President says Google could be probed over ‘China treason’
DONALD Trump has said he will “take a look” at investigating Google for treason.
The US president quoted an accusation by billionaire investor and Trump supporter Peter Thiel that the company had been “working with the Chinese government”.
He said Mr Thiel was “a great and brilliant guy who knows this subject better than anyone!” He then wrote: “The Trump Administration will take a look!”
Mr Thiel, who helped found PayPal and serves on Facebook’s board, had suggested Google had been infiltrated by Chinese engineers and had made the “seemingly treasonous decision to work with the Chinese military”, according to reports.
Speaking at a conference on nationalism, Mr Thiel said three questions need to be asked of Google, according to the reports.
He said the company should be asked how many foreign intelligence agencies had infiltrated its work on AI, whether the company’s senior management thinks it has “been thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese intelligence”, and why it was working “with the Chinese military and not with the US military”.
He suggested the questions should be asked “by the FBI, by the CIA, and I’m not sure quite how to put this, I would like them to be asked in a not excessively gentle manner”.
In the same speech, Mr Thiel railed against other problems he claimed blight US society.
He said Americans were too fat and addicted to drugs, but “the biggest problem in our society is the problem of political correctness”.
Mr Trump appears to have seen reports of Mr Thiel’s remarks on ‘Fox & Friends’, a television news show he is widely reported to watch faithfully each morning. He gave no details on what form any investigation could take. (© Independent News Service)