Hello, welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, wishing you a happy and healthy end to the year. I myself have a cold.
Today, we’re taking a look at the biggest tech stories of 2025 – the political rise, explosion and fall of Elon Musk; The consumption of the global economy, all other technology, and even the Earth’s topography by artificial intelligence; Australia’s notable social media ban; The new Trumpian politics of the tech industry; And, as a gift, a glimpse of the apocalypse offered by one of Silicon Valley’s most intelligent and strangest billionaires.
Elon Musk, a one-man storm
In late 2024, I wrote that Elon Musk’s support of Donald Trump had made him the most powerful unelected person in the world. His reign became short-lived in 2025. He rose rapidly and haphazardly, like a buzzing firework, but exploded spectacularly in June when he claimed in a post on X that the President of the United States’ name was in the government’s files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In less than six months, Musk has made a tremendous impact. They destroyed huge parts of the US government – thousands of jobs, the protection of highly sensitive data, and entire agencies like USAID – that may never be put back together.
After Doge’s implosion, Musk promised to return to his business empire, which has seen equal parts major successes and major failures, in 2025. His rocket company SpaceX has seen continued growth and is set to hold an initial public offering next year, perhaps as the world’s most valuable private company. In contrast, electric car maker Tesla faced a violent backlash and greater competition from its Chinese counterparts, which produced cheaper and more advanced vehicles, while Tesla’s innovation and inventory stagnated. Due to these adverse circumstances, global sales of Musk’s car manufacturing company declined.
Check out our reporting on Doge, Tesla, SpaceX, Musk himself:
‘Department of Government Capacity,
Tesla is facing criticism over Musk’s politics
WATCH NEXT: SpaceX is expanding in preparation for 2026 IPO
Artificial intelligence has covered the world
Artificial intelligence has moved from the realm of technology to the foremost focus of industry. The Magnificent Seven – Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla – are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new software that they hope will soon accomplish humanity’s great task. This investment is becoming a major factor in the growth of the American economy, giving rise to financial bubbles and fears of their bursting. The US and China are locked in a Cold War-like race against each other, with startups in each country competing for cutting-edge breakthroughs, as governments around the world are forced to decide how they will regulate a new tech powerhouse.
However, for AI to reach that future, it needs a mind like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. Those brains come in the form of datacenters. These massive buildings, housing hundreds of millions of semiconductor chips fueling AI development, have sprung up around the world, drawing enthusiasm from leaders eager for tax revenue and deep concern from environmental advocates and, increasingly, local community members. Investment and construction in datacenters drastically changed Earth’s physical landscape in 2025 as tens of billions of dollars were spent on available land, electricity, water, and semiconductor chips.
More from our reporting from last year:
datacenters
future of ai
multitrillion-dollar valuation
But does it work?
Tech gets into bed with Trump 2.0
Elon Musk wholeheartedly embraces Donald Trump in 2024 and 2025. He was not alone. Many of his peers in Silicon Valley did the same, sitting near the Trump family at the presidential inauguration after donating millions to his inaugural committee. Tech giants continued to co-opt Trump and his policies by dismantling the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs they advocated for during Barack Obama’s presidency, and by cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Trump’s harsh immigration crackdown. The industry got tenfold in deregulation what it gave, thanks to top friends like JD Vance and David Sachs in Washington and Trump’s order for states not to regulate AI, signed just weeks ago.
More from our reporting this year:
Donation and Trump’s inauguration
DEI strikes
immigrants monitored
Australia cuts the number of teenagers
This year Australia took the extraordinary step of banning children under 16 from social media. The remarkable measure came into effect just weeks ago after multiple legal challenges and protests from tech companies.
Read some of our extensive reporting on the ban:
Bonus: Apocalyptic Prayers of the Apostle Peter
In the strangest news of 2025, billionaire venture capitalist and conservative Svengali Peter Thiel gave a series of fiery, incoherent lectures about the antichrist and the coming of the end times. We got the leaked audio of the conversation. You can read for yourself what nonsense he uses to bend the ears of serious academics and San Francisco startup CEOs or, if you don’t want to direct your attention to him, engage with a sharply critical interpretation by a professor who hails from the same university as Thiel’s mentor.
Our stories on The Gospel According to Peter:
