The Public Trust

Siri began as CALO, the Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes, which was SRI International's project inside DARPA's PAL program. SRI describes it as a five-year, $150,000,000 effort involving more than 300 researchers at 22 institutions, starting with a $22,000,000 award in 2003. SRI spun the work out as Siri, Inc. in 2007. Apple bought the company in April 2010 for a price it never disclosed; TechCrunch reported the strongest rumor at the time as more than $200,000,000. Siri went on sale with the iPhone 4S on 14 October 2011. SRI's own history of the project records no royalty and no equity stake returned to the public that paid for the research.

“The Pentagon built the mind. Cupertino sold it back to us.”

Fox aired claims for weeks that Dominion Voting Systems had rigged the 2020 election. Dominion sued in Delaware Superior Court on 26 March 2021 for $1,600,000,000. Messages produced in discovery showed hosts and executives, Rupert Murdoch among them, privately disbelieving what the network kept broadcasting. On 31 March 2023 Judge Eric M. Davis ruled it “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the statements about Dominion were true and left one question for the jury, which was whether Fox knew. Fox settled for $787,500,000 on 18 April 2023, the day the trial was to open, so no jury answered it. Fox acknowledged the court's rulings and issued no apology.

“They didn't report the news. They settled it.”

Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah was the principal Senate sponsor, with Tom Harkin of Iowa, of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, signed on 25 October 1994. The Act put supplements under food rules. The FDA states the result in its own words: it “does not have the authority to approve dietary supplements before they are marketed.” A manufacturer notifies the agency about a new ingredient and no approval follows. Utah's supplement industry, about 120 companies with more than $4,500,000,000 in annual revenue by a 2008 Deseret News count, sells without the review a drug company has to survive.

“They can't call it a cure. They sure knew how to sell it.”

Two Boeing technical pilots deceived the FAA's Aircraft Evaluation Group about MCAS, the flight-control software on the 737 MAX, so that the aircraft would be certified with the lightest level of pilot training. Lion Air 610 crashed on 29 October 2018 and Ethiopian 302 on 10 March 2019. 346 people died. On 7 January 2021 Boeing was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and entered a deferred prosecution agreement worth $2,513,600,000. Less than a tenth of that was criminal penalty. Most of it was compensation to Boeing's own airline customers.

“They crashed the plane. We paid for the parts anyway.”

GAO calls the F-35 the Defense Department's most expensive weapon system program. Its report of 3 September 2025 puts the lifetime bill above $2,000,000,000,000: $485,000,000,000 to buy the aircraft and at least $1,580,000,000,000 to keep them flying over a 77-year life. The same report found that all 110 aircraft delivered in 2024 arrived late, by an average of 238 days. GAO's report of 11 June 2026 says the share of the fleet able to fly its missions fell from 67 percent to 44 percent between fiscal 2021 and 2025. GAO carried a figure of $1,700,000,000,000 from 2021 through 2023, and the purchases continued through every one of those reports.

“The most expensive plane in history, and my kid's gym still has a leaking roof.”

On 16 October 2024 Raytheon agreed to pay more than $950,000,000 to resolve three government investigations at once. About $575,000,000 answered for defective pricing, which means inflating its costs on Pentagon contracts, including PATRIOT missile systems and a radar. About $384,000,000 answered for Qatar, where between roughly 2012 and 2016 the company paid bribes to a senior Qatar Emiri Air Force official through sham subcontracts and then failed to report the payments to the State Department as export law requires. The resolution came with two three-year deferred prosecution agreements and an outside compliance monitor.

“Cost of the bribe: millions. Cost of losing the contract: zero.”