with CEO

• Exclusive | Apple to Raise Prices Due to Memory Chip Crunch, Tim Cook Says

• Elon Musk's Next Move May Be a Mega-Merger of SpaceX and Tesla

• Anthropic's latest feud with the Trump admin may actually help it, sales data suggests

• Google's Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving for OpenAI

• Google's Secret Warrant Fight Over DOJ Pipe Bomb Probe Revealed

• The UK Places a Sweeping Ban on Social Media for Kids Under 16

• Meta lobbies Congress for protection from child-harm lawsuits

• Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 robotaxis to stop them driving into highway construction zones

• Snap Launches $2,195 Specs, Declaring Glasses the Next Computer

• Fox wants to take over your TV — and the tech inside it

• Midjourney goes from generating cat images to full-body ultrasound scans

• Nothing cancels this year's CMF phone due to RAM prices

• The AI IPO boom is different

• Joshua Baer, Capital Factory Founder, Dies in Laredo Plane Crash - RuntimeWire

• Ubisoft's co-founder Claude Guillemot dies in plane crash

Host: Leo Laporte (twit.tv/people/leo-laporte)

Guests: Iain Thomson (bsky.app/profile/iainthomson.bsky.social), Owen Thomas (x.com/owenthomas), and Doc Rock (createbetter.life)

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