He thinks it’s… video quality?
He thinks it’s… video quality?
When business leaders spout buzzwords like “AI,” “8K” and “5G,” sometimes in the same sentence, we often get a sneaking suspicion they don’t know what they mean! With President Donald Trump, there’s no need to wonder: he clearly has no idea. “What does [6G] do? Give you a little bit deeper view into somebody’s skin?” he mused today, live on TV, right in front of Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, who did not bother to correct him.
Just in case some readers are not clear, “6G” would refer to a next-gen cellular network, hopefully deploying faster and more reliable wireless internet to more people, not the video resolution of a screen or a camera. (That’s where “8K” comes in.)
Here are Trump’s full live remarks on the topic, before he moved on:
So we’re into 6G now, yeesh. 5G — I was a leader on 5G, getting that done, and now they’re up to 6. What does that do, give you a little bit deeper view into somebody’s skin? See how perfect it is. I liked the cameras of the old days. Sort of just had a nice feature. Now they cover every little, let’s see Michael, you’re in good shape, you’re not going to… but I tell you… so the six is coming, hunh? It’s coming. Does it ever end? And what happens? You’ll be into seven, right? Before six gets old, you’ll be into seven.
You can watch the full exchange here (it should be queued up to the right part of the conversation, tell me if not!):
Did Trump at least know what 6G meant back in 2019 when he suggested he wanted it “as soon as possible” or risk the US getting “left behind”? That’s not clear, but this is the same man who claims other countries pay his tariffs instead of us here in the United States, the same man who said the Moon was part of Mars, the same man selling a “Made in the USA” phone that won’t be made in the USA, and perhaps most relevantly to this story, the man who thought Apple could help him build out 5G in the US. The list goes on and on.
In case you’re wondering whether Trump was “a leader on 5G,” his biggest contributions have been: rubber-stamping a T-Mobile merger with Sprint that didn’t keep its promises; appointing FCC commissioners that made it their mission to kill net neutrality and largely let the carriers have their way; handing cellular carriers extra spectrum to profit from; and blocking some Chinese telecommunications equipment from becoming part of US 5G networks.
Most recently, Trump’s FCC is getting rid of the broadband nutrition labels explicitly designed to protect consumers from hidden fees and misleading marketing.
