President Trump has tapped Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to lead the space agency on an interim basis after Trump yanked his original nominee for the post.
“Sean is doing a TREMENDOUS job in handling our Country’s Transportation Affairs, including creating a state-of-the-art Air Traffic Control systems, while at the same time rebuilding our roads and bridges, making them efficient, and beautiful, again,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“He will be a fantastic leader of the ever more important Space Agency, even if only for a short period of time,” he added.
Trump in June abruptly withdrew the nomination of tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. The move came days before the Senate was expected to confirm Isaacman to the post, reports The Hill’s Brett Samuels.
In announcing the withdrawal, Trump cited Isaacman’s “past associations,” an apparent nod to his previous donations to Democrats.
But Isaacman was also a close ally of Tesla CEO and former special government employee Elon Musk, who has since had a falling out with the president.
Trump has said he thought it was “inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon’s corporate life.”
Duffy becomes the latest Cabinet official to be given multiple job titles. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also serving as interim national security adviser.
Duffy responded to the president’s post on X, writing, “Honored to accept this mission. Time to take over space. Let’s launch.”
Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, I’m Julia Shapero — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.
The American public is evenly divided over the implications of artificial intelligence (AI). Still, the majority thinks the new technology will reduce the need for people to do creative or important tasks, according to a new survey that was released on Thursday. The new Gallup poll found that 49 percent of the U.S. adults said that AI is “just the latest in a long line of technological advancements that humans will learn …
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) is demanding information from several major tech firms with artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, which he alleges are distorting facts and producing biased results about President Trump. Bailey sent letters to Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta on Wednesday, asking whether they design their algorithms to disfavor certain political affiliations or policy positions and requesting …
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) company xAI unveiled the newest version of its chatbot Grok on Wednesday amid fallout from a recent update that resulted in numerous antisemitic responses from the chatbot. Musk claimed during a livestreamed launch on his social platform X that Grok 4 is the “smartest AI model in the world.” “It really is remarkable to see the advancement of artificial intelligence and how quickly …
Welcome to Crypto Corner, a daily feature focused on digital currency and its outlook in Washington.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is clearing the air on tokenized securities.
SEC commissioner Hester Peirce clarified Wednesday that tokenized securities, or digital representations of financial assets, are still securities under the law.
“As powerful as blockchain technology is, it does not have magical abilities to transform the nature of the underlying asset,” she said in a statement.
“Tokenized securities are still securities,” Peirce added. “Accordingly, market participants must consider—and adhere to—the federal securities laws when transacting in these instruments.”
Peirce, who is leading the SEC’s crypto task force, suggested that market participants meet with the agency and its staff as they develop tokenized offerings.
“While blockchain-based tokenization is new, the process of issuing an instrument representing a security is not,” she said. “The same legal requirements apply to on- and off-chain versions of these instruments.”
ICYMI:Bitcoin hit a new high Wednesday, crossing $112,000 for the first time. The price of one bitcoin sits at nearly $113,500 as of Thursday afternoon.
In Other News
Branch out with other reads on The Hill:
Thousands reporting problems with Microsoft Outlook
Several thousand users reported problems with Outlook on Thursday morning, as Microsoft acknowledged that users might have issues accessing their mailbox. More than 2,700 users were reporting problems as of 11:45 a.m. EDT, with issues initially emerging Wednesday night, according to Downdetector. Microsoft said early Thursday morning that it had determined the cause of the problem and was deploying a fix. BestReviews …
A senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official on Thursday testified under oath that the agency has not yet decided where Kilmar Abrego … Read more
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