After the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, America’s business leaders came out strongly in their criticism of Donald Trump. Now – as the Harris campaign brands Trump a “fascist” and Trump threatens retribution against “the enemy within” – there appears to be a conspiracy of silence.

In fact, as the nation heads to the polls in an election that is too close to call, some of America’s most powerful chief executive appear to be cozying up to Trump again.

More than one in five attenders at EU events on regulating big tech companies did not disclose links to the industry when applying to take part, according to transparency campaigners who say hidden networks are distorting public debate.

Researchers at three NGOs analysed nearly 4,000 registrations at European Commission workshops organised earlier this year to test companies’ compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law to curb anti-competitive behaviour.

Indonesia has prohibited the marketing and sale of the iPhone 16 model over Apple’s failure to meet local investment regulations, according to its industry ministry.

South-east Asia’s biggest economy has a young, tech-savvy population with more than 100 million people under the age of 30, but Apple still does not have an official store in the country, forcing those who want its products to buy from resale platforms.

The Irish finance minister has hailed the €14bn tax windfall from Apple as “transformational” just weeks after the government lost a case in the European court of justice arguing the tech company should keep its money.

Unveiling the country’s budget on Tuesday, Jack Chambers said the money would be used on infrastructure and not splurged on giveaways before the general election, which is expected in November.

The EU’s top court will rule whether the European Commission was right to demand that €13bn (£11bn) in “illegal” tax breaks for Apple should be repaid, in a judgment likely to have far-reaching effects on “sweetheart” deals for large multinationals.

A ruling due on Tuesday from the European court of justice (ECJ) may bring an end to a bitter legal saga that began in 2016 when the EU competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, concluded the iPhone maker had benefited from billions worth of unfair tax breaks from the Irish government.

Apple on Thursday changed its policy in the European Union to allow developers to communicate with their customers outside its App Store after the commission charged the iPhone maker in June for breaching the bloc’s tech rules.

The commission had said that under most of the business terms, Apple allows steering only through “link-outs”, meaning that app developers can include a link in their app that redirects the customer to a web page where the customer can conclude a contract.

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Apple has been found to be in breach of sweeping new EU laws designed to allow smaller companies to compete and allow consumers to find cheaper and alternative apps in the tech business’s app store.

The European Commission, which also acts as the EU antitrust and technology regulator, said it had sent its preliminary findings to Apple after an investigation launched in March.

“For too long Apple has been squeezing out innovative companies — denying consumers new opportunities and choices,” said Thierry Breton, the European commissioner responsible for digital markets, on X.

In preliminary findings, against which Apple can appeal, the European Commission said it believed its rules of engagement did not comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) “as they prevent app developers from freely steering consumers to alternatives channels for offers and content”.

Apple will delay launching three new artificial intelligence features in Europe because European Union competition rules require the company ensure that rival products and services can function with its devices. The features will launch in the fall in the US but will not arrive in Europe until 2025.

The company said on Friday three features – Phone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing enhancements, and Apple Intelligence – will not be rolled out to EU users this year because of regulatory uncertainties due to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Shares of Nvidia rallied to record highs on Wednesday, with the artificial-intelligence chipmaker’s stock market valuation hitting the $3tn mark and overtaking Apple to become the world’s second most valuable company.

The chipmaker’s stock was up 5.16% at $1,224.40, giving Nvidia a market value of $3.01tn at market close. Apple’s market capitalization was at $3.00tn at market close as its stock climbed 0.78%.

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Australia’s online safety regulator has accused Apple and Google of financial motives in deciding not to remove Reddit and Elon Musk’s X from their app stores for hosting pornography in violation of their own policies.

Research cited in the eSafety commissioner’s online roadmap for age verification technology for adult sites last year reported that 41% of teens aged between 16 and 18 reported seeing pornography on X – more than the 37% who viewed pornography on dedicated adult sites.

The billionaire investment tycoon Warren Buffett has stressed his empire will remain a key investor in Apple after it sold billions of dollars’ worth of shares in the iPhone maker.

Thousands of shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s sprawling conglomerate, have flocked to Omaha, Nebraska, for the firm’s annual meeting – dubbed Woodstock for Capitalists – this weekend.

Apple has removed WhatsApp and Threads from its Chinese App Store after the Chinese government ordered it to do so for “national security” reasons.

Apple confirmed it had withdrawn the two apps – both owned by Meta, also the owner of Facebook – under instruction from the Cyberspace Administration of China, which regulates and censors China’s highly restricted internet and online content.

Tesla has settled a lawsuit over a car crash which killed an Apple engineer in 2018 after his car veered off a highway near San Francisco, court documents showed on Monday.

The settlement was made as the trial was about to start over the high-profile accident involving Tesla’s driver assistant technology, ending a five-year legal battle over the case.

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Apple, Google’s parent company and Meta are being investigated by the EU for potential breaches of the bloc’s new laws designed to police anti-competitive behaviour by big technology companies.

The trio face significant fines if they are found guilty of breaching the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a landmark piece of regulation that came into force on 7 March and is aimed at increasing choice for online consumers.

Apple has agreed to pay $490m to settle a class-action lawsuit led by the UK’s Norfolk county council.

The class action alleged chief executive Tim Cook misled investors about a steep downturn in iPhone’s sales in China that culminated in a jarring revision to the company’s revenue forecast.

Neil Young is to return his music to Spotify after keeping it off the streaming platform for more than two years.

Young removed his entire catalogue from the world’s biggest streaming company in January 2022, in protest against Joe Rogan whose chart-topping podcast was exclusive to Spotify.

Apple has been fined €1.8bn (£1.5bn) by the EU after an investigation found it had limited competition from music streaming services such as Spotify.

The fine is nearly four times higher than expected as the European Commission attempts to show it will act decisively on tech companies who abuse their dominant position in the market for online services.

Will 2024 be a boom or a bust for big tech? By one estimate, there have been more than 7,500 layoffs in the sector since the start of the year – a dispersal of pink slips that many hoped would have ceased after the deep job cuts of 2023.

However, as the US’s big tech earnings season gets under way this week, some analysts are predicting strong numbers. This batch of quarterly financial results may show that the industry has cleared out its pandemic-era overhiring and reorganised itself around cloud computing and AI - necessitating cuts in sectors with less rosy prospects. Analysts keen on AI say we are at the start of a tech bull market.

Apple scored a victory on Wednesday when a US appeals court paused a government commission’s import ban on some of the company’s popular Apple smartwatches following a patent dispute with a medical-technology firm, Masimo.

The tech giant had filed an emergency request for the US court of appeals for the federal circuit to halt the order, after appealing the US International Trade Commission’s (ITC) decision that it had infringed Masimo’s patents.

The BT-owned EE is rolling out its revamped TV over broadband offering, which delivers live and on-demand services streamed to a choice of set-top boxes that includes a customised Apple TV – a first for the UK.

The new IPTV service continues the firm’s replacement of the BT brand with EE and ditches the aerial while still offering free-to-air and premium channels in a range of packages starting at £18 a month on top of the required EE broadband subscription.