Apple, Meta to receive ‘modest’ fines from European regulators

Starting April 1—and this is no April Fools’ joke—Data Sheet will be called Fortune Tech. 

(As in, “Do you get the Fortune Tech newsletter?” “Oh, you write the Fortune Tech newsletter!” “What did you say the name of the Fortune Tech newsletter was?”)

In other words: New look, same great taste. Today’s news below. —Andrew Nusca

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Apple, Meta to receive ‘modest’ fines from European regulators

Apple and Meta are going to be fined by the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, but the fines will be “relatively modest” in an attempt to avoid enraging the Trump administration, Bloomberg reports.

As regular readers will know, Trump has made it very clear that he will whack the EU with new tariffs if it levies what he sees as “disproportionate” fines against U.S. Big Tech firms. He’s about to unveil a bunch of new tariffs next week either way.

Both Apple and Meta are due to soon be penalized for breaking the EU’s Digital Markets Act, an antitrust law that specifically targets large tech firms. The law theoretically allows fines of up to 10% of annual revenues.

Apple also faces another potential fine on Monday, from the French competition authority.

Meanwhile, there’s more drama around how heavily the EU will enforce its new AI Act against mostly American companies.

Earlier this week, lawmakers who helped craft the Act warned that watered-down draft guidance for complying with it could allow big AI firms to warp European elections with misinformation and harm the economy.

Now the copyright industry has piled on. A broad coalition of rightsholder groups from the film, music, publishing and journalism sectors said Friday that the latest draft of the new AI code of practice would leave them unable to stop the likes of OpenAI from harvesting their works to train models without their permission—a practice that the AI Act is supposed to stop. —David Meyer

The winner from Trump’s auto tariffs? ‘No one,’ analysts say

Cars will get thousands of dollars more expensive and no carmaker—not even Elon Musk’s Tesla—will benefit from President Trump’s 25% auto tariffs, analysts say.

The tariffs on imported cars and auto parts will cause “pure chaos” in the industry and lead to major price hikes, Wedbush Securities analysts wrote in a Friday note.

“Every automaker in the world will have to raise prices in some form selling into the U.S. and the supply chain logistics of this tariff announcement heard around the world is hard to even put our arms around at this moment,” the analysts wrote.

The price hike could be as much as $10,000 to $15,000 on the high end. “The winner in our view from this tariff is no one…as even Tesla still is hit from these tariffs and will be forced to raise prices,” the analysts wrote.

The tariffs will add an estimated $100 billion burden to the auto industry that will be passed onto the consumer on day one, the analysts added.

On Saturday, Trump shrugged off concerns, telling NBC News that “I couldn’t care less. I hope they raise their prices, because if they do, people are gonna buy American-made cars.”

Analysts predict it would take three years to bring back just 10% of the auto supply chain to the U.S. Even then, it would cost billions of dollars and would come with complexity and disruption as between 40% and 50% of the auto parts used for U.S.-made cars are imported from abroad. —Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez

Apple, SpaceX clash over satellite cellular service

Apple and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are reportedly competing to eliminate cellular service dead spots.

Apple is “investing heavily in satellite-based communications” to keep phone users connected in places where they aren’t, according to a Wall Street Journal report, as SpaceX continues expansion of its Starlink service, which relies on service from more than 500 satellites it has launched.

It’s not just a race of investment and orbiting equipment. The two companies are also competing for limited spectrum rights. 

Meanwhile “SpaceX has pushed federal regulators to stall an Apple-funded satellite expansion effort,” according to the Journal, and discussions were “tense” to come to an agreement to offer Starlink on iPhones supported by T-Mobile.

It’s not hard to see what each company gets out of it. Apple, No. 3 on last year’s Fortune 500, could use more connectivity to sell more iPhones or sell more services available through them. 

Meanwhile SpaceX, the world’s most valuable private company at $350 billion, continues its dominant position in the satellite internet category. Starlink competes with incumbents such as Viasat and HughesNet as well as upstart efforts from other “Magnificent 7” tech companies, including Amazon’s Project Kuiper and Alphabet spinoff Taara. —AN

More data

—xAI acquires X. The all-stock deal values the AI company at $80 billion and the social media platform once known as Twitter at $33 billion.

—Disney gets a DEI investigation. Trump’s new FCC chair takes ABC to task for diversity, equity, inclusion efforts.

—Apple to revamp Health offering. Coming in 2026: an “AI doctor service.”

—How OpenAI CEO Sam Altman got the boot. Lies, shifting loyalties, and pitting senior employees against each other, according to a new Keach Hagey book, “The Optimist.” 

—Google opens Gemini 2.5 Pro to all users. The experimental AI model was initially for Advanced subscribers only.

—CoreWeave IPO raises $1.5 billion. Opened at $39 on the Nasdaq and closed at $40, giving the U.S. its largest initial public offering since 2021.

—Oracle hack was to extort U.S. medical firms. Stolen logins, old servers, and an unknown amount of patient records for presumed ransom.

—Marketers spend minimally on X. “Nominal” amounts to satisfy boycott accusations.

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