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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
It is easy to see why America’s tech titans evince an air of invulnerability. They have procured a president who appears ready to treat any limits on their freedoms as an attack on American interests. Their monomania is often an engine of progress. Even when governments seek to act, lumbering legislators are no match for speedy technologists with wealth, media power, the advantages of extraterritoriality and a world view shaped by Ayn Rand; VPNs and Starlink offer ways to evade restrictions.
And yet, no one is infinitely untouchable. Democratic history is a timeline of states acting to curb over-mighty figures, from kings to business tycoons. Victories are rarely total but a new balance of power is ultimately reached.
What it takes is an inflection point that rouses the people and the politicians. After the discovery that Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, was digitally undressing photographs of adults and children, creating sexual images and nude pictures, the easy and obvious course was to apologise and address the problem.
While he now appears to be climbing down, Musk’s initial tone-deaf response instead roused rather than calmed legislators. His first instinct was to turn the tool into a premium feature and denounce “any excuse for censorship”.
This is not solely an X problem. This feature is in other AI models and the demand comes from individuals. But it reveals a broader point. The nudification tool was a feature, not a bug. Musk chose to create a “spicy” mode of Grok. Citizens are seeing the boundaries of social rules tested and set by the whims of unaccountable plutocrats.
Some countries, including the UK, have economic reasons for caution, not wanting to look Luddite in the coming AI revolution. But many have reached the point where citizens look to political leaders for action, not least since Donald Trump’s re-election prompted platforms to abandon efforts to moderate content.
The clarity of the Grok case rallied legislators from the UK and Europe to India to take action. Had Musk taken the easy path, this would be a small squall. The fact that his retreat was forced makes it more significant: each show of fortitude emboldens governments.
Child safety is the first and easiest line to draw. It is instructive that in the UK the curate’s egg that is the Online Safety Act is popular because it was sold to voters as a means to protect children from harmful content.
The Conservative Party, which opposes censorship of social media, committed last week to following new Australian legislation banning it for under-16s. For now this is ideologically coherent. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch argues that while adults can take care of themselves, youngsters must be protected. Few will be surprised if the UK enacts a similar ban. How long can the clean divide between adults and children hold given other concerns over misinformation and deep fakes?
Musk is not wrong that there are those who wish to censor him, though Grok is hardly a free speech issue — and dislike of him is compounded by the way he actively uses his site to destabilise liberal governments. But so far ministers draw back from banning X, recognising the free speech arguments, the workarounds and that the toxic communities Musk helps convene will find somewhere else.
The world’s authoritarian regimes block or curb US sites, albeit imperfectly. Democratic nations rightly resist such draconian solutions but their voters are often more sympathetic to bans and regulations than civil liberty enthusiasts might wish. Even if states stop short of bans, regulators are already taking powers to levy fines so eye-watering that businesses may have to comply or curtail services.
The consequences for governments taking on the Trump-backed tech giants could be costly and serious. But it is also clear that populations may not tolerate social rules shaped by the atypical mores of tech oligarchs. The once admired Musk is now a disastrous ambassador for tech leaders.
This is not solely about social media. Apple and Meta are facing down the British government over the end-to-end encryption that ministers say aids terror and criminal networks.
The danger for tech companies lies in assuming they are invulnerable. They may feel safe today, but the constancy of Maga Republicans is not something anyone should take for granted. The trustbusting of the 1890s and 1900s showed even the mightiest US monopolies can be cowed. This is an imperfect analogy but it is not hard to see a future techlash where left or right populists within the US regulate or break up the seemingly untameable titans.
Despite Trump’s trade threats, it does feel that the mood has shifted. Demands for more protection are growing and we are only at the start of the AI wave. Once politicians feel pressed by their electorates, change can come fast.
Over-mighty tech lords may one day prove a perfect enemy for ambitious politicians. It might be wise to recognise this now, stop swaggering and pay more heed to social concerns.
A major shift may not be imminent. But few societies will indefinitely allow their codes and laws to be set by outsiders with wildly different values. A theme of politics is voters’ desire to regain power over their lives. Tech oligarchs telling populations to suck it up is no one’s idea of taking back control.