President Donald Trump signaled Saturday a deal could be underway soon to ‘save’ TikTok from a looming ban, and Republican state attorneys general – many skeptical of the app’s security – are waiting to see if it comes to fruition.
‘I have spoken to many people about TikTok and there is great interest in TikTok,’ Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on a flight to Florida, Reuters reported.
The reported deal Trump is working on involves partnering with software company Oracle and a group of outside investors to take control of the app’s operations. According to sources familiar with the matter, ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, would maintain a stake in the platform under the proposed deal. However, Oracle would take control of data management and software updates, leveraging its existing role in supporting TikTok’s web infrastructure, two sources told Reuters.
‘President Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to save TikTok, and there’s no better dealmaker than Donald Trump,’ Trump’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously told Fox News Digital.
Several Republican state attorneys general have actively pursued actions to ban TikTok, citing national security concerns and potential data privacy issues. In December 2024, 22 attorneys general, including those from Virginia and Montana, filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the ‘divest-or-ban’ law against TikTok. The law mandates that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, divest its U.S. operations or face a potential ban due to national security concerns.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also initiated legal action against TikTok earlier this month, alleging ‘TikTok lied about its safety standards and concealed the truth about the prevalence of inappropriate and explicit material,’ according to his office’s news release. Paxton’s lawsuit doesn’t mention the app’s ban.
A source close to several Republican state attorneys general told Fox News Digital on Monday that they’re confident if anyone can make a deal to protect the U.S. from the Chinese Communist Party, it’s Trump, but if it poses a threat to national security, then it should be banned.
Republicans aren’t the only ones concerned about TikTok. Several Democratic state attorneys general have actively pursued legal actions against the social media app, too. In October 2024, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and New York Attorney General Letitia James, along with 12 other states and the District of Columbia, filed a lawsuit alleging that TikTok exploits and harms young users and deceives the public about the social media platform’s dangers.
While Trump tried to ban the app from U.S. access during his first administration, he credited TikTok for reaching young voters during the 2024 presidential campaign.
TikTok went dark earlier this month after ByteDance had nine months to sell TikTok to an approved buyer but opted, along with TikTok, to take legal action against the law. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law, citing national security risks because of its ties to China.
The app was reinstated for U.S. users the following day, with Trump promising an executive order to extend TikTok’s sale.
‘Welcome back!’ the TikTok message read. ‘Thank you for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!’
Fox News Digital has reached out to TikTok for comment.
Fox Business’ Alexandra Koch, Bradford Betz and Landon Mion contributed to this report.
That’s exactly what first lady Melania Trump is doing in her new official White House portrait that was released Monday afternoon.
The first lady is seen in a striking power pose – leaning slightly forward with her hands resting on a table.
The black and white portrait was captured by esteemed photographer Régine Mahaux. It was taken on January 21, 2024, in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House, according to the office of the first lady.
Trump, a former fashion model, is seen posing in business attire – opting for a dark-colored suit with a crisp white shirt underneath. Trump’s hair is down and wavy. Her nails are meticulously manicured.
The portrait was met with praise online.
‘Easily the most stunning First Lady in American history,’ one user wrote on X.
‘Melania really exudes power in this photo — especially with the Washington Monument standing tall in the background,’ another praised.
Others speculated the first lady was attempting to send a message.
‘This time, Melania is out for revenge,’ an X user wrote.
While another said, ‘Her revenge tour is going to be awesome!’
A group of Democratic senators previewed several anti-vaccine arguments during a roundtable discussion, including a claim that vaccines cause autism, several days before Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s scheduled confirmation hearings later this week.
Even though Kennedy’s name was ‘not supposed’ to come up during the hearing, according to at least one of the health experts present at the discussion, his nomination to be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was invoked frequently by lawmakers seeking answers about how to combat anti-vaccine claims and so-called ‘misinformation,’ including arguments about vaccines that Kennedy has promoted in the past.
One claim the senators asked the public health experts at the roundtable about was whether vaccines cause autism, a claim Kennedy has discussed publicly in interviews.
