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This illustration photo show the Facebook page of former President Donald Trump on a smartphone screen in Los Angeles, March 17, 2023.

Chris Delmas | AFP | Getty Images

On Friday, Donald Trump wrote a message on his Truth Social messaging platform that was reminiscent of the waning days of his presidency, when his public posts got him kicked off Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

In complaining about a potential indictment, Trump warned of “potential death & destruction” should he be charged with a crime. Trump was reacting to the latest developments in a hush money probe and to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office has been leading the investigation.

Following the Jan. 6 Capitol attack over two years ago, the major U.S. social networks banned Trump, citing his threatening rhetoric and the risks of further violence if he were to remain on their platforms.

They’ve since welcomed him back.

In November, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, said he was reinstating Trump’s account after running a straw poll asking his followers if he should readmit the ex-president, who is again campaigning for his old job.

“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk wrote. He’d foreshadowed the decision months earlier, saying at a conference in May that “permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts,” adding that, “it was not correct to ban Donald Trump.” 

Meta announced in late January that Trump would soon be allowed to return to Facebook and Instagram. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, wrote in a blog post that “the public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying — the good, the bad and the ugly — so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box.”

And most recently, Google’s YouTube said this month that Trump would be allowed to start posting videos again.

Now the question is — what are the rules from here?

Thus far, Trump has been relatively quiet on the major social media platforms. Rather, he’s stuck to daily musings on Truth Social, writing in a post this week that Democrats are “INTERFERING IN OUR ELECTIONS, THEIR NEW FORM OF CHEATING!!”

Trump may not renew exclusive contract with Truth Social

He hasn’t tweeted since Jan. 8, 2021. On Facebook, Trump has posted a few snippets from his rallies and some some fundraising blasts. On YouTube, he’s got one new video, from March 17, announcing to his 2.7 million subscribers, “I’M BACK!”

The companies that punished Trump for his prior antics have little reason to believe his behavior will change. His Truth Social posts are littered with examples to the contrary. Advocacy group Accountable Tech wrote in a recent report that it found over 350 Trump posts on Truth Social that would violate Facebook’s safety rules.

“He’s using Truth Social to incite people,” said Jessica González, co-CEO of media and tech advocacy organization Free Press. She said his posts there remind her “in some ways of what he was saying before January 6.”

Prior to Meta’s reinstatement of Trump’s Facebook account, Free Press sent a letter to the company urging it to “permanently instate Meta’s ban on former President Donald Trump.” The letter cited a draft report on the Jan. 6 attack by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Committee that said the “the risk of violence has not abated” since the insurrection.

Meta said in January, in letting Trump back onto Facebook and Instagram, that the risk to to public safety “has sufficiently receded.”

The company said at the time it had implemented “new guardrails” intended “to deter repeat offenses” by Trump, including limiting his reach and removing the reshare button on questionable posts.

“In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation,” Meta said.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment about Trump’s Truth Social posts and pointed to the company’s statement in January.

Twitter responded to a request for comment with Musk’s standard poop emoji retort.

Elon Musk attends The 2022 Met Gala Celebrating “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 02, 2022 in New York City.

Dimitrios Kambouris | Getty Images

YouTube didn’t provide a comment for this story. Leslie Miller, vice president of public policy in Google’s video unit, said in a prior statement that the company “carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, balancing that with the importance of preserving the opportunity for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run up to an election.”

Miller said the “channel will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube.”

The clearest restrictions on Trump come from Truth Social, but they have nothing to do with the substance of his posts. According to an agreement between the two parties, Trump must post on Truth Social six hours before publishing on a competing social network.

However, that exclusivity deal is scheduled to end in June.

“That’s when we’ll really see whether the platforms are going to be willing to abide by the guardrails they put in place,” González said, adding that the limitations put in place by Meta “are just weak.”

Angelo Carusone, CEO of the nonprofit Media Matters, said he’s concerned that Trump’s campaign will spread disinformation and incite violence on Truth Social and Rumble, another conservative social network. Facebook and Twitter can be used to guide his many millions of followers to those other apps, which have minimal guidelines on content.

The risks posed by Trump’s social media habits are greater now that Musk is in control of Twitter, Carusone said.

“Twitter was typically the first one out of the gate to make a policy change” regarding content and disinformation, Carusone said. Under Musk, Twitter “will no longer be a vanguard for addressing disinformation or extremism,” he said.

Musk has said that he’s only running Twitter as CEO temporarily and that he hopes to appoint a successor by the end of this year. As the 2024 elections near, it’s unclear if any other social network will assume a leadership role regarding policy matters.

González says it’s only a matter of time before Trump’s inflammatory posts create headaches for the major social networks.

“The more cornered he feels and the more his power and his freedom are under threat, the more we’re going to see him lash out,” González said. “He’s proven that he will have no restraint.”

Watch: Will a Trump indictment impact the debt ceiling debate?

Will a Trump indictment impact the debt ceiling debate?

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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says tariffs haven’t dented consumer spending

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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says tariffs haven't dented consumer spending

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, speaks during an unveiling event in New York on Feb. 26, 2025.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Wednesday that the company hasn’t seen any signs of consumers tightening their wallets in the face of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

Jassy’s comments came during Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting, which was held virtually on Wednesday.

“We have not seen any attenuation of demand at this point,” Jassy said during a question-and-answer portion of the meeting. “We also haven’t yet seen any meaningful average selling price increases.”

Amazon and other retailers continue to digest the impact of Trump’s tariffs. Rival retailer Walmart warned last week that consumers could start seeing price hikes from tariffs later this month and in June. Within days, that sparked the ire of Trump, who urged the company to “EAT THE TARIFFS.”

