Apple’s sweeping pledge to invest $600 billion in U.S. manufacturing over the next four years is positioning the iPhone maker as one of the largest forces behind Washington’s campaign to onshore critical technology production.

In an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday, CEO Tim Cook underscored that the centerpiece of Apple’s plan is semiconductors, saying the goal is to “stitch together the end-to-end supply chain” at home.

“You can add a lot by making it global and then stitching together the end-to-end supply chain in semiconductors,” Cook said. “I can’t stress how important this is and how much that will add to what we’re doing.”

The effort includes a $2.5 billion expansion of Apple’s long-standing partnership with Corning, whose Kentucky facility makes the glass used in iPhones and Apple Watches. Corning CEO Wendell Weeks told Cramer that Apple’s fresh injection of capital would allow the company to triple production, increase the factory’s workforce by 50%, and transform it into the “world-leading manufacturing site for highly-specialized glass.”

Cook, pointing to Corning’s durable “ceramic shield” technology — 50% stronger than earlier versions — said the investment reflects Apple’s confidence in Kentucky’s manufacturing base and Corning’s decades of innovation.

“This is the place to put it,” Cook said, praising Corning’s quality and track record. “I feel very confident in that, because when you look at innovation, when you look at the cost, when you look at the quality, these are all things that are factor into our decisions — this is a great place.”

Weeks added that the Kentucky plant represents a “social contract” with the community, noting that it has employed three generations of Corning workers since opening in 1952, though today’s work is far removed from what their grandparents once did.

Apple’s commitment already spans all 50 states, involving 9,000 partners and supporting around 450,000 jobs. The company recently launched a “Manufacturing Academy” in Detroit to train more workers and help small and medium-sized businesses adopt advanced manufacturing techniques, including artificial intelligence and smart automation.

Cook also acknowledged the political tailwinds bolstering Apple’s plan. President Donald Trump announced last month that his administration would impose a 100% tariff on imported semiconductors and chips — with exemptions for companies building inside the United States.

“The president has said that he wants more in the United States,” Cook said. “And we want more in the United States.”

How Apple Compares in the U.S. Chip Race

Apple’s vast spending commitment places it in rare company among global chipmakers reshaping their U.S. footprint. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Apple’s critical chip supplier, is building a $40 billion complex in Arizona, though delays and workforce shortages have slowed progress. Samsung is investing $17 billion in a Texas facility aimed at high-end chips. Intel, once America’s flagship chipmaker, has announced more than $100 billion in U.S. investments across Ohio, Arizona, and New Mexico, supported by Chips Act subsidies.

What sets Apple apart is its direct tie to consumer products. Whereas Intel and TSMC are chasing high-performance computing and server chips, Apple’s push is anchored to iPhones, iPads, and wearables — devices that require not only advanced semiconductors but also the specialized glass and materials that Corning provides. Apple is attempting to build a more insulated supply chain than its peers by integrating both upstream chip production and downstream component manufacturing in the U.S.

Impact on U.S. Chip Production

Apple’s $600 billion bet is expected to redefine U.S. advanced manufacturing. Analysts have predicted that Apple would catalyze an ecosystem where suppliers, from chipmakers to component specialists, scale up operations domestically. In that setting, Corning’s Kentucky facility could serve as a blueprint for regional hubs where factories create jobs, foster innovation, and sustain local economies.

However, protectionist tariffs, while boosting Apple’s near-term advantage, are expected to intensify trade disputes with Asia and strain relationships with critical partners like TSMC. In addition, workforce shortages in high-tech manufacturing remain a constraint, despite Apple’s new training initiatives. Analysts warn that heavy reliance on government incentives also ties Apple’s strategy to political cycles, leaving it vulnerable to policy reversals.

Still, Apple’s alignment with the Trump administration and its sheer financial scale distinguish its approach. Cook believes the effort is about more than products.

“Factories create hubs of economic activity,” he said, noting that manufacturing jobs ripple outward into local communities.

With Intel battling execution issues, TSMC navigating U.S. expansion hurdles, and Samsung working to prove its Texas project can deliver, Apple’s unprecedented $600 billion commitment may become the defining test of whether America can once again anchor the world’s most advanced supply chains.

The standoff between publishers and Big Tech over the use of online content to fuel artificial intelligence models has entered a sharper phase. At the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference this week, Neil Vogel, CEO of People, Inc. (formerly Dotdash Meredith), accused Google of exploiting its dominance by using a single crawler to both index websites for Google Search and scrape them for AI products.

“Google has one crawler, which means they use the same crawler for their search, where they still send us traffic, as they do for their AI products, where they steal our content,” Vogel said.

Vogel noted that while Google Search once accounted for about 65% of People Inc.’s traffic three years ago, today it delivers traffic in the “high 20s.” He also revealed to AdExchanger last month that Google’s traffic share once reached as high as 90%. Despite the decline, Vogel emphasized the company is financially healthy: “I’m not complaining. We’ve grown our audience. We’ve grown our revenue. We’re doing great. What is not right about this is: you cannot take our content to compete with us.”