‘This is something that I hear a concern about quite a lot,’ Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., asked the panel. ‘What, if any information, can you give us to help us push back against that?’
The doctors on the panel explained the lack of robust studies proving this link while highlighting the wide breadth of studies that have shown no links between vaccines and autism.
‘Academic researchers, pediatricians, scientists took that concern seriously enough to spend tens of millions of dollars to answer the question,’ said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician with an expertise in virology and immunology. ‘The more impactful part of your question is how do you get that information out there, because frankly, once you’ve scared people it’s hard to unscare them.’
Offitt added that since there is no clear cause of autism, it makes it harder to refute claims from Kennedy and others. Dr. Joshua Sharfstein of Johns Hopkins pointed lawmakers to preeminent medical authorities within the U.S., such as the National Academy of Sciences, as places they could go for evidence that vaccines do not cause autism.
The Democratic group of lawmakers, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, asked questions about, and learned ways to refute, other anti-vaccine claims, such as whether vaccine manufacturers are immune from being held accountable for vaccine injuries.
The experts pointed out the presence of a National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program that allows certain vaccine injury victims to receive compensation from the government, but they suggested that if Kennedy upended the current system and opened up more companies to liability, it could potentially put vaccine manufacturers out of business.
‘Am I right that the HHS secretary has some discretion about removing vaccines from that list [and opening them up to civil litigation] if they were to choose?’ asked Sen. Time Kaine, D-Va. ‘Because if that were the case, I would obviously worry about – that would be one worry I would have and a set of questions I might like to ask people nominated for positions within HHS.’
Other questions from lawmakers that the health experts helped answer included queries about how to distinguish between vaccine side effects versus vaccine complications, how to combat claims that vaccines are not studied enough, questions about how the government monitors the safety of vaccines, questions about how undermining vaccine efficacy can impact public health and more.
Kennedy will face tough questions about his stance on vaccines this week during his confirmation hearings in front of both the Senate Committee on Finance and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP).
The chair of the Senate’s HELP committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., called Kennedy ‘wrong’ on vaccines during an interview earlier this month.
Democrats, meanwhile, have been more pointed about their criticism. During the roundtable discussion with public health experts, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., called Kennedy ‘dangerous’ and ‘unqualified’ for the position of HHS secretary.
‘The bird flu, if it explodes, we’re going to need to have some confidence, especially in those people who should be vaccinated, that they can trust the government when they say that it’s safe, they can trust the medical community, and I’m just very afraid of Robert F. Kennedy’s candidacy,’ Markey said.
‘Say goodbye to your smile and say hello to polio,’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said after news of Kennedy’s nomination to head HHS. ‘This is a man who wants to stop kids from getting their polio and measles shots. He’s actually welcoming a return to polio, a disease we nearly eradicated.’
DORAL, Fla. — House Republicans brimmed with optimism after President Donald Trump’s speech at their annual retreat on Monday evening, where the new commander in chief detailed his policy goals for a busy first 100 days of the new administration.
Trump’s speech, which ran just over an hour, covered a wide range of issues, from post-election unity to his wishlist for Republicans’ conservative policy overhaul via the budget reconciliation process.
‘It was fun, you know? I mean, if you’re a Republican, Trump made politics fun again,’ House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. ‘I mean, it’s been an extraordinary week. There’s a blizzard of executive orders and actions. It’s actually pushed Congress on some action.’
Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., a first-term member of Congress, was buoyant when approached by Fox News Digital on the first night of his first House GOP issues conference, an annual Republican event.
‘This is exactly why we ran for office, to turn around this country as quickly as possible. And that the president was in full form tonight. And I’m so excited to be a part of this change,’ Haridopolos said. ‘You could feel the energy in the room, and I think people are very excited to get this agenda through, and more importantly see the results.’
It comes as Republicans negotiate on how to use their razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate to pass massive conservative policy changes through budget reconciliation.
By reducing the threshold for Senate passage from 60 votes to a 51-seat simple majority, reconciliation allows a party in control of both congressional chambers to enact sweeping changes, provided they’re relevant to budgetary and fiscal policy.
