On Wednesday, President Biden signed a bill into law that would force the sale of TikTok or ban the app outright. We explain how this came together, when just a few weeks ago it seemed unlikely to happen, and what legal challenges the law will face next. Then we check on Tesla’s very bad year and what’s next for the company after this week’s awful quarterly earnings report. Finally, to boldly support tech where tech has never been supported before: Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab try to fix a chip malfunction from 15 billion miles away.
Chapters

00:00:00 - Croup!
00:00:45 - This Week on Hard Fork
00:01:31 - TikTok Ban
00:24:03 - Tesla’s Flop Era
00:47:55 - Fixing Ancient Spacecraft

Guests:
Andrew Hawkins, Transportation Editor at The Verge
Todd Barber, Propulsion Engineer at Jet Propulsion Lab

Additional Reading:
‘Thunder Run’: Behind Lawmakers’ Secretive Push to Pass the TikTok Bill
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/te...

Tesla’s in its flop era
https://www.theverge.com/24134781/tes...


NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-v...


Hard Fork is a weekly look into the future that's already here. Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore stories from the bleeding edge of tech.
Casey’s publication, Platformer: https://www.platformer.news/


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Credits
“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton. Produced by Whitney Jones and Rachel Cohn. Edited by Jen Poyant. Engineering by Alyssa Moxley and original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop and Marion Lozano. Our audience is Nell Gallogly. Video production by Ryan Manning, Sawyer Roque, and Dylan Bergeson. Motion graphics by Phil Robibero Thumbnails by Julia Moburg, Elizabeth Bristow, and Harshal Duddalwar
Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Pui-Wing Tam, Nell Gallogly, Kate LoPresti and Jeffrey Miranda.