Nancy Scola

Journalist of the reportin' variety on tech, policy, & politics; contrib. writer @POLITICOMag & @Washingtonian. [email protected].

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Prediction markets are booming—and sparking a lot of angst. It's Mike Selig's job to regulate all that.

For @theinformation, I sat down with the 36-year-old chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to talk over his vision for what happens next.

[Lydia Beyoud @ElleBeyoud]

The CFTC's proposal to regulate prediction markets should be out soon.

The White House wrapped up its review of the measure on Friday, according to an update on OIRA's website.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Somehow just occurred to me that "NOAA" is a pretty fitting acronym for an agency that deals with rain.

No evidence it's an intentional backronym, though, which is a bit of a shame.

[Teddy Schleifer @teddyschleifer]

Tonight is shaping up to be a tough night for Silicon Valley and the tech sector.

Matt Mahan, the tech-backed California governor candidate, has conceded and had a poor showing given all the spending for him.

Self-funder Saikat Chakrabarti is not looking strong in a San Francisco congressional race.

Eric Jones, another self-funder from the tech community, is currently trailing outside the top two in a different Bay Area race (though it's close.)

And Ethan Agarwal, a tech entrpreneur who some thought would mount a serious challenge to Ro Khanna, is a total non-factor in the South Bay.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Turns out we should not have read quite so much into President Trump's recent skepticism about the wisdom of the AI EO.

[Dean W. Ball @deanwball]

Wow. This EO is almost exactly similar to the leaked text from the EO POTUS chose not to sign because it was too regulatory. The only major difference is that the “voluntary” pre-deployment review process is now 30 days rather than 90. That is a concession, but a very small one compared to what I would have expected based on the President’s remarks about the earlier draft.

This is fairly major win for the safety contingent within the Admin, and a significant loss for the Sacks/accelerationist wing, and is surprising to me.

I continue to think this EO is a mistake. This is clearly teeing up the infrastructure for a model licensing regime, and the fact that the administration is classifying the details of how this “voluntary” system will work is egregious. The public and the employees of the labs have a right to know how this works. Most lab staff don’t have clearances, but if the literal regulatory thresholds that trigger pre-deployment review are classified, researchers themselves won’t know whether what they are training is regulated by this EO. All for a benefit that is barely articulable; what, exactly, is the intelligence community going to do in 30 days to make the models safer?

It’s not a huge mistake, but a small-medium sized one. But I am fairly confident this is a mistake nonetheless.

[Dave Levinthal @davelevinthal]

It's been 13 months since the Federal Election Commission last had the power to:

• Enforce/regulate campaign finance laws
• Approve new rules
• Pursue investigations
• Issue audit reports
• Offer legal advice
• Conduct public meetings

Here's why. https://t.co/iMz5Maxxvp

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Some prime Mike Davis placement here.

[Brendan Carr @BrendanCarrFCC]

Great to host so many good voices at the FCC today.

From restoring the FCC’s enforcement of public interest obligations to empowering parents and local communities, the agency is full steam ahead on smart media policy.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

I've just coined a new phrase: personnel is policy.

[Diana Nerozzi @diana_nerozzi]

Scoop: The AI EO isn't fully dead. There are three camps in the White House.

The most skeptical are those like Pete Hegseth and Emil Michael. Susie Wiles and Scott Bessent are in the middle. And David Sacks wants the least regulations.

w/ @SophiaCai99

https://t.co/DA3JpM0YML

[Jennifer Jacobs @JenniferJJacobs]

NEW via @CBSNews: The leading candidate to oversee Justice Dept's antimonopoly enforcement has been a critic of the tech sector and a govt lawyer who led an effort to crack down on social media companies during Trump’s first term. 
Adam Candeub is being considered for assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division, sources told @SarahNLynch @gekaminsky and me. He currently is FCC’s general counsel.
Omeed Assefi, the acting assistant attorney general for antitrust, departs next month. He had long planned to exit in June, when his first child is due. 
https://t.co/meQTSySXXm

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

@jdawsey1 Scheduling, yes, but also multiple inboxes (one for each story!), reusable snippets, lots of automations, and super fast.

Obviously I've got no dog in the fight. But it makes email tolerable for me.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

There was much made recently of Trump expressing some skepticism about prediction markets, but that really did seem like just him riffing.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Well now, big Trump endorsement here of the CFTC's authority over prediction markets—perhaps not surprisingly rooted in a strategically helpful dislike of those on the other side of the debate, a la Chris Christie.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Well now, big Trump endorsement here of the CFTC's authority over prediction markets—perhaps not surprisingly rooted in a strategically helpful dislike of those on the other side of the debate, a la Chris Christie.

[Michael Passalacqua @passalacqua_mj]

Under @ChairmanSelig’s leadership, the @CFTC is committed to delivering clear rules of the road for prediction markets & ensuring the U.S. remains the crypto capital of the world.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

This whole situation does raise an interesting question: if we're going to treat corporations and PACs as legitimate political actors, what's the expectation for how they're 'required' to participate?

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

For what it's worth, per the Bores campaign, Leading the Future hasn't responded to their request for a debate at all.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

For what it's worth, per the Bores campaign, Leading the Future hasn't responded to their request for a debate at all.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Alex Bores, running in NY-12, challenges the AI super PAC targeting him to a proper debate.

[Cheyenne Haslett @cheyennehaslett]

Andy Stone, spokesperson for Meta, says Mark Zuckerberg didn't talk to Trump until after the president made the call to abrupty pull yesterday's AI executive order: "Mark didn’t speak to the president until after the event had already been canceled."

Elon Musk earlier today said he also didn't speak to the president about pulling yesterday's scheduled AI executive order until after it happened.

[Hadas Gold @Hadas_Gold]

President Trump on why exec order on AI was delayed: "I didn't like certain aspects of it. I postponed it. I think it gets in the way of... you know we're leading china, we're leading everybody, and I don't want anything that's going to get in the way of that lead. We have a very substantial... on AI it's causing, it's causing tremendous good. And it's also bringing in a lot of jobs. Tremendous numbers of jobs. Again, we have more people working right now than we've ever had. I really thought that could've been a blocker, and I want to make sure that it's not."

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Alex Bores, running in NY-12, challenges the AI super PAC targeting him to a proper debate.

[Alex Bores @AlexBores]

The biggest opponent in the race for NY-12 isn't on the ballot.

It's @LeadingFutureAI, a super PAC run by AI oligarchs and Trump megadonors spending $10 million to defeat our campaign.

I debate my opponents, so today I'm challenging them to a debate, too.

Let's hear from them directly: out loud, in front of voters, with a moderator who can ask follow-up questions. Any venue, any moderator, anyone they want to send. Let's go.

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Full letter is here: https://t.co/JthzvBY4KK

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

Telecom guy questions Pres. Trump's commitment to the biz.

Sen. @MarkWarner: "I understand the complexities of the mobile telecommunications market... However, the cavalier manner in which Trump Mobile has treated its customers is shocking."

[Nancy Scola @nancyscola]

The company-on-company violence is happening a lot earlier in the prediction market adoption cycle than it did in the social media one.

[Brian Quintenz @BrianQuintenz]

Offering derivative markets on events comes with responsibilities. KYC isn’t optional. It ensures the American public that these markets have integrity. Some businesses don’t seem to care. I’m glad that Kalshi does.

https://t.co/YbteHffsVC