America's government and technology giants are fusing into a codependent superstructure in a race to dominate AI and space for the next generation, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: The merging of Washington and Silicon Valley is driven by necessity — and fierce urgency.

The U.S. government needs AI expertise and dominance to beat China to the next big technological and geopolitical shift — but can't pull this off without the help of Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Nvidia and many others.

• These companies can't scale AI, and reap trillions in value, without government helping ease the way with more energy, more data, more chips and more precious minerals. These are the essential ingredients of superhuman intelligence.

🖼️ The big picture: Under President Trump, both are getting what they want, as reported by Axios' Zachary Basu:

1. The White House has cultivated a deep relationship with America's AI giants — championing the $500 billion "Stargate" infrastructure initiative led by OpenAI, Oracle, Japan's SoftBank, and the UAE's MGX.

• Trump was joined by top AI executives — including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Amazon's Andy Jassy and Palantir's Alex Karp — during his whirlwind tour of the Middle East this month.
• Trump sought to fuse U.S. tech ambitions with Gulf sovereign wealth, announcing a cascade of deals to bring cutting-edge chips and data centers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
• Trump and his tech allies envision a geopolitical alliance to outpace China, flood the globe with American AI, and cement control over the energy and data pipelines of the future.

2. Back at home, the Trump administration is downplaying the risks posed by AI to American workers, and eliminating regulatory obstacles to quicker deployment of AI.

• Trump signed a series of executive orders last week to hasten the deployment of new nuclear power reactors, with the goal of quadrupling total U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050.
• Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Congress that AI is "the next Manhattan Project" — warning that losing to China is "not an option" and that government must "get out of the way."
• The House version of Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill," which passed last week, would impose a 10-year ban on any state and local laws that regulate AI.
• AI companies big and small are winning the U.S. government's most lucrative contracts — especially at the Pentagon, where they're displacing legacy contractors as the beating heart of the military-industrial complex.

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Lost in the rush to win the AI arms race is any real public discussion of the rising risks, Jim and Mike continue in their column:

• The risk of Middle East nations and companies, empowered with U.S. AI technology, helping their other ally, China, in this arms race.
• The possibility, if not likelihood, of massive white-collar job losses as companies shift from humans to AI agents. (Read our column from Wednesday.)
• The dangers of the U.S. government becoming so reliant on a small set of companies.
• The vulnerabilities of private data on U.S. citizens.

🔎 Zoom in: The Great Fusing has created a new class of middlemen — venture capitalists, founders and influencers who shuttle between Silicon Valley and Washington, shaping policy while still reaping tech's profits.

• Elon Musk could become the government's main supplier of space rockets, satellites, internet connectivity, robots and other autonomous technologies. And with what he's learned via DOGE, Musk's xAI is well-positioned to package AI products and then sell them back to the U.S. government.
• David Sacks, Trump's AI and crypto czar, acts as the premier translator between the two worlds — running point on policy, deals, and narrative through his government role, tech network, and popular "All-In" podcast.
• Marc Andreessen, whose VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has stakes in nearly every major AI startup, has been a chief evangelist of the pro-acceleration, anti-regulation doctrine at the core of Trump's AI agenda.

🥊 Reality check: The Great Fusing has been led more by Silicon Valley iconoclasts (Musk) than the incumbent stalwarts (including Mark Zuckerberg), who have rushed to align with the emerging gravitational pull.

🎓 Tech-education nexus: Silicon Valley, facing a new race for AI engineers, cheered during the campaign when Trump floated automatic green cards for foreign students who graduated from U.S. colleges.

• But so far, tech moguls have been relatively quiet as Trump halted all student visa interviews and tried to ban international matriculation to Harvard.

🪖 New defense reality: Palantir, Anduril and other advanced defense tech companies have more Pentagon traction than ever, robotics companies are surging and entire industries are being born — including undersea drones and space-based weapons.

• Share this column ... Dan Primack and Zachary Basu contributed reporting.

At any moment, a Truth Social post — and now a court ruling — can upend the global trade system, Axios' Courtenay Brown writes.

• Why it matters: The world economy has never seen anything like this. The tariff legal fight injects new uncertainty into what was already a historically unpredictable situation.

After an appeals court ruled that Trump's sweeping tariffs could remain for now, a port official told Axios yesterday: "One day it makes sense to ship and the next day it doesn't."

👀 The intrigue: Europe's trade delegation was in Washington this week, just as it became clear courts could kill many of the tariffs that brought them to the negotiating table.

• "It makes no sense to negotiate about that," Bernd Lange, a key European Parliament lawmaker leading the trade delegation, told Axios, referring to the "Liberation Day" tariffs that might ultimately be illegal.
• "I guess now we have a better position for negotiation," Lange said just minutes before the appeals court issued its stay — a sign of how quickly dynamics can change.

⏰ Lange admitted that he has started waking up a half-hour earlier since Trump was inaugurated "to follow the news coming from the United States." He is on Truth Social.

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Elon Musk, who officially leaves the White House today, claims DOGE saved $175 billion in taxpayer spending. An outside analysis estimates the verified savings are closer to $16 billion, Axios' Neal Rothschild writes.

• Why it matters: Even those savings are at risk of being washed away by Trump's "One, Big Beautiful Bill."

By the numbers: The bill, which passed the House last week, is projected to add $3 trillion to $5 trillion to budget deficits over the next 10 years.

• Even using Musk's most generous estimate, those DOGE savings would amount to just 6% of the bill's projected increase to the deficit.

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More employees are using generative AI at work and many are keeping it a secret, Axios' Megan Morrone writes.

• Why it matters: Absent clear policies, workers are taking an "ask forgiveness, not permission" approach to chatbots, risking workplace friction and costly mistakes.

The big picture: Secret AI use proliferates when companies lack clear guidelines, because favorite tools are banned or because employees want a competitive edge over coworkers.

• Fear plays a big part too — fear of being judged, and fear that using the tool will make it look like they can be replaced by it.

🧮 By the numbers: 42% of office workers use generative AI tools like ChatGPT at work. 1 in 3 of those workers say they keep the use secret, according to research out this month from security software company Ivanti.

• A McKinsey report from January showed employees are using AI for significantly more of their work than leaders think they are.

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The FBI is investigating a "clandestine effort to impersonate White House chief of staff Susie Wiles" after someone pretending to be her called and texted prominent Republicans and business executives, The Wall Street Journal's Josh Dawsey reports.

• Why it matters: Wiles has told people that the contacts on her personal cellphone were hacked, "giving the impersonator access to the private phone numbers of some of the country's most influential people."

"Some of the calls featured a voice that sounded like Wiles, people who heard them said. Government officials think the impersonator used artificial intelligence to imitate Wiles' voice," The Journal notes.

• FBI officials don't believe a foreign country is involved.

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The State Department plans to create an "Office of Remigration" in a sweeping reorganization drive tied to the Trump administration's efforts to deport millions of immigrants, Axios' Russell Contreras and Marc Caputo report.

• Why it matters: The term "remigration" is a concept critics say has a troubled history in Europe, where it's used by far-right groups. The proposed office would signal the State Department's shift from helping refugees to removing immigrants.

The proposed State Department overhaul — announced yesterday — would cut various programs and staff, including an office responsible for resettling Afghan allies who supported U.S. military operations.

• Keep reading.

Faizan Zaki, 13, from Allen, Texas, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee last night — a year after finishing second in a spell-off tiebreaker.

• The winning word: "éclaircissement" — a clearing up of something obscure.

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