History Listory

2018

2018-01-17 Apple announced it would invest $350B in the U.S. economy over the next 5 years.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/apple-accelerates-us-investment-and-job-creation/

2020

2020-09-19 Trump said he would give his blessing to a deal in which Oracle and Walmart would partner with TikTok in the U.S., where Walmart would purchase a 7.5% stake, CEO Doug McMillon would serve as one of the five board members, and ByteDance would own the remaining 80%.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/19/trump-says-he-has-approved-tiktok-oracle-deal-in-concept.html

2023

2023-05-07 Hewlett Packard introduced subscription tier so users would be forced to pay a monthly fee to use their printer. One article explains that the “light” plan of $6.99/month only allows the user to print up to 20 pages from their own printer. The article also cites the company will charge users for printing “over” their allotment, and there are cancellation fees.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2251993/the-nightmare-is-real-hp-makes-printing-a-subscription.html

https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/printers/hp-begins-subscription-plans-for-its-printers-and-ink-up-to-dollar36-per-month-includes-limits-and-cancellation-fees

2023-11-01 Following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, U.S. lawmakers called for a TikTok ban, claiming the platform had an anti-Israel bias. One article cites a series of posts by tech venture capitalist Jeff Morris about a “TikTok War”.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/tiktok-ban-israel-gaza-palestine-hamas-account-creator-video-rcna122849

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/usa-congress-members-conservative-activists-and-wealthy-tech-investors-call-for-ban-on-tiktok-for-alleged-pro-palestine-bias-incl-co-comment/

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/05/tiktok-invites-uk-lawmakers-to-review-algorithm-after-china-probe.html

https://x.com/jmj/status/1717404573214671068

https://x.com/jmj/status/1717404589262025031

2024

2024-05-06 According to a few articles, lawmakers allegedly admitted the reason they wanted TikTok banned was over pro-Palestinian content.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/right-tiktok-boost-palestinian-content-1234876108/

https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senator-romney-antony-blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content

https://www.commondreams.org/news/mitt-romney-tiktok

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lawmakers-tiktok-ban-pro-palestinian-content-1235016101/

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tiktok-sues-government-ban-violates-first-amendment-1235016534/

https://x.com/NathanJRobinson/status/1787176314023092727

2025 January

2025-01-01 Larry Ellison, OpenAI Sam Altman, and Masayoshi Son of Softbank announced The Stargate Project to invest $500B in AI infrastructure in the U.S. by 2029.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_LLC

2026-01-13 An article reports that Amazon founder Jeff Bezo predicted that personal computing will eventually become obsolete and be replaced by cloud-based computing. For example, renting processing power from services like – for example – Amazon Web Services.

https://www.idnfinancials.com/news/60515/jeff-bezos-ai-signals-the-end-of-the-pc-era-drives-shift-to-cloud#:~:text=LM,that%20has%20become%20newly%20relevant.

https://www.sdxcentral.com/control-plane/jeff-bezos-wants-you-to-rent-cloud-space-instead-of-buying-pcs-for-gamers-thats-truly-terrible

https://www.aol.com/articles/may-not-actually-own-next-164700527.html?

https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/jeff-bezos-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-bezos-envisions-that-youll-give-up-your-pc-for-an-ai-cloud-version

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/thats-not-going-to-last-jeff-bezos-believes-ai-will-force-you-to-rent-your-pc-from-the-cloud-and-the-ram-crisis-is-accelerating-it

2025-01-18 The U.S. banned TikTok for about 15 hours, claiming it was a security risk. Then the Trump administration strong-armed ByteDance to sell to a US-based company on January 22, 2026. According to an article with CNN, “there is no public evidence that Beijing has actually harvested TikTok’s commercial data for intelligence or other purposes”.

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/18/nx-s1-5266146/tiktok-offline-supreme-court-ban

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-signs-executive-order-to-suspend-tiktok-ban-for-75-days-to-find-u-s-buyer

https://hls.harvard.edu/today/is-the-new-us-tiktok-safer/

https://www.wired.com/story/trump-executive-order-tiktok-ban/

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/21/tech/tiktok-national-security-concerns/index.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scVV1SscRWg

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/tiktok-reaches-deal-new-us-joint-venture-avoid-american-ban-2026-01-23/#:~:text=Summary,the%20Biggest%20in%20the%20World.%22

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/bytedance-s-agreement-to-sell-tiktok-puts-21251979.php

2025 April

2025-04-12 Apple received a special exemption retroactively back to April 5 2025 from certain Chinese tariffs for their smartphones.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/04/12/apple-iphone-trump-tariff-exemption/83059143007/

2025 August

2025-08-06 Apple announced it would invest $600B in the U.S. over the next 4 years.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/08/apple-increases-us-commitment-to-600-billion-usd-announces-ambitious-program/

2025-08-07 Trump called for the Intel CEO to resign, causing its stock to tumble.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/trump-says-intels-ceo-must-resign-sending-its-stock-tumbling

2025-08-11 Trump changed his mind about the Intel CEO, writing on Truth Social “The meeting was a very interesting one. His success and rise is an amazing story. Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together and bring suggestions to me during the next week”.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/11/intel-ceo-trump-lip-bu-tan.html

2025-08-22 Trump announced that the federal government obtained a 10% stake in Intel, purchasing 433.3M primary shares.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-economic-and-policy-experts-think-about-the-u-s-governments-stake-in-intel#:~:text=On%20Aug.%2022%2C%20President%20Donald,per%20share%2C%20equaling%209.9%25

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/22/tech/trump-intel-10-percent-stake

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-economic-and-policy-experts-think-about-the-u-s-governments-stake-in-intel#:~:text=On%20Aug.%2022%2C%20President%20Donald,per%20share%2C%20equaling%209.9%25.

2025 September

2025-09-15 The U.S. discussed selling TikTok to Oracle’s founder and chair Larry Ellison.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/oracles-stake-tiktok-us-joint-venture-is-worth-roughly-2-billion-filing-shows-2026-03-11/

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/11/oracle-tiktok-us-stake-outages.html

2025-09-21 Trump stated he might sell ByteDance to media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Pending the TikTok deal, the U.S. said they want 6-of-7 board seats.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/21/trump-tiktok-murdoch-fox-bytedance.html

2025-09-26 Trump quipped that he would make the TikTok algorithm 100% MAGA if he could.

2026 March

2026-03-14 After Trump brokered a deal to sell TikTok to Larry Ellison, the Trump administration gained a $10B transactional payout, which is 70% of the company’s $14B worth.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/03/donald-trump-tiktok-deal-10-billion-ellison-bytedance-china/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/business/trump-tiktok-10-billion-fee.html

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5787721-trump-equity-stakes-companies/

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/22/deal-for-us-ownership-of-tiktok-is-closed-company-says-00743145

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/18/nx-s1-5648844/tiktok-deal-oracle-trump