There has been some disagreement for weeks over how to package the GOP’s priorities, however. Senate Republicans have pushed for breaking the package up into two bills in order to score early victories on border security and energy policy while leaving the more complex issue of tax reform for a second bill.
House Republican leaders, however, are concerned that the heavy political lift that passing a reconciliation bill entails would mean lawmakers run out of time before they can extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which expire at the end of this year.
Trump, who previously said he favors ‘one big beautiful bill,’ was noncommittal on the strategy during his speech.
‘Whether it’s one bill, two bills, I don’t care,’ he said.
He was more specific about what policies he wanted to see passed, however, including more funding for border security, permanently extending his 2017 tax cuts and ending taxation for tips, Social Security benefits and overtime pay. Trump also has vowed to end green energy policies in favor of bolstering the fossil fuel sector.
Cole said he was concerned about the increase in federal spending that some of Trump’s specific policy goals would entail, but he conceded the president was likely speaking in generalities.
‘I think Trump, when he thinks about these things, he’s thinking about just the average person and what a burden it is on them,’ Cole said.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., one of three House Republicans who won in a district that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in November, praised Trump’s speech as ‘unifying’ but shared concerns with Trump’s broad-brush approach.
‘I thought that message is pretty unifying. I do. I think sometimes the execution gets all messy,’ Bacon said.
‘While I was in there, I had a businessman from Omaha that does wind energy, and he’s worried about what that means. So I think it … could be a little more targeted. Sometimes I think people on the periphery are scared that their business will be impacted.’
But National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who is tasked with leading Republicans through the 2026 midterm elections, said leaders would hash out specifics as needed while crediting Trump with bringing the GOP together.
‘We’ll see how the details shake out in these couple of days. But what I thought was great is he kept coming back to his theme: If all Republicans stick together, we can be successful. And I thought that was a good message for all members,’ Hudson said.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said she was ‘very happy to hear’ Trump call for a lower tax rate for new domestic manufacturing, particularly in relation to pharmaceuticals.
It’s an issue she hopes Republicans will tackle in their reconciliation process.
‘It was important that President Trump stressed unity as we enter the timeframe for drafting and passing reconciliation, extending the tax package,’ Malliotakis said.
And Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, also praised Trump’s speech while dismissing concerns about his lack of commitment toward a one- or two-reconciliation bill strategy.
‘He’s a results-oriented guy, and we all know that. And what we need to do is whatever is necessary to get the results for the American people and put his policies in place,’ Moran said.
Weeks after the Republicans’ triumphant performances in the November elections, it is primary day once again in Northwest Florida.
Voters in Florida’s 1st Congressional District will select a GOP candidate on Tuesday, who will likely succeed former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in the House of Representatives.
The district, which covers part of the Florida panhandle, is heavily Republican. President Donald Trump won the area in his last three elections, and Gaetz himself held the seat from January 2017 until he resigned late last year.
There are 10 Republicans running to replace Gaetz in the Tuesday primary.
They include Aaron Dimmock, whom ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., backed last year in a bid to force Gaetz out of office.
Gaetz had triggered the maneuver that eventually led to McCarthy’s ouster from power after less than a year as House speaker.
However, the favorite going into the race is likely Jimmy Patronis, who has been endorsed by Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
‘A fourth generation Floridian from the beautiful Panhandle, and owner of an iconic seafood restaurant, Jimmy has been a wonderful friend to me, and to MAGA,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform earlier this month.
‘As your next Congressman, Jimmy will work tirelessly alongside of me to Grow our Economy, Secure our Border, Stop Migrant Crime, Secure our Border, Strengthen our Brave Military/Vets, Restore American Energy DOMINANCE, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment.’
Tuesday is also bringing a special primary election for Florida’s 6th Congressional District to replace Trump’s new national security adviser, former Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla.
Both general elections, expected to be won by Republicans, will take place April 1.
