The Trump Organization scrapped a reference that its recently revealed smartphone will be made in the U.S., amid doubts that such a device can be manufactured on American shores at its price tag.

A spokesperson for the Trump Organization, which is owned by U.S. President Donald Trump, nevertheless maintained the handset would be made in the U.S.

This month, the Trump Organization introduced the T1, a gold-colored device set to retail for $499. At the time of the announcement, a banner on the homepage of the company’s website said: “Our MADE IN THE USA ‘T1 Phone’ is available for pre-order now.”

The reference to where the phone will be produced has been completely removed. The change was first noted by The Verge.

The T1’s webpage now says the phone has “American-Proud Design” and is “brought to life right here in the USA” — though it’s unclear if that means it will actually be manufactured in America.

When the T1 was initially announced, experts told CNBC the device would likely be made in China by a local third-party company. The U.S. does not have an advanced supply chain to manufacture smartphones. Even if it did, many components would still need to come from overseas.

However, in a statement to USA TODAY, Trump Mobile Spokesperson Chris Walker, said that “T1 phones are proudly being made in America.”

“Speculation to the contrary is simply inaccurate,” Walker said.

The language about manufacturing location is not the only thing that has changed on the T1 website. Some of the features and specs of the device have also been updated.

In the initial announcement, the Trump Mobile website said the T1 would have a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen. That has now been reduced to 6.25-inch AMOLED display. A reference to the device having 12 gigabytes of random access memory (RAM), has also been dropped.

It’s an unusual move for a smartphone company to change the specs of a device after it has been announced.

CNBC has reached out to the Trump Organization about the changes in language regarding the device being manufactured in the U.S., as well as amendments to the phones specs.

Trump has made reshoring manufacturing in tech a key priority. While his initial attention was on getting semiconductor manufacturing capacity built up, the White House leader has turned his sights on smartphones. He has also poured scrutiny on Apple‘s supply chain, urging the iPhone maker to manufacture its flagship handset in the U.S. 

OpenAI is putting a spotlight on an under-the-radar artificial intelligence startup that it believes is on the “front line” of China’s race to lead the world in AI — and its not DeepSeek. 

In a blog post on Wednesday, the company wrote that Beijing-backed Zhipu AI has made “notable progress” in the AI race, as global competition ramps up.

Zhipu AI, founded in 2019, has been referred by domestic media as one of China’s “AI tigers” — a class of large language model unicorns seen as key to Beijing’s efforts to rival the U.S. and reduce its dependence on American technology. 

While fellow “AI tiger” DeepSeek has received the lion’s share of international attention after it released its R1 model in January, OpenAI suggests that Zhipu’s expansion outside China and its ties to Beijing deserve more scrutiny. 

The startup has raised funds from several local governments, according to state media. “Zhipu AI leadership frequently engages with CCP officials, including Premier Li Qiang,” OpenAI claimed, pegging the value of state-backed investments in the startup at over $1.4 billion.

Zhipu AI reportedly has offices in the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia, and is also running joint “innovation centers” projects across Southeast Asia, including in Indonesia and Vietnam.

Those factors could see Zhipu AI playing a key role in China’s “Digital Silk Road” strategy, as it offers AI infrastructure solutions to governments around the world.

“The goal is to lock Chinese systems and standards into emerging markets before US or European rivals can, while showcasing a ‘responsible, transparent and audit-ready’ Chinese AI alternative,” OpenAI said. 

Zhipu AI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on OpenAI’s statements. However, last week, Zhipu AI Chairman Liu Debing told reporters that the company hoped to contribute China’s AI power to the world.

These aims represent a threat to OpenAI, which has received Washington’s support to promote its foundational models as the world’s go-to AI offering.

During a visit to the UAE in May, U.S. President Donald Trump announced over $200 billion in commercial deals in the region, including one for building a Stargate UAE AI campus by OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia and Cisco Systems. It’s expected to be launched in 2026. 

The Stargate Project is a $500 billion AI-focused private sector investment vehicle, announced by OpenAI in January in partnership with Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX and Japan’s SoftBank.

