Tech's Trust Problem Just Got Personal

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A woman in the UK projected her dead husband as a hologram at his funeral. A tech boss with government contracts published a 22-point manifesto about saving Western civilization. OpenAI’s CEO apologized for not reporting a mass shooting suspect to police. And yes, Trump’s “exclusive” crypto event turned out to be exclusive to basically everyone.

This isn’t a random week in tech news. It’s a portrait of an industry that’s lost something fundamental.

The Credibility Unraveling

Start with the easy one: Sam Altman’s apology about the Tumbler Ridge shooting suspect who had an OpenAI account. He wrote a letter. It was brief. It was late. And it perfectly encapsulates why people don’t trust tech leaders anymore—not because they’re evil, but because they’re reactive, narrow, and seem genuinely surprised when their platforms have real consequences.

This follows months of criticism that Altman has faced over OpenAI’s direction. The company’s cutting projects, tightening strategy, trying to be “more disciplined.” Translation: we spent like drunks, now we’re in damage control. He’s the captain of a ship that’s supposed to be the responsible AI company, and he’s writing apologies instead of preventing the problems in the first place.

Then there’s the SpaceX situation. The New York Times examined how Elon Musk used his rocket company as a personal financial tool—loans to himself, support for his other struggling ventures. This isn’t insider baseball. This is the guy running the company most people think will get us to Mars, treating a publicly important infrastructure company like a personal ATM. It’s not technically illegal. It’s just… transparent evidence that the system works for people who’ve already won the lottery.

Photo by Beyzanur K. / Pexels

The Hologram Problem Nobody Saw Coming

But here’s what actually bothers me: the hologram funeral.

Pam brought her husband Bill back as a hologram after 59 years of marriage. The story went viral because it’s touching, because it’s technically impressive, because it solves a real human problem (he was already dead). And it’s also deeply unsettling in a way nobody’s talking about.

The tech industry has solved the wrong problem. We can resurrect people as light patterns but we can’t figure out how to keep our own house in order. We’ve built the infrastructure to honor the dead while the living are busy betraying each other.

This is the real tech story: we’re excellent at the spectacular, useless things. Holograms for funerals. Memecoins with Trump. Passkeys replacing passwords (which, by the way, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre is now pushing—and they’re probably right, but notice how we only upgrade security when forced). We’re terrible at the boring, essential things. Data security. Content moderation. Transparency.

The Manifesto Guy

Then there’s the tech boss with UK government and NHS contracts who published a 22-point plan about the future of the West. I won’t name him (the headline does) because the point isn’t the specific document. The point is that we’ve reached a stage where a contractor to a national health service thinks it’s appropriate to publish political ideology manifestos. Not as a citizen. As a CEO making decisions that affect healthcare infrastructure.

This is what unchecked tech power looks like when it gets bored with just being rich. It starts thinking it should also be influential.

What Actually Happened to Trust

Here’s my read: the tech industry convinced itself that disruption was inherently good, that breaking things was creative, that they were smarter than the institutions they were disrupting. For about 15 years, that worked. Smartphones disrupted feature phones. Streaming disrupted cable. Cloud infrastructure actually was better than data centers.

But then the same people who’d successfully disrupted actual industries started treating governance, truth, security, and ethics like they could be disrupted too. Turns out you can’t. They’re not problems; they’re constants. You don’t innovate your way past them. You navigate them carefully, honestly, and with genuine humility.

The crypto thing—Trump’s “exclusive” event that wasn’t exclusive—is almost quaint compared to everything else. Of course a memecoin event turned out to be marketing hype. That’s so on-brand it barely registers anymore. But it matters because thousands of people still fell for it. The exclusivity was the entire pitch. And the pitch was fraudulent.

Photo by nappy / Pexels

EV Leases and Second Chances

One number in all this gives me hope: hundreds of thousands of EV leases are expiring in the next three years. These cars will hit used-car lots. Suddenly, expensive technology becomes accessible.

This is what actually matters. Not holograms. Not manifestos. Not celebrity crypto. The ability of normal people to access technology at a price they can afford. The infrastructure that makes it possible to change your life without being rich first.

If I had to bet on what saves tech’s credibility, it’s this: people getting actual utility from AI, electric vehicles, better security systems. Not because the CEO apologized. Not because someone published a 22-point plan. But because the tech works and it’s affordable and it doesn’t betray you.

Sam Altman needs to understand that his apology letter is worthless compared to making sure OpenAI’s systems don’t become tools for violence. That’s not noble. That’s just the minimum. And he got it wrong.

Elon Musk needs to understand that SpaceX is too important to treat like his personal venture fund. The public trusts SpaceX more than they trust him. That’s not a coincidence.

The UK tech boss needs to understand that running a government contractor and publishing political manifestos is a conflict of interest you can’t talk your way out of.

And all of them need to understand that trust isn’t rebuilt with words. It’s rebuilt with invisible, boring, consistent competence. With doing the hard thing instead of the spectacular thing. With admitting when you don’t know instead of publishing 22-point plans.

What I’m Watching

• OpenAI’s safety incident rate over the next 6 months. If we see another story about a violent crime suspect with an active account, Altman’s credibility is finished. The apology only matters if there’s no repeat.

• Used EV pricing by Q4 2025. When those leases expire, watch if the secondhand market actually makes EVs accessible to median-income buyers. This is where the technology either democratizes or becomes a luxury good. That choice matters more than any hologram.

• UK government contract audits of that tech company. If they don’t scrutinize the manifesto situation immediately, the whole system is compromised. Watch for the next 90 days.

• Whether SpaceX reporting becomes standard practice. Will other billionaire-run companies start disclosing self-dealing? Or is this just the new normal we accept? The answer determines if we’ve actually learned anything.

The hologram at the funeral was beautiful. It was also a distraction. Real trust doesn’t look like light patterns and speeches. It looks like someone admitting they screwed up, then never screwing it up the same way again.