President Trump is deepening his alliance with Palantir, the surveillance tech giant with ties to Israel and the CIA, just as he threatens to cancel Elon Musk’s contracts over their recent fallout around the spending bill.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars,” Trump posted on Truth Social, “is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”
Palantir is building a sweeping AI-driven database of U.S. citizens, integrating government-held data on everything from political activity to firearms ownership. Even within the Trump-aligned America First movement, this direction is raising alarm.
Nick Fuentes, an influential hardline America First commentator, wrote: “Feeding every ‘MAGA extremist’ into an AI database controlled by a CIA/Mossad cutout… Seriously, if Palantir isn’t the deep state, then what is?”
A deeper shift is underway: Trump is increasingly siding with Peter Thiel’s surveillance empire—and turning on Musk and the libertarian-leaning tech wing of MAGA.
President Trump is deepening his alliance with Palantir, the surveillance tech giant with ties to Israel and the CIA, just as he threatens to cancel Elon Musk’s contracts over their recent fallout around the spending bill.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars,” Trump posted on Truth Social, “is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”
Palantir is building a sweeping AI-driven database of U.S. citizens, integrating government-held data on everything from political activity to firearms ownership. Even within the Trump-aligned America First movement, this direction is raising alarm.
Nick Fuentes, an influential hardline America First commentator, wrote: “Feeding every ‘MAGA extremist’ into an AI database controlled by a CIA/Mossad cutout… Seriously, if Palantir isn’t the deep state, then what is?”
A deeper shift is underway: Trump is increasingly siding with Peter Thiel’s surveillance empire—and turning on Musk and the libertarian-leaning tech wing of MAGA.
“To the extent it is used I fear it’s often for illicit finance. It’s an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions, and the amount of energy that’s consumed in processing those transactions is staggering,” the former Fed chairwoman said. Yellen’s comments have been cited as a reason for bitcoin’s recent losses. However, Yellen’s assessment of bitcoin as a inefficient medium of exchange is an important point and one that has already been raised in the past by bitcoin bulls. Using a volatile asset in exchange for goods and services makes little sense if the asset can tumble 10% in a day, or surge 80% over the course of a two months as bitcoin has done in 2021, critics argue. To put a finer point on it, over the past 12 months bitcoin has registered 8 corrections, defined as a decline from a recent peak of at least 10% but not more than 20%, and two bear markets, which are defined as falls of 20% or more, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Spiking bond yields driving sharp losses in tech stocks
A spike in interest rates since the start of the year has accelerated a rotation out of high-growth technology stocks and into value stocks poised to benefit from a reopening of the economy. The Nasdaq has fallen more than 10% over the past month as the Dow has soared to record highs, with a spike in the 10-year US Treasury yield acting as the main catalyst. It recently surged to a cycle high of more than 1.60% after starting the year below 1%. But according to Jim Paulsen, the Leuthold Group's chief investment strategist, rising interest rates do not represent a long-term threat to the stock market. Paulsen expects the 10-year yield to cross 2% by the end of the year.
A spike in interest rates and its impact on the stock market depends on the economic backdrop, according to Paulsen. Rising interest rates amid a strengthening economy "may prove no challenge at all for stocks," Paulsen said.
