Trump Signals Scrutiny of Google's Ties With China After Thiel Comments
July 16 2019 - 9:21AM
Dow Jones News
By Sarah E. Needleman
President Trump said the U.S. government would look into
national-security concerns raised by billionaire investor and
Facebook Inc. board member Peter Thiel about Google's ties to the
Chinese government.
The statement, tweeted by Mr. Trump on Tuesday morning, came
after Mr. Thiel, in a keynote speech Sunday at the National
Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., called for the FBI and
CIA to investigate Alphabet Inc.'s Google unit, which he has
claimed is working with China's government instead of the U.S.
military. The Wall Street Journal couldn't immediately determine
what prompted Mr. Thiel's comments at the conference.
"Billionaire Tech Investor Peter Thiel believes Google should be
investigated for treason," Mr. Trump said in the tweet, adding "The
Trump Administration will take a look!"
In an interview Monday with Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson,
Mr. Thiel suggested Chinese intelligence agents are likely to have
infiltrated Google as it works on an artificial-intelligence
project in the country. However, Mr. Thiel, in the interview,
didn't offer evidence that backed his claims.
"If you say you're building a Manhattan Project for AI, don't
you think that would attract the interest of foreign intelligence
agents?" Mr. Thiel said, referring to the World War II-era project
that led to the development of the world's first atomic bombs.
"As we have said before, we do not work with the Chinese
military," Google said in a statement.
Google has been working for years to build a presence in China's
massive but elusive commercial market, where its search engine has
been blocked since 2010. More recently, Google opened an
artificial-intelligence lab in Beijing in 2017, a move aimed at
attracting the country's tech talent.
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 16, 2019 10:06 ET (14:06 GMT)
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