WIRED Roundup: Chip Manufacturers Bonanza

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 572 Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode, Zöe is joined by WIRED’s Louise Matsakis to run through five of the best stories we published this week — from OpenAI’s being poised to become the highest valued startup in history, to how government staffing cuts have fueled an ant smuggling boom. Then, Zöe and Louise discuss the controversial deals that the Trump administration appears to be striking with chip manufacturers.

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Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from Alexis Ohanian's newest tech venture to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is Zoe. Before we start, I want to share some exciting news with you. We're doing a live show in San Francisco on September 9th in partnership with KQED. Uncanny Valley co-hosts Lauren Good and Michael Colore will sit down with our editor-in-chief, Katie Drummond, and a special guest for a conversation that you won't want to miss. You can use the link in the show notes to grab
0:21.4	your ticket and invite a friend. We can't wait to see you there. Welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoe Schiffer,
0:28.2	Wired's director of business and industry. Today on the show, we're bringing you five stories
0:33.4	that you need to know about this week, including the controversial deals that Trump appears to be
0:37.8	trying to strike with a number of chip manufacturers. I'm joined today by Wired's senior business
0:43.1	editor, Luis Metzakis. Luis, welcome to Uncanny Valley. Hi, Zoe. This week, we're going back to Doge.
0:57.3	We thought we left it behind, but it continues to pop up.
1:00.7	Wired found out that Doge set up a shadow account on X for a small government agency,
1:06.3	as in a second account that they just decided to create on their own.
1:10.9	And this happened at the Small Business Administration or SBA.
1:14.1	You'll be shocked to hear that the shadow account was named Doge underscore SBA.
1:19.5	So they weren't really trying to hide the fact that they made this account?
1:23.2	No, I think they were being pretty up front, but in somewhat classic Doge fashion, they didn't
1:29.8	clear it with the existing social media teams.
1:33.5	Our colleague Victoria Elliott reported that, according to documents, shared exclusively with
1:37.7	wire.
1:38.2	It was a member of the Doge staff that started and ran the new X account, and they did
1:42.1	so without clearing it with anyone first. And in at least
1:46.4	one instance, this shadow account from SBA appears to have accepted a complaint from a potential
1:52.6	whistleblower over direct message. So how did the staff at the SBA respond? I think they were
1:57.9	honestly quite surprised. It was a social media manager who emailed his
2:02.9	colleagues at the agency with a link to the account and said, how did I not see this before?
	...

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