In This Issue

June brought a strange new chapter in the ongoing PR effort to pinkwash AI. Trae Stephens, Silicon Valley venture capitalist and co-founder of AI defense company Anduril Industries, joined Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop podcast for an hour-long conversation about the divisiveness of modern politics, faith, and the Pope saying the war in Iran is evil. 

You might wonder why a famous actor and wellness influencer invited a Peter Thiel acolyte whose company has a $20 billion counter-drone contract with the government on for a soft-focus chat. 

The answer, according to Paltrow, is that she’s on a quest to connect with people with whom she may disagree. “I am trying to, in my journey through being an American right now, trying to, I don’t know, I guess sort of weave together lots of different points of view,” she said, “and also to get out of that place of, like, righteousness and anger and fear.” (Paltrow insists she is “not a Republican” and identifies as “completely an independent.” Cue the White Lotus memes). 

But Paltrow is not the only blonde celebrity who wants us — and, specifically, her female audience — to open up to the idea of AI. Last month, actor Reese Witherspoon hopped on Instagram while making a smoothie to urge women to start using the technology so they don’t get left behind and to “make our everyday lives easier and better.” 

Taylor Lorenz of Power User and Francesca Fiorentini of The Bitchuation Room both did smart podcast episodes questioning what’s going on with this “girlboss-ification of AI.” 

As Lorenz put it, “AI is suddenly being sold to women, especially mothers and teen girls, as helpful, creative and aesthetic tools that can be woven seamlessly into everyday life. The goal is to shift perception of AI from existential risk and labor displacement towards AI as a lifestyle accessory that aids in self-expression and convenience.” 

There’s a weirdly patronizing, faux feminist, “hey ladies” vibe to the messaging. Women are simultaneously encouraged to get on the AI bandwagon or risk losing out to job automation, or told ChatGPT is just a handy way for busy moms to recipe-plan for the week and that Claude allows teen girls to experiment with their personal style by picking out their outfits. The founders of these companies aren’t just out to make a profit off their ties to the Pentagon; they’re relatable podcast guests who worry about their kids’ personal safety and identify “most centrally” as a Midwesterner who grew up “in a lower-middle class household,” as Stephens told Paltrow. But there is of course a profit motive in marketing to women: new tech only takes off after women adopt it en masse. As Lorenz points out, that’s what happened with Spotify, Facebook, the iPod and iPhone, and fitness trackers. These services and products went from being niche, nerdy and primarily used by male tech enthusiasts to popular aesthetic and social platforms and devices used by much of the population after the companies started explicitly marketing to women.

There are legitimate reasons why women have been slower to adapt to AI. Women, who disproportionately bear the impact of environmental issues, are more concerned about the environmental and health harms caused by data centers. Research indicates they are also skeptical about the economic and employment benefits of AI, and are more likely to work in the service industry and in administrative and clerical roles that are disproportionately likely to be replaced by AI.

Those are the kinds of associations the industry is trying to shake. So don’t be surprised the next time a rich white woman celebrity shows up in your feed urging you to give AI another chance.

[Essay]

by Layla A. Jones

Under the influence of high-ranking White House official Stephen Miller, the Department of Justice has exposed the speciousness of conservatives’ stated belief in race-neutral alternatives to affirmative action.

For years, conservative thinkers appeared to support socioeconomic status as a race-neutral admissions criterion that could help increase college diversity without the implicit consideration of color or ethnicity. Back in 2004, the Department of Education under President George W. Bush published a report highlighting “socioeconomic approaches” as one of several “race-neutral alternatives” for academic communities. After the Supreme Court in 2023 outlawed the consideration of race in university admissions, Chief Justice John Roberts touted the “efficacy” of colorblind admissions in his majority opinion.

“Universities prohibited from engaging in racial discrimination by state law continue to enroll racially diverse classes by race-neutral means,” he lauded.

In his concurrence, Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested Harvard offer “socioeconomically disadvantaged applicants” additional financial aid and admonished the Ivy League for its lack of “socioeconomic diversity.” 

But farther to the right, legal groups and conservative activists were wise to the gimmick of race neutrality. Smelling blood in the water ahead of the affirmative action takedown, they, in the early 2020s, began attacking the legality of considering economic disadvantage in admissions. Today’s U.S. government, led by far-right true believers who promote white supremacy, is now institutionalizing the idea that socioeconomic status is actually a proxy for race. This idea holds that since Black people are on average poorer, socioeconomic status can’t be used in admissions. From there, one needn’t reach far to reach the foundational white supremacist belief that Black people are inferior not because of changeable circumstances like access to education and financial attainment, but because they are Black.

A DOJ memo from last July rebuked admissions criteria “like socioeconomic status, first-generation status, or geographic diversity” if they were used to prioritize admissions based on race. How would one know if these criteria were being used explicitly to promote racial diversity? Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ civil rights department, outlined the administration’s stance to Black people and higher education in a mid-May letter about Yale University allegedly preferencing Black students at its medical school. The argument goes like so: 1) socioeconomic status as a proxy for race acknowledges Black people are more likely to experience financial disadvantage in this country; 2) denying the use of socioeconomic status for admissions implies that at least that specific disadvantage cannot be made whole by addressing institutional factors like access to education and, therefore; 3) it must be inherent to the Black condition. The argument’s logical path ultimately reaches antebellum-era systems holding that “Black people are a subordinate class with intellectual inferiority,” as Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote in her dissent to the 2023 affirmative action ruling. It ignores the impact of generations of well-documented federal policy that explicitly harmed Black communities like redlining, exclusion from higher education, and historically inequitable federal funding distribution for Black colleges and universities.