This month, OpenAI was also awarded a $200 million contract to provide the U.S. Defense Department with artificial intelligence tools, and announced “OpenAI for Government,” an initiative aimed at bringing its AI tools to public servants across the U.S. 

Zhipu is also said to be working with its domestic military, helping China’s military to modernize through advanced artificial intelligence, which saw it added to the US Commerce Department’s Entity List in January.

The company has reportedly initiated preliminary steps toward launching an initial public offering. It has previously been valued at 20 billion yuan ($2.78 billion), according to local media reports.

Cybercriminals have intensified their efforts to steal and sell online passwords, experts warn. The alarm comes after the discovery of online datasets containing billions of exposed account credentials. 

The 30 datasets comprised a whopping 16 billion login credentials across multiple platforms, including Apple, Google and Facebook, and were first reported by Cybernews researchers last week. 

The exposures were identified over the course of this year by Volodymyr Diachenko, co-founder of the cybersecurity consultancy Security Discovery, and are suspected to be the work of multiple parties.

“This is a collection of various data sets that appeared on my radar since the beginning of the year, but they all share a common structure of URLs, login details and passwords,” Diachenko told CNBC. 

According to Daichenko, all signs point to the leaked login information being the work of “infostealers” — malware that extracts sensitive data from devices, including usernames and passwords, credit card information and online browser data. 

While the lists of logins are likely to contain many duplicates as well as outdated and incorrect information, the overwhelming volume of findings puts into perspective how much sensitive data is circulating on the web. 

It should also raise alarms on how infostealers have become the “cyber plague” of today, Daichenko said. “Someone, somewhere, is having data exfiltrated from their machines as we speak.”

Daichenko was able to detect the exposed data because their owners had temporarily indexed them on the web without a password lock. Inadvertently shared data leaks are often caught by Security Discovery, but not at scales seen so far this year.

Consequently, there’s been an uptick in high-profile infostealer attacks. For example, in March, Microsoft Threat Intelligence disclosed a malicious campaign using infostealers that had affected nearly 1 million devices globally. 

Infostealers typically gain access to victims’ devices by tricking them into downloading the malware, which can be hidden in everything from phishing emails to phony websites to search engine ads.

The motive behind infostealer attacks is usually financial, with attackers often looking to directly take over bank accounts, credit cards, and cryptocurrency wallets or commit identity fraud. 

Cybercriminals can use stolen credentials and other personal data for purposes such as crafting highly convincing, personalized phishing attacks and blackmailing individuals or organizations. 

According to Palo Alto’s Green, the scale and dangers of those types of infostealers have intensified, thanks to the growing prevalence of underground markets that offer “cybercrime-as-a-Service,” in which vendors charge customers for malicious tools, sensitive data and other illicit online services.

“Cyber crime-as-a-Service is the critical enabler here. It has fundamentally democratized cybercrime,” Green said.

Those underground markets — often hosted on the dark web — create demand for cybercriminals to steal personal information and then sell that to scammers. 

In that way, data breaches become about more than just the individual accounts — they represent a “vast, interconnected web of compromised identities” that can fuel subsequent attacks, Green said. 

According to Diachenko, it’s likely that at least some of the compromised login datasets he identified had or will be traded to online scammers. 

On top of that, malware kits and other resources that can help to facilitate infostealer attacks can be found on those markets. 

CNBC has reported on how the availability of those tools and services has significantly lowered technical barriers for aspiring criminals, allowing sophisticated attacks to be executed at a massive, global scale. 

The report found that infostealer attacks grew by 58% in 2024.

In addition to frequent password updates, individuals will need to be more alert about the increasing amount of malware hiding in illegitimate software, applications and other downloadable files, Valenzuela said. He added that the use of multi-factor authentication on accounts has become more important than ever.

From a corporate perspective, it’s important to adopt a “zero trust architecture” that not only constantly authenticates the user, but also authenticates the device and user’s behavior, he added.  

Governments have also been doing more to crack down on infostealing activities in recent months.

In May, Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre said it had collaborated with Microsoft and global authorities to disrupt the “Lumma” infostealer, which it called “the world’s most significant infostealer threat.”