Read more CNBC Amazon coverage

Target said Wednesday it will likely need to hike prices on some items, while Home Depot said it expects to maintain its current pricing levels.

Jassy said last month the company made some “strategic forward inventory buys” to stock up on goods and is “pretty maniacally focused” on keeping prices low for shoppers.

Some third-party sellers, which account for roughly 60% of products sold, have increased prices on certain items, while others have opted to keep prices steady, Jassy said on Wednesday.

“I think that the diversity and the size of our marketplace really helps customers have the best selection of the best prices,” Jassy said.

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OpenAI is buying iPhone designer Jony Ive’s AI devices startup for $6.4 billion

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OpenAI is buying iPhone designer Jony Ive's AI devices startup for .4 billion

OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman appears on screen during a talk with Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella at the Microsoft Build 2025, conference in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

OpenAI said on Wednesday that it’s buying Jony Ive’s AI devices startup io for about $6.4 billion in an all-equity deal that includes its current stake in the company.

Ive is taking on “deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io,” OpenAI said in a statement. The company said that io is merging with OpenAI, while Ive and his “creative collective” called LoveFrom will stay independent.

In a blog post on Wednesday from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive, the pair said that io was founded a year ago by Ive, along with Apple alumni Scott Cannon, Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, who briefly took over Ive’s role at Apple after he departed.

“The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” the post said.

OpenAI said it’s paying $5 billion given that it already owns 23% of the company.

The purchase is by far OpenAI’s largest and comes weeks after the company agreed to buy AI-assisted coding tool Windsurf for $3 billion. Prior to that, OpenAI acquired analytics database company Rockset for an undisclosed sum in 2024.

Ive announced in 2019 that he was leaving Apple, where he was the longtime chief design officer, to start LoveFrom. Airbnb said in 2020 that Ive was consulting with the company on hiring and future products. The New York Times reported last year that LoveFrom’s clients pay the firm up to $200 million a year and that its designers at the time were working on projects for Christie’s, Airbnb and Ferrarri.

LoveFrom says on its website that it was founded by Ive and designer Marc Newson, but the doesn’t say anything about what the company does or include any mention of io.

Apple chief design officer Jony Ive (L) and Apple CEO Tim Cook inspect the new iPhone XR during an Apple special event at the Steve Jobs Theatre on September 12, 2018 in Cupertino, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Ive is responsible for designing Apple‘s most iconic products, including the iPod, iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. He also helped design Apple’s new Cupertino headquarters, called Apple Park, a project that began in 2004 with the campus officially opening in 2019.

News of the acquisition comes as OpenAI, which was recently valued at $300 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank, is rushing to stay ahead in the generative AI race, where competitors including Google, Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI are investing heavily and regularly rolling out new products. Part of staying ahead in that race includes shoring up its hardware operations.

To further its hardware ambitions, OpenAI hired the former head of Meta’s Orion augmented reality glasses initiative in November to lead its robotics and consumer hardware efforts. Caitlin “CK” Kalinowski wrote in an announcement at the time that the role would “initially focus on OpenAI’s robotics work and partnerships to help bring AI into the physical world and unlock its benefits for humanity.”

Also late last year, OpenAI invested in Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, which raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion valuation. Other investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” according to its website, by developing large-scale AI models and algorithms to power robots. 

WATCH: Ive and Altman teaming up

Former Apple exec Jony Ive partners with OpenAI's Sam Altman to develop an AI-powered device

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Microsoft says 394,000 Windows computers infected by Lumma malware globally

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Microsoft says 394,000 Windows computers infected by Lumma malware globally

Windows 11 operating system logo is displayed on a laptop screen for illustration photo.

Beata Zawrzel | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Microsoft said Wednesday that it broke down the Lumma Stealer malware project with the help of law enforcement officials across the globe.

The tech giant said in a blog post that its digital crimes unit discovered over 394,000 Windows computers were infected by the Lumma malware worldwide between March 16 through May 16.

The Lumma malware was a favorite hacking tool used by bad actors, Microsoft said in the post. Hackers used the malware to steal passwords, credit cards, bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets.

Microsoft said its digital crimes unit was able to dismantle the web domains underpinning Lumma’s infrastructure with the help of a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

The U.S. Department of Justice then took control of Lumma’s “central command structure” and squashed the online marketplaces where bad actors purchased the malware.

Read more CNBC tech news

The cybercrime control center of Japan “facilitated the suspension of locally based Lumma infrastructure,” the blog post said.

“Working with law enforcement and industry partners, we have severed communications between the malicious tool and victims,” Microsoft said in the post. “Moreover, more than 1,300 domains seized by or transferred to Microsoft, including 300 domains actioned by law enforcement with the support of Europol, will be redirected to Microsoft sinkholes.”

Microsoft said that other tech companies like Cloudflare, Bitsight and Lumen also helped break down the Lumma malware ecosystem.

Hackers have been buying the Lumma malware via underground online forums since at least 2022, all while developers were “continually improving its capabilities,” the blog post said.

The malware has become the “go-to tool for cybercriminals and online threat actors” because it’s easy to spread and break through some security defenses with the right programming, the company said.

In one example of how criminals used Lumma, Microsoft pointed to a March 2025 phishing campaign in which bad actors misled people into believing they were part of the Booking.com online travel service.

These cyber criminals used the Lumma malware to carry out their financial crimes in this scheme, the company said.

Additionally, Microsoft said that hackers have used the Lumma to attack online gaming communities and education systems, while other cybersecurity companies have noted that the malware has been used in cyber attacks targeting manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and other related critical infrastructure.

WATCH: Palo Alto Networks shares drop 4% despite earnings beat.

Palo Alto Networks shares drop 4% despite earnings beat

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