Kate Conger

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia unsealed a ruling that Google must allow its ad technology to work with rival products and share more data with customers to weaken the company’s dominance in online marketing, effectively ensuring that the tech titan’s business will continue largely unscathed. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema found that Google broke the law to protect its control over technology that places ads on pages across the web.

When Google prepared to go public in 2004, Larry Page, a co-founder of the company, wrote a letter to shareholders describing the internet firm’s responsibility to the world. “We believe a well-functioning society should have abundant, free and unbiased access to high-quality information,” Page said. Google fulfilled that responsibility by acting as a gateway to the internet.

The Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into Media Matters, a liberal advocacy organization that has published research on hateful and antisemitic content on X, according to two people familiar with the inquiry. The regulator said in a letter sent to the organization that it was investigating the group, which is aligned with Democrats, over whether it illegally colluded with advertisers.

X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, has enjoyed a number of perks since Musk became omnipresent at President Trump’s side. Since the election, the platform has become a go-to source for administration information, as Musk provides real-time updates about his Department of Government Efficiency and targets for federal cost-cutting to his more than 219 million followers. In February, at least a dozen government agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and Defense Department, established new DOGE-focused X accounts to seek tips about federal waste and fraud.

Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is now accessible across the White House campus. It is the latest installation of the Wi-Fi network across the government since Mr. Musk joined the Trump administration as an unpaid adviser. It was not immediately clear when the White House complex was fitted with Starlink after President Trump took office for a second term. Starlink terminals, rectangular panels that receive internet signals beamed from SpaceX satellites in low-Earth orbit, can be placed on physical structures.

As Elon Musk digs into the federal bureaucracy in his crusade to slash government spending, he has a tool that no aspiring cost-cutter has had before: his own giant social media platform to debate, shame and bludgeon anyone who stands in his way.

X filed a lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of major advertisers, claiming that it had violated antitrust laws by coordinating with brands to dissuade them from spending money on the social media platform.

Roughly 30 minutes after Donald Trump was shot, Elon Musk backed his bid for the White House. Musk entered uncharted territory. He broke with tradition set by the leaders of other major social media firms, none of whom have endorsed a presidential candidate.

X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, slowed down access from its platform to rival sites such as Substack and Facebook, but has begun reversing an effort to restrict its users from quickly viewing news sites. The slowness, known in tech parlance as “throttling,” initially affected rival social networks including Facebook, Bluesky and Instagram, as well as the newsletter site Substack and news outlets including Reuters and The New York Times.

Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day. Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day. And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr.