Open Source: 3 Trump changes hit Triangle research | IBM’s Red Hat facelift | Toyota time
.jpg "EPA chemist Mark Strynar explains how the federal agency identifies new environmental pollutants at his lab in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park")
I’m Brian Gordon, tech reporter for The News & Observer, and this is Open Source, a weekly newsletter on business, labor and technology in North Carolina.
The flurry of systemic changes by the new Trump administration has already been felt in North Carolina’s Research Triangle. Perhaps particularly so.
Among the roughly 1,000 Environmental Protection Agency workers who report to the agency’s largest physical campus, in Research Triangle Park, more than 130 received an email last week emphasizing they could be fired at any time given their probationary status as new hires. At the same time, the government offered federal employees a deferred resignation that promised to pay them through September if they quit.
This buyout was communicated in a message with the subject line “Fork in the Road,” which was the same phrase Elon Musk sent Twitter employees before he slashed jobs at the company. The administration subsequently sent multiple messages throughout the week reminding employees of the offer and its Thursday deadline.
Regardless of politics — the impact of cutting EPA staff and the size of the federal government overall — this past week presented a tricky decision for the Triangle’s newest EPA employees. Quit and potentially get months of pay? Or roll the dice without job protections?
Holly Wilson, an EPA employee and president of the local union chapter, said more than one colleague reached out for advice. Hours before the buyout deadline Thursday, a federal judge paused the program, with a hearing on the program now scheduled for Monday.
Impact of USAID cuts
Another place where the Triangle has been uniquely affected by the administration is through the gutting of USAID. Again, this isn’t an exploration of whether USAID should exist. But among the six nonprofits that receive the most funding from the agency, two are based locally.
That would be FHI 360 (No. 3) and RTI International (No. 6). On Friday, the latter furloughed a third of its U.S. staff, including more than 200 workers in North Carolina. Over 60% of FHI 360’s annual revenue comes from USAID (more than $500 million in 2023).
RTI International hasn’t given an update. As an original RTP tenant, it is among Durham County’s 10 largest employers.
Lastly, local startup leaders say the Trump administration’s halting of federal research grants led to a chaotic week. “We have about half a million dollars that were pending reimbursements that we weren’t sure if we were going to get,” one Durham founder said.
North Carolina has the ninth largest population but receives the sixth most grant funding through the National Institutes of Health. More than half of this nearly $2 billion went to Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill last year.
NIH grant payments and reviews have resumed, a development that should be welcomed in the research-focused Triangle.
Clearing my cache
- IBM is increasingly becoming a software company, and arguably a more interesting one, thanks to its acquisition of the Raleigh open source giant Red Hat.
- Toyota says it will start shipping electric vehicle batteries from its new North Carolina factory in April. It is the carmaker’s first EV battery facility in the U.S. and Toyota aims to have 3,000 workers there by end of this year.
- Thousands of Amazon warehouse workers in Garner will have the chance to vote on a union starting Monday.
The publicly traded Wilmington fintech company nCino has a new CEO.
Cold-Link Logistics, a cold storage operator, promises 123 new jobs in the small city of Lumberton, 90 minutes south of Raleigh.
Honeywell, the Charlotte-based conglomerate, is splitting into three publicly traded companies. It currently employs 1,150 in the Queen City.
National Tech Happenings
- Barnes & Noble is having a moment. Buoyed by viral