Madiba K. Dennie in a piece on Balls and Strikes pointed out the Trump Justice Department is flat-out saying that the 2023 Supreme Court decision should be decreasing the number of Black and Hispanic students. If the racial makeup of an incoming class didn’t change after that ruling, the DOJ says, that’s partial evidence a school must be breaking the law.

“This intent is confirmed by our data analysis below showing no change in racial disparity between admitted students before and after the Harvard decision,” Dhillon wrote.

To make its point, the DOJ highlighted the University of California, Davis’s consideration of socioeconomic disadvantage as an example of “racial proxies.”

Sotomayor spent part of her Harvard dissent highlighting a problem: socioeconomic status was not interchangeable with race. Turns out, the problem is actually that Trump’s DOJ believes it is.

[Muskism]

by Derick Dirmaier

Friday, Elon Musk’s SpaceX had the largest IPO in history — by a considerable amount. Musk is now a trillionaire; VC and Private Equity firms who had invested in SpaceX got even richer; and according to the New York Times, 4,400 SpaceX employees are positioned to become millionaires, with 400 of those employees potentially worth over $100 million. It’s an almost unfathomable amount of wealth generated by a company that may be better at generating hype than value. For those on the outside, though, it’s likely another indicator that “the system” is rigged and reason enough to ponder what kind of system this even is.

Authors Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff note the many, many terms used to describe our current financial system (highlights: spiderweb capitalism, chokepoint capitalism, crack-up capitalism, and neopatrimonialism) before offering their own: Muskism. The term was chosen to draw an explicit comparison to industrialist Henry Ford and what became known in the early-to mid-twentieth century as Fordism. The defining feature of Fordism was that, in exchange for the labor necessary for mass production, workers would be given the wages and quality of life needed to enable mass consumption. This system held until roughly the 1970s when globalization and other factors led to a post-Fordism model where the beneficiaries were no longer wage earners but asset owners. The financial crisis and Great Recession would damage the post-Fordism model enough to pave the way for Muskism. So what is Muskism?

The concept as laid out by Slobodian and Tarnoff is too multifaceted to summarize here (you should read their article about it — they also wrote a book), but one way they describe it is, “In place of the social contract, in short, Muskism offers a fan contract. By entering the Musk fandom, one gains access to a privileged layer of amplified and monetized communication.” Unlike in the post-Fordism era where the social contract between the capitalists and the public was that what was good for the market was good for you, Muskism says that what’s good for Musk is good for his fans. Worse, as Slobodian and Tarnoff write, “Absent the capacity to persuade others in society that his rising tide will lift their boat too, Musk has opted to hysterically warn them about the tsunami of outsiders coming to swamp them.”

Musk may have subordinated the state to help finance his rocket ships, but that doesn’t mean all are welcome. For his supporters, however, the message is clear: get in, we’re going to the moon.

[Good Twetes]

[TPM Trivia]

1) What reality TV show did Spencer Pratt make his name on years before he (unsuccessfully) ran for mayor of Los Angeles? 

2) Name the three major candidates in the Maine Democratic Senate primary.

3) Which billionaire had to testify before the House Oversight Committee about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein this week?

4) Where was outgoing Rep. and failed South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nancy Mace when she famously went ballistic at government employees, and what made her so upset?

Answers below

[Words of Wisdom]

“Don’t blame Republicans. I know they say we control the Senate. We don’t.” – Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, part of the 51-seat Republican Senate majority 

[In the Cafe]

Prolific poster and Utah Republican senator Mike Lee went on a tear last weekend after the Pentagon released a new, condensed list of officially recognized faiths that didn’t designate the Church of Latter Day Saints as a “Christian” religion. He was citing verses from the Book of Mormon. He was sharing music videos. He was beefing with Milo Yiannapolous (remember that guy?). 

In her latest Church, Merch and State column, Sarah Posner explains how this snub of the Mormon Church is part of the bigger fight to ensure MAGA remains an evangelical Christian nationalist movement.

[No Words]

WASHINGTON DC, UNITED STATES – JUNE 10: Security forces take security measures as preparations continue on the South Lawn of the White House ahead of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Freedom 250 event, part of the America 250 celebrations, in Washington, D.C., United States on June 10, 2026. The event, scheduled for June 14, coincides with Flag Day and U.S. President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and has been described by the White House as ‘a once-in-a-generation celebration of the American fighting spirit.’ (Photo by Mehmet Eser/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Trivia answers: 1) The Hills 2) Graham Platner, Janet Mills, and David Costello 3) Bill Gates 4) Traveling through the Charleston airport. She told airport police officers and TSA staffers that they were “fucking idiots” after they failed to meet her car in a timely way