How has Wired‘s approach to covering tech power players such as Musk and other Silicon Valley names evolved as they’ve become more directly involved in politics?

You just can’t have a conversation with any of these guys — any of the big tech CEOs or Silicon Valley players — without asking them about politics and policy or interrogating that in your reporting. The tech industry and D.C. are so interconnected, and between the two of them you’re basically looking at the power base that’s driving the entire country… not to mention the world. So you ask the hard questions, not just about the business of Meta or Amazon or Tesla, but about how that business interacts with and thinks about what’s happening in the administration and with policy. I’m not saying they’ll answer the questions (and trust me, by and large they are currently not), but it is imperative that Wired journalists ask the questions — over, and over, and over.

When reporting draws legal threats from powerful figures, how do you balance journalist safety with the public’s right to know?

I think it’s really this: Do the reporting well, do your diligence, get it right, be responsible, and then come what may. There are plenty of tools at our disposal to safeguard our journalists, and we’ll go to the ends of the earth to make sure they can do their jobs as safely as possible. We have, of course, had a lot of those conversations since Trump was elected and taken a lot of steps to enhance how we protect our reporters, editors, fact-checkers, and so on. Ultimately, accurate reporting in the public interest is the primary consideration. If it’s accurate and of news value, we’ll figure out a way to publish it.