Gaetz resigned from Congress abruptly last year after Trump tapped him to be his attorney general, though Gaetz eventually withdrew himself from consideration amid growing Republican opposition.
It also came as the House Ethics Committee had been preparing its report on allegations against Gaetz that included illicit drug use and sex with a minor, all of which he has denied.
The Senate is poised to vote on whether to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Transportation over the next four years.
Trump tapped Sean Duffy, a former congressman, a father of nine and a former Fox News host, to serve as secretary of transportation under his administration, calling him a ‘tremendous and well-liked public servant.’
Duffy underwent a grilling by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee this month, eventually advancing to a full Senate vote with unanimous, bipartisan support.
A cloture vote for Duffy’s confirmation was held Monday evening, which, upon its passing, meant the chamber would conclude its debate over his nomination and proceed to a final vote.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on whether to confirm Duffy on Tuesday afternoon.
If confirmed, Duffy will assume the position last held by former President Joe Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
Buttigieg faced criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for his handling of transportation issues over the years, such as waiting 10 days to address the 2023 Ohio train derailment and widespread calls to hold airlines accountable for flight delays.
As the new administration takes shape, lawmakers are making suggestions about what they would like to see in the new transportation head.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah called for the Trump administration to abolish the Transportation Security Administration.
Additionally, during Duffy’s confirmation hearing, Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Ted Budd, R-N.C., highlighted the importance of making sure Hurricane Helene victims are ‘not forgotten’ after a stretch of a highway in North Carolina collapsed into the Pigeon River.
Tuesday’s vote comes as Senate Republicans have been working to confirm Trump’s Cabinet nominees, holding a rare vote on Saturday to push through Kristi Noem as secretary of Homeland Security.
GOP Rep. Abe Hamadeh is praising President Trump’s swift actions on illegal immigration in the first days of his presidency and told Fox News Digital that the president has ‘learned a lot from 2017’ and that he expects more of the same in the future.
‘President Trump campaigned on this and he’s delivering it for the American people,’ the freshman congressman told Fox News Digital in an interview. ‘If you look at the polling, even Democrats are in favor of deportations of illegal immigrants. So right now, he’s deporting the most dangerous illegal immigrants and you’re starting to see the raids and it’s quite a sight to see because for too long, the Biden administration, they prioritized illegal immigrants over American citizens.’
‘They treated American citizens as second-class citizens and President Trump is about America first. So these deportation raids, it’s happened so fast and that’s exactly his style of leadership. He knows he has no time to waste and delivering the results for the American people as they already voted for these policies back on November 5th. So far, so good.’
Hamadeh told Fox News Digital that Trump ‘learned a lot from 2017’ and this time around knows ‘exactly what to do’ to get his agenda accomplished.
Republicans recently successfully pushed the Laken Riley Act through Congress, with 48 Democrat votes, which Hamadeh told Fox News Digital should have been a unanimous vote and doesn’t necessarily mean Democrats are embracing Trump’s agenda.
‘It’s kind of funny because many of the Democrats actually voted against the Laken Riley Act when it was in Congress last session, but now they’re supporting it because they see electorally that it’s beneficial to them.’
‘So no we always have to be cognizant of that. A lot of these Democrats don’t have any principles that they’re standing on. They just saw that they got shellacked in the end in the election, November 5th. So they’re trying to moderate themselves or appear to be moderate. But honestly it should have gotten unanimous support.’
Hamadeh said Laken Riley’s murder at the hands of an illegal immigrant was a ‘tragedy’ that was ‘totally preventable’ by the Biden administration who ‘opened the floodgates to millions of illegal immigrants.’
Going forward, House Republicans will have to navigate a razor-thin majority in the House and be in lockstep in order to push through Trump’s agenda which Hamadeh said he is optimistic will happen.
I see my colleagues all the time and everybody understands that President Trump delivered the victory for many of them and that’s what’s different about this time around versus 2017,’ Hamadeh explained. ‘Now, a lot of Republicans, you know, they’re on the same page, leadership’s on the same page. We’re all working together, no matter if you’re moderate, no matter if you’re MAGA, it’s a testament to see how Speaker Mike Johnson won his speakership on the first vote versus what happened two years ago, and it’s something to be seen. It’s really beautiful out here.’
