Post

Trying to wrap your mind around what's happened this week (it's Wednesday)? Same... So for our clarity (and possibly yours) we're resharing some WIRED scoops in this refresher thread, starting with business leaders paying millions of dollars to dine with President Donald Trump.

WIRED also happened to learn just how much some of the bros inside Elon Musk's DOGE are making (six-figure taxpayer-funded salaries—sometimes from the very agencies they are cutting.)

And while some inside DOGE are collecting six-figure government salaries, WIRED also spoke to federal staffers across agencies about how Elon Musk's $1 spending limit is crippling their research, resources and more.

But wait... there's more. Several digital and human rights organizations who spoke to WIRED—most on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Trump administration or their own governments—say the cuts have undermined years of global democracy-building and free speech initiatives.

And the devastating impact of DOGE cuts are already reverberating across the world. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, without USAID, teams that would normally be racing to identify a fatal sickness are gone.

Despite this, Trump is still considering tariffs on Taiwanese chips. Enforcing the tariffs on Taiwan would be difficult, and they wouldn’t necessarily be enough to meaningfully increase semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, experts told WIRED

And finally, in the cryptoverse, Donald Trump provoked a riot of cryptocurrency trading and accusations of favoritism on Sunday after identifying several coins that may feature in a future US strategic crypto reserve. Here's how that'll unfold:

Okay we're done this thread. Not done the reporting, as our Global Editorial Director @katie-drummond.bsky.social says. If you love our work and want to support us in a bigger way, learn more here: wrd.cm/superfan-blu...