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/ On this episode of The Vergecast: the $100 billion sale coming soon, the Rabbit R1, Tesla earnings, and more.
By David Pierce, editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.
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Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge
It was going to happen, and then it wasn’t going to happen, and then it happened. The United States Congress passed a bill that would either ban TikTok or force it to be sold, and President Joe Biden signed it.
So... what now? TikTok could sue, and win, and go back to normal. TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, could just decide to shut it down and move on. Or it could sell TikTok US. Those are really the only three outcomes, and we have a year or less to figure out which it’s going to be.
On this episode of The Vergecast, we discuss all the possible outcomes for TikTok. Then we try to figure out which companies might buy the platform — and which definitely won’t, despite desperately wanting to. There’s no easy, obvious choice, but there are a few that seem like they might actually work.
After that, we talk about a big week in gadgets. We have the Rabbit R1 in hand, so we talk about how it works and whether this is an improvement on the Humane AI Pin. We discuss Apple’s May 7th iPad event, a new AI update to Meta’s smart glasses, the state of the Vision Pro, and more.
Then we do a lightning round, after first taking a look at Tesla’s earnings and wondering what’s going to happen when the world starts to see — and value — it like a car company. We talk Sonos apps, Apple sports, and Qualcomm chips, and we’re out.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with the TikTok ban:
And on this week’s gadget news:
And on Tesla:
And in the lightning round:
By the way: thank you so much to everyone who voted for The Vergecast in this year’s Webby Awards! We won the People’s Choice category, and it means the world to us that you listen to and voted for the show. We love doing this show with you all, and we’re so grateful for all your support. The Vergecast wouldn’t be The Vergecast — it wouldn’t be anything — without you.