Hamadeh continued, ‘It’s been a lot easier for me being a freshman congressman to see us all united, unlike how it used to be in the past. But these executive orders have been fantastic. Every Republican is all in favor of them. You know, I’m especially happy about the designation of the drug cartels as a foreign terrorist organization and Arizona is as well, because we understand we have to go to war against these cartels. So just seeing the action that President Trump is doing so fast and his team is doing so fast is a testament to his leadership style and something that Congress must emulate and must back him up.’
When the Trump administration announced a return-to-office mandate this week, it stated Americans “deserve the highest-quality service from people who love our country.”
Federal employees like Frank Paulsen say that comment suggests they aren’t hardworking or loyal.
Paulsen, 50, is the vice president of the Local 1641 chapter of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a federal workers union. He works as a nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Spokane, Washington, and has been teleworking three days a week since 2022. His main job involves processing referrals to send patients to community health care partners, something he can do remotely.
Paulsen said he has been a federal employee for 22 years and is a disabled veteran himself. And he doesn’t think anyone he works with isn’t measuring up.
“I do not believe that I would subscribe to that belief at all,” Paulsen said. “My co-workers are very diligent about getting the work done.”
On Monday, Trump signed an executive order mandating all federal agencies order their employees back into the office full time “as soon as practicable” alongside a directive to end remote-work arrangements except as deemed necessary.
Late Wednesday, administration officials released a more detailed directive demanding the termination of all remote-work arrangements, alongside a statement that it’s a “glaring roadblock” to increasing government performance that most federal offices are “virtually abandoned.”
The GOP has long bemoaned the state of the federal bureaucracy. But the Trump administration appears to be making good on promises to overhaul it, in part supported by Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest donor, who is now serving as a semiofficial adviser.
“This is about fairness: it’s not fair that most people have to come to work to build products or provide services while Federal Government employees get to stay home,” Musk wrote on X following the order’s signing.
Though it represents just a sliver of the nation’s overall workforce, the U.S. government is the country’s largest employer, with more than 2 million civilian employees. Some 162,000 workers alone are located in Washington, D.C., according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and federal workers make up over 40% of the city’s workforce.
But most federal workers, like Paulsen, actually work in other parts of the country: Only 7.56% of federal employees work in D.C.
Yet whatever their location, many workers like Paulsen are responding to Trump’s RTO order with concern. There are practical worries: Paulsen has questioned whether the office he works in, which the VA leases, has enough seats for everyone employed by his division. Another VA employee, who requested anonymity because she didn’t want her program targeted, echoed space concerns, especially in settings where sensitive medical information is discussed.
Paulsen said he is planning for a return to the office five days a week no matter what.
“The guidance we give our employees is basically, don’t put yourself in a position to get fired,” he said.
Morale has never been lower on one metastatic cancer research team within the VA, an employee there told NBC News. She requested her name not be used because she didn’t want her team to lose funding. Two people on her team are remote workers and the employee said she works from home two days a week, doing administrative tasks and data analysis.
Guidance was changing by the hour on Thursday, she said. With a contract that renews every three years, the employee said she was told by management at one point to start looking for new jobs, then was later alerted by a higher-up that she fell into the VA’s list of exemptions.
Lunch hour at a restaurant in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in 2021.Drew Angerer / Getty Images file
The fate of her remote colleagues and telework options remains unclear, she said. They work with veterans across the country, and the team worried for those whose treatments could be canceled without them.
“It just doesn’t feel good to go into work knowing that you don’t know if you’re going to have a job in a few months,” she said.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who works in Washington, D.C., said he and his colleagues are making backup plans. They all have telework arrangements, and some work remotely — hourslong drives from the nearest federal office. He views the executive order as an attempt to force people to quit. He wanted to remain anonymous because he fears retaliation.
“The feeling is there’s an ax over our heads,” he said.
