Jun 21st 2026
This Week in Tech 1089
Robot Butt Crack
Hosted by
Leo Laporte
Anthropic Banned, But Winning
New episodes every Sunday.
AI giants are battling not just in code, but in politics, with behind-the-scenes lobbying, strategic naming, and rumors of blockbuster deals at the heart of this week’s wildest tech stories. Get the inside scoop on who’s pulling the strings.
- Apparently The Real Reason Anthropic’s Models Are Offline: A Six-Year-Old Trump Grudge
- Trump says he no longer views Anthropic as a national security threat after G7 meeting with CEO
- Exclusive | Apple to Raise Prices Due to Memory Chip Crunch, Tim Cook Says
- Elon Musk’s Next Move May Be a Mega-Merger of SpaceX and Tesla
- Anthropic's latest feud with the Trump admin may actually help it, sales data suggests
- Google’s Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving for OpenAI
- Google’s Secret Warrant Fight Over DOJ Pipe Bomb Probe Revealed
- The UK Places a Sweeping Ban on Social Media for Kids Under 16
- Meta lobbies Congress for protection from child-harm lawsuits
- Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 robotaxis to stop them driving into highway construction zones
- Snap Launches $2,195 Specs, Declaring Glasses the Next Computer
- Fox wants to take over your TV — and the tech inside it
- Midjourney goes from generating cat images to full-body ultrasound scans
- Nothing cancels this year’s CMF phone due to RAM prices
- The AI IPO boom is different
- Joshua Baer, Capital Factory Founder, Dies in Laredo Plane Crash - RuntimeWire
- Ubisoft's co-founder Claude Guillemot dies in plane crash
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Links
- Apparently The Real Reason Anthropic’s Models Are Offline: A Six-Year-Old Trump Grudge
- Trump says he no longer views Anthropic as a national security threat after G7 meeting with CEO
- Exclusive | Apple to Raise Prices Due to Memory Chip Crunch, Tim Cook Says
- Elon Musk’s Next Move May Be a Mega-Merger of SpaceX and Tesla
- Anthropic's latest feud with the Trump admin may actually help it, sales data suggests | TechCrunch
- Google’s Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving for OpenAI
- Google’s Secret Warrant Fight Over DOJ Pipe Bomb Probe Revealed
- The UK Places a Sweeping Ban on Social Media for Kids Under 16
- Meta lobbies Congress for protection from child-harm lawsuits
- Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 robotaxis to stop them driving into highway construction zones | TechCrunch
- Snap Launches $2,195 Specs, Declaring Glasses the Next Computer
- Fox wants to take over your TV — and the tech inside it
- Midjourney goes from generating cat images to full-body ultrasound scans
- Nothing cancels this year’s CMF phone due to RAM prices
- The AI IPO boom is different
- Joshua Baer, Capital Factory Founder, Dies in Laredo Plane Crash - RuntimeWire
- Ubisoft's co-founder Claude Guillemot dies in plane crash