Plus, the president backs Vice President JD Vance in calling to rehire a DOGE staffer who resigned over racist posts on the social-media site X. And Amazon plans a massive capex investment on generative AI. Pierre Bienaimé hosts.
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[00:00:32] TNB Tech Minute for Friday, February 7th. I'm Pierre Bien-Aimé for The Wall Street Journal. The Trump administration has halted federal funding for new electric vehicle charging stations. The White House said in a letter to transportation officials that it was suspending approval of state plans for spending about $5 billion in grants to add EV fast chargers along highway exits. The highway charging money was supposed to help U.S. drivers overcome what is known as range anxiety, the fear
[00:01:00] of running out of battery power while traveling long distances. And President Trump today backed his Vice President J.D. Vance in calling to rehire a Department of Government efficiency staffer who resigned yesterday over racist posts on the social media site X. While he didn't know the former staffer, the president said he supported the vice president. Marco Ales, who is 25, had been a special employee at
[00:01:24] the Treasury Department affiliated with Elon Musk's Doge team. He resigned after The Wall Street Journal asked the White House about his links to a deleted X account. Ales didn't respond to several requests for comment. An email sent today to his Treasury Department address bounced back. Amazon plans to allocate more than $100 billion in capital expenditure this year as part of a push to build generative artificial intelligence services. That's up 35% from last year's total. In a research
[00:01:54] note, UBS analysts estimate that about 70% of that will be allocated to Amazon Web Services. The four tech giants that spent the most on the data centers that power AI systems have all said in recent days that they would jack up investments further in 2025 after record outlays last year. Amazon's shares fell roughly 4% today. And it isn't just on this podcast. The commercials around this Sunday's Super Bowl will
[00:02:20] feature a lot of tech. They're expected to include the first TV commercial for OpenAI, for example, along with ads promoting AI features from Meta Platform's Ray-Ban smart glasses, Google's Pixel phones, and web services company GoDaddy. 30 seconds of ad time on Fox has cost buyers on average more than $7 million. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Monday's Tech News Briefing podcast.