Hi there, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, wishing you a contented and wholesome finish of the yr. I personally have a chilly.
At the moment, we are trying again at the greatest tales in tech of 2025 – Elon Musk’s political rise, burst, and fall; synthetic intelligence’s subsumption of the world financial system, all different expertise, and even the Earth’s topography; Australia’s outstanding social media ban; the tech business’s new Trumpian politics; and, as a deal with, a glimpse of the apocalypse supplied by one in all Silicon Valley’s savviest and strangest billionaires.
Elon Musk, a one-man hurricane
At the shut of 2024, I wrote that Elon Musk’s assist of Donald Trump had made him the world’s most powerful unelected man. In 2025, his reign turned out to be short-lived. He rose quick and haphazardly, like a whizzing firework, solely to explode spectacularly in June when he claimed in a publish on X that the president of the United States was named in the authorities’s information on convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Even in that quick interval of lower than six months, Musk made an amazing influence. He tore up huge swaths of the US authorities – tens of 1000’s of jobs, the safety of extraordinarily delicate knowledge, and full businesses like USAID – which will by no means be stitched again collectively.
After Doge imploded, Musk promised to flip again to his enterprise empire, which noticed nice success and nice failures alike in 2025. His rocket firm SpaceX noticed continued progress and is poised to conduct an preliminary public providing subsequent yr, maybe as the most precious non-public firm in the world. Electrical carmaker Tesla, in contrast, confronted violent backlash and main competitors from its Chinese language counterparts, which produced cheaper and extra superior automobiles whereas Tesla’s innovation and stock stagnated. These headwinds brought about a worldwide gross sales stoop for Musk’s carmaker.
Look again at our reporting on Doge, Tesla, SpaceX, Musk himself:
The “division of authorities effectivity”
Tesla faces backlash over Musk’s politics
Look forward: SpaceX expands in preparation for 2026 IPO
Synthetic intelligence blankets the world
Synthetic intelligence has gone from a distinct segment inside tech to the business’s most distinguished focus. The Magnificent Seven – Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, and Tesla – are investing tons of of billions of {dollars} into new software program that they hope will do the bulk of humanity’s work before too lengthy. The funding is driving the bulk of the progress of the US’s financial system, giving rise to fears of a monetary bubble and its popping. The US and China are locked in a chilly war-esque race in opposition to one another, with startups in every nation vying for cutting-edge breakthroughs, as governments round the world are compelled to resolve how they may regulate a brand new technological drive.
Earlier than AI can arrive at that future, although, it wants brains a la the Tin Man of The Wizard of Oz. These brains are available the type of knowledge facilities. These large buildings, which home the hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of semiconductor chips booming AI improvement, have cropped up round the world, met with enthusiasm from leaders looking forward to tax income and deep concern from environmental advocates and, more and more, area people members. The funding in and building of information facilities wrought large change in the bodily panorama of the Earth in 2025 as tens of billions of {dollars} chased any out there land, electrical energy, water and semiconductor chips.
Extra from our reporting in the final yr:
Knowledge facilities
The way forward for AI
Multi-trillion-dollar valuations
However does it work?
Tech will get in mattress with Trump 2.0
Elon Musk made a full-throated and whole-hearted embrace of Donald Trump in 2024 and 2025. He was not alone. Lots of his fellows in Silicon Valley did the identical, sitting beside the Trump household at the president’s inauguration after donating hundreds of thousands to his inaugural committee. The tech giants continued their embrace of Trump and his insurance policies by scuttling their variety, fairness, and inclusion packages, which they championed throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, and by cooperating with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Trump’s harsh immigration crackdown. What the business gave, it reaped tenfold in deregulation, pals excessive up in Washington like JD Vance and David Sacks, and a Trump order for states not to regulate AI signed simply weeks in the past.
Extra from our reporting this yr:
Donations and Trump’s inauguration
DEI scuttled
Immigrants surveilled
Australia cuts teenagers off
This yr noticed Australia take the extraordinary measure of banning youngsters below 16 from social media. The outstanding measure went into impact simply weeks in the past after a slew of authorized challenges and protests from tech corporations.
Learn a few of our complete reporting on the ban:
Bonus: The Apostle Peter’s apocalyptic prayers
In the weirdest information of 2025, billionaire enterprise capitalist and conservative svengali Peter Thiel gave a collection of fevered, incoherent lectures about the antichrist and the coming of the finish instances. We obtained leaked audio of the talks. You’ll be able to learn for your self the gibberish he makes use of to bend the ears of significant lecturers and San Francisco startup CEOs alike or, should you’d choose not to give your consideration immediately to him, interact with a pointy essential interpretation by a professor hailing from the identical college as Thiel’s mentor.
Our tales on the gospel in accordance to Peter:
Disclaimer: This article is sourced from external platforms. OverBeta has not independently verified the information. Readers are advised to verify details before relying on them.
