A weekly newsletter on power and the press Good Morning. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to take the stand in Los Angeles on Wednesday in a landmark social media addiction trial, as a separate case against Meta is underway in New Mexico. The L.A. trial is the first of a consolidated action involving more than 1,600 plaintiffs, and jurors are being asked to consider whether Meta and YouTube intentionally got young people hooked to their products despite knowing they can be harmful, borrowing from the playbook used against top tobacco companies in the 1990s. Meta and YouTube have denied the allegations and are fighting the claims in court; TikTok and Snap, two other defendants, settled with the first plaintiff, a 20-year-old California woman. Jurors are expected to decide based on the evidence, and not on any personal feelings about teen social media use or tech company clout. But it’s hard to ignore that these trials are playing out against a backdrop of gloomy public sentiment when it comes to Big Tech, the rise of AI, and well the future. One in three Americans see Big Tech as the greatest threat to the country, according to a December Gallup poll, while another poll this month found that “Americans' hope for their future has fallen to a new low.” Sure, many viewers were miffed by the glut of AI ads during the Super Bowl, but even more concerning have been the grave warnings from OpenAI and Anthropic researchers about safety threats and the potential for wiping out of white-collar jobs. (Roger Cheng has more on the latest AI panic below.) While first-person essays and resignation notes have gone viral, leading to a flurry of stories, Axios CEO Jim VandeHei argued on Thursday that media coverage still isn’t capturing the scale of what’s happening. “In 30 years of journalism, I’ve never witnessed a bigger gap between the most consequential story — insane AI advancements and investment — and Washington and mainstream media attention,” he posted on X alongside an Axios story, “AI insiders are sounding the alarm.” The same day also brought this Axios headline: “Anthropic raises $30B at $380B valuation.” Public apprehension doesn’t seem to be scaring off heavy investment. Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square just disclosed a $2 billion stake in Meta as the company ramps up AI efforts. And Zuckerberg appears to be doing fine. He made headlines of his own this past week after buying a waterfront mansion in Florida’s Indian Creek, a property that the Wall Street Journal pegged at around $150 - $200 million. The Meta chief’s new neighbors on the man-made barrier island, often referred to as the “Billionaire Bunker,” include Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and fellow tech titan Jeff Bezos. Michael Calderone 
Concerns about what social media is doing to young people have been mounting for years, explored in doc-series like Lauren Greenfield’s “Social Studies” and books such as Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation,” the latter helping propel efforts around the country to restrict phones in schools. The issue has also drawn sustained scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where Zuckerberg and Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri have faced questions in the past about child safety and mental health. Now... 
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