Blocking AI crawlers for leverage

Vogel said publishers need to block AI crawlers to force platforms into licensing agreements. People Inc. has already taken this route by partnering with Cloudflare, which recently rolled out a solution that blocks AI bots that don’t pay. Vogel said this has attracted interest from “large LLM providers,” although no deals have yet been signed. He praised OpenAI as a “good actor” in contrast to Google.

The problem, Vogel added, is that Google’s crawler cannot be blocked without cutting off access to the “20%-ish” traffic Google Search still delivers.

“They know this, and they’re not splitting their crawler. So they are an intentional bad actor here,” Vogel said.

Others echoed his concerns. Janice Min, CEO of Ankler Media, described Google and Meta as “content kleptomaniacs” and said her company has chosen to block AI crawlers outright.

Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, predicted that the balance of power will eventually shift under new regulations. He warned publishers against relying solely on copyright litigation, noting that courts have tended to side with AI firms by framing AI outputs as “derivative works” that could be protected under fair use.

Prince cited Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement with book publishers as an example of companies buying peace while preserving favorable copyright rulings. He also argued that Google itself had warped publishing economics long before AI, by training media outlets to chase clicks instead of original reporting.

His forecast: “By this time next year, Google will be paying content creators for crawling their content and taking it and putting it in AI models.”

What’s Next for Publishers?

Analysts believe that if Prince’s prediction proves accurate, publishers could enter a new revenue stream built on licensing deals with AI companies. In the most optimistic outcome, Google agrees to split its crawler, paving the way for fairer negotiations. This would mirror the arrangements already struck between publishers and firms like OpenAI, which Vogel praised as a more cooperative partner.

In such a scenario, the cost of training AI systems would rise, forcing tech giants to pay billions in content fees. That could help stabilize publishing economics at a time when advertising revenue has weakened and referral traffic from search and social media has declined. For companies like People Inc., which operates over 40 major brands, including People, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, Better Homes & Gardens, and AllRecipes, this could mean greater predictability in monetizing their journalism.

However, the situation also presents a scenario where Google holds firm, refusing to split its crawler and leaving publishers with no practical way to block AI scraping without sacrificing search visibility. That could entrench Google’s power, as its search traffic, already down from earlier highs but still material, remains vital for many media outlets.

If regulators fail to intervene, publishers could end up supplying the raw material for AI models without compensation, while simultaneously losing direct traffic as AI-driven search tools give users summarized answers instead of links. For smaller publishers without diversified revenue streams, this could accelerate financial strain.

Analysts warn this path could leave publishers with only two options: accept dependency on AI platforms or retreat behind paywalls, a move that risks shrinking audiences further.

Looking ahead, the outcome of this clash is expected to determine whether publishers reclaim bargaining power in the AI era or remain locked in a cycle of dependence on tech platforms. Vogel’s comments, Min’s skepticism, and Prince’s forecast suggest the industry is at a turning point.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched investigations into Amazon.com and Alphabet’s Google to determine whether the tech giants misled advertisers about the terms and pricing of ads placed on their platforms, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The probes, led by the FTC’s consumer protection unit, center on whether the companies properly disclosed how their ad auctions work and the costs advertisers ultimately face.

At the heart of the FTC’s inquiry into Amazon is its use of advertising auctions, where businesses bid to have their products prominently displayed in search results and recommendation feeds. Regulators are specifically examining whether Amazon adequately disclosed its use of “reserve pricing” — a mechanism setting the minimum price advertisers must meet before winning ad placement.

Such practices, if not transparently communicated, could leave advertisers at a disadvantage, bidding against thresholds they were never made fully aware of.

Google, which dominates the global online ad market, is facing similar scrutiny. According to the source, the FTC is looking into the company’s internal pricing processes to assess whether it raised ad costs in ways that were not clearly disclosed to advertisers.

Meta’s parallel struggles

The FTC’s focus on Amazon and Google mirrors concerns raised in recent years over Meta’s ad business, which remains the second-largest in the world behind Google. Advertisers have long complained that Meta’s platforms — Facebook and Instagram — also operate with opaque pricing models, particularly in how costs are determined during bidding wars for placement in news feeds or Stories.

In 2020, reports surfaced that Meta failed to fully disclose certain limits in its ad metrics, leading to lawsuits from advertisers who argued they had been misled about reach and engagement. Although the company settled some of those disputes, the cases underscored how the entire digital ad ecosystem has been criticized for its lack of transparency.

Analysts say the new FTC probes suggest regulators are now broadening their lens beyond individual cases and targeting structural practices across the industry.