The Trump administration has said that just 6% of federal employees now work in person. But according to an August report from the Office of Management and Budget, among federal workers eligible for telework — and excluding those who are fully remote — roughly 61% of work hours are now in person.
Among agencies, the Department of Agriculture had the highest percentage of in-person work hours, at 81%; while the Environmental Protection Agency had the lowest, at about 36%.
The Biden administration had already been keeping an eye on return-to-office implementation as the Covid-19 pandemic waned, with regular reports being issued on how much telework was being used by each federal agency.
In December, an OPM survey found 75% of telework-eligible employees had participated in telework in fiscal year 2023, though that was 12 percentage points lower than in fiscal year 2022.
The report said there had been positive results from a hybrid setup.
“Agencies report notable improvements in recruitment and retention, enhanced employee performance and organizational productivity, and considerable cost savings when utilizing telework as an element of their hybrid work environments,” it said.
A GOP-sponsored House Oversight Committee report this week accused the Biden administration of exaggerating in-office attendance, citing “physical and anecdotal evidence,” while accusing it of taking a “pliant” posture toward federal union groups as they sought more generous telework arrangements.
Even as it praised Trump’s desire to improve federal workforce accountability and performance, the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan think tank focused on government effectiveness, said in a statement that the return-to-office order was an example of overreach.
‘While any move toward making the government more responsive to the public should be welcomed, it said, the actions announced in Trump’s workforce-related executive orders put that goal “farther out of reach.”
On a press call with reporters this week, Partnership CEO Max Stier saidtelework is necessary to attract more qualified employees who already tend to enjoy higher salaries in the private sector.
In a follow-up statement, Stier warned of the dramatic impact the order will have on career civil servants’ personal lives.
“The affected employees are everyday people who have to support themselves and their families, and the abrupt and rushed approach chosen here will have a traumatizing impact on not just them but their colleagues who remain in their roles serving the public, as well,” Stier said.
Social media forums frequented by government workers have also lit up, with many raising questions about how agencies were expected to comply given that many have been downsizing their office space.
Even before the pandemic ushered in widespread work-from-home policies, 2010 legislation cited telework for federal employees as a way to reduce office costs and promote resilience in emergency situations, as long as employees continued to meet performance expectations.
The Wall Street Journal reported the government was looking to sell off many of its commercial real estate holdings. NBC News could not independently confirm the report.
Unions representing federal employees have slammed the new policy, saying it would undermine the government’s effectiveness and make it harder for agencies to recruit top talent.
“Rather than undoing decades of progress in workplace policies that have benefited both employees and their employers, I encourage the Trump administration to rethink its approach and focus on what it can do to make government programs work better for the American people,” Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement.
The AFGE’s contracts with major government firms, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education, establish procedures for telework and remote work in accordance with the 2010 law. The union said the order “doesn’t appear to violate any collective bargaining agreements,” and whether it would file a lawsuit depends on how the policy is implemented.
“If they violate our contracts, we will take appropriate action to uphold our rights,” the AFGE said in a statement.
The NFFE, Paulsen’s union, likewise said the executive orders would “impair critical services” and viewed the termination of remote work arrangements as an attempt to force employees to quit.
“I am worried about this administration violating those contracts with regard to telework,” Randy Erwin, the national president of the NFFE, told NBC News.
One sector that would stand to benefit from the mandate is local business in downtown Washington, D.C.
Gerren Price, the president of the DowntownDC Business Improvement District, which covers an area to the east of the White House, said only about half of the office space within its boundaries is occupied. Price said 27% of that office space is owned and operated by the federal government.
From coffee shops to dry cleaners, local businesses that used to cater to a nine-to-five crowd have closed, Price said.
Leona Agouridis, the president of the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, which encompasses an area between the White House and Dupont Circle a mile to the north, said the neighborhood hasn’t felt as busy as it did before the pandemic.
“This will go a long way in bringing back vibrancy that we have lost over the last five years,” Agouridis said.