A broader backdrop of ad-tech dominance

The investigations mark the latest regulatory challenge for two companies that together account for the bulk of global digital ad spending. Both Amazon and Google have built multibillion-dollar businesses on digital advertising, with Amazon rapidly rising as the third-largest U.S. ad player behind Google and Meta.

Globally, Google remains the leader, generating more than $200 billion annually from search and YouTube ads. Amazon’s ad business, though smaller, has been growing faster, topping $46 billion in revenue in 2023.

Critics have long accused the companies of using opaque pricing models that leave advertisers guessing how much of their spending is actually going toward winning bids versus platform-controlled margins.

The FTC’s move echoes regulatory probes in Europe, where authorities have repeatedly pressed Google over its dominance in online ads and the lack of transparency in its auction systems. In 2021, French regulators fined Google €220 million for abusing its market position in ad-tech.

Amazon, meanwhile, has faced scrutiny over whether its retail platform gives preference to its own products and services in search and ad rankings — issues that overlap with how it structures advertising slots.

While the current FTC inquiries are preliminary, analysts say they highlight the agency’s growing focus on ad-tech practices as a core part of its consumer protection mandate.

If regulators determine that Amazon or Google misled advertisers, the companies could face fines or be forced to overhaul how they disclose ad pricing and auction mechanisms. That could ripple across the digital advertising industry, where pricing opacity has long been a source of frustration for small and mid-sized businesses trying to compete with larger advertisers.

The investigations, for now, put two of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies under fresh scrutiny — at a time when their dominance in the ad business is already being challenged by rising competitors such as TikTok and retail media networks.

Perplexity, the AI web search startup positioning itself as a challenger to Google, has been pulled deeper into the legal storm surrounding artificial intelligence and intellectual property.

On September 10, Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster filed a lawsuit in New York federal court accusing the company of copyright and trademark infringement, marking another high-profile case in the escalating clash between traditional publishers and AI platforms.

According to the complaint, Britannica claims that Perplexity’s “answer engine” systematically scrapes its websites, siphons away internet traffic, and reproduces copyrighted definitions and entries without authorization. The companies also accuse Perplexity of trademark misuse, alleging that their names are sometimes attached to hallucinated or incomplete content that could erode brand credibility.

The lawsuit highlights Perplexity’s definition of the word plagiarize as appearing identical to Merriam-Webster’s entry — a case in point, the publishers say, of outright copying.

Perplexity has long faced accusations of operating as a “bullshit machine” that reproduces original material without proper citations. The company is also accused of “stealth crawling,” a practice in which bots bypass website crawler blockers — a tactic some publishers say has become common across the AI sector.

The case is the latest in a string of legal challenges for Perplexity, which counts Amazon founder Jeff Bezos among its investors. It has already clashed with Forbes, The New York Times, and the BBC. News Corp, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, sued Perplexity in October 2024, alleging that the startup “masquerades theft as innovation.”

Yet not all publishers have taken an adversarial approach. Perplexity has rolled out an ad revenue sharing program that attracted Time magazine and the Los Angeles Times. In another sign of cooperation, the World History Encyclopedia joined the initiative and, on September 8, launched a Perplexity-powered AI chatbot to help users sift through its academic database.

How Perplexity’s Case Stacks Up

Perplexity’s legal battles are part of a broader wave of disputes between AI firms and content creators.

OpenAI, perhaps the most visible player, has faced lawsuits from The New York Times, book authors, and media groups alleging copyright violations. While some cases remain unresolved, OpenAI has sought to blunt criticism by signing licensing agreements with publishers like the Associated Press, Axel Springer, and People, Inc. — a strategy that offers a blueprint for industry-wide coexistence.

Anthropic, another major AI firm, recently agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement with book publishers. Analysts note that Anthropic’s decision to pay was less about conceding wrongdoing and more about preserving a favorable copyright ruling that recognized AI-generated outputs as derivative works, potentially shielded under fair use.

Compared with those giants, Perplexity’s exposure may be riskier. Unlike OpenAI and Anthropic, it lacks the same scale of partnerships or financial war chest, leaving it more vulnerable if courts rule against it. With multiple lawsuits pending, the startup’s reputation as an “answer engine” that shortcuts traditional search could either accelerate its growth — if settlements normalize licensing fees — or leave it buried under litigation costs.

What’s at Stake?

For Britannica and Merriam-Webster, the case is about more than lost clicks; it’s about the integrity of their brands in an era where AI can blur authorship. For Perplexity, it is a test of survival.

If the courts side with Britannica, it could force the company to abandon scraping practices and negotiate expensive licensing deals — a move that would strain a young firm still dependent on investor backing. If Perplexity secures a favorable outcome, however, it could embolden other AI challengers to expand aggressively without seeking publisher approval.

The lawsuit thus feeds into a larger question hanging over the industry: will AI companies and publishers resolve their tensions through the courts, through billion-dollar settlements, or through a new licensing ecosystem that forces reluctant actors into deals?