At the Tune Inn, a restaurant and bar that has served D.C.’s Capitol Hill neighborhood since 1947, general manager Stephanie Hulbert is bringing back a federal worker lunch discount, which the establishment had done away with after the pandemic because no one used it. She knows this policy will change many federal workers’ lives, but hopes they can help each other out.
“I really hope that when these workers do come back, they come and support the small businesses that need it in D.C.,” Hulbert said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get the morale up to where it needs to be.”
Shares of chipmaker Nvidia plunged Monday, for its worst day since the global market sell-off in March 2020 triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The plunge came amid a global tech stock sell-off over fears about America’s leadership in the AI sector. Those fears were largely sparked by advances claimed by a Chinese artificial intelligence startup.
Shares of the chipmaker, one of the primary beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom in tech stocks, plummeted as much as 18%. That pushed Nvidia’s market value below $3 trillion. Still, shares of the firm are up more than 480% over the last two years.
The drop accounted for nearly $600 billion in lost market value though. It is the biggest market value drop in U.S. stock market history, according to Bloomberg. And nearly double the second worst drop in history, also seen by Nvidia shareholders in September 2024, when the company shed $279 billion in value.
For some perspective, the amount of market value lost by Nvidia on Monday is more than the entire market value of Exxon Mobil, Costco, Home Depot or Bank of America.
Due to the AI-fueled surge in mega-cap tech stocks, Nvidia catapulted into the top five most valuable companies in the world in 2023. The surge didn’t stop there, with the company soaring past Alphabet, Microsoft and the most valuable company in the world: Apple. At its most recent peak, Nvidia reached a towering $3.7 trillion.
With Monday’s losses, Apple has retaken the title of world’s most valuable company and Nvidia’s value sank to around $2.9 trillion.
Nvidia’s drop was also a drag on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which finished the day higher but began the day in the red. Nvidia joined the prestigious 30-stock index in November, replacing rival chipmaker Intel. The Nasdaq Composite, which more closely tracks publicly traded tech companies, slid around 3%.
The global sell-off in tech stocks also meant the S&P Technology sector fell into the red for the year so far, the only sector lower over that time.
DeepSeek on Monday said it would temporarily limit user registrations “due to large-scale malicious attacks” on its services, though existing users will be able to log in as usual.
The Chinese artificial intelligence startup has generated a lot of buzz in recent weeks as a fast-growing rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and other leading AI tools.
Earlier on Monday, DeepSeek took over rival OpenAI’s coveted spot as the most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple’s App Store, dethroning ChatGPT for DeepSeek’s own AI Assistant. It helped inspire a significant selloff in global tech stocks.
Buzz about the company, which was founded in 2023 and released its R1 model last week, has spread to tech analysts, investors and developers, who say that the hype — and ensuing fear of falling behind in the ever-changing AI hype cycle — may be warranted. Especially in the era of the generative AI arms race, where tech giants and startups alike are racing to ensure they don’t fall behind in a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.
DeepSeek reportedly grew out of a Chinese hedge fund’s AI research unit in April 2023 to focus on large language models and reaching artificial general intelligence, or AGI — a branch of AI that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks, which OpenAI and its rivals say they’re fast pursuing.
The buzz around DeepSeek especially began to spread last week, when the startup released R1, its reasoning model that rivals OpenAI’s o1. It’s open-source, meaning that any AI developer can use it, and has rocketed to the top of app stores and industry leaderboards, with users praising its performance and reasoning capabilities.
The startup’s models were notably built despite the U.S. curbing chip exports to China three times in three years. Estimates differ on exactly how much DeepSeek’s R1 costs, or how many GPUs went into it. Jefferies analysts estimated that a recent version had a “training cost of only US$5.6m (assuming US$2/H800 hour rental cost). That is less than 10% of the cost of Meta’s Llama.”
But regardless of the specific numbers, reports agree that the model was developed at a fraction of the cost of rival models by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others.
As a result, the AI sector is awash with questions, including whether the industry’s increasing number of astronomical funding rounds and billion-dollar valuations is necessary — and whether a bubble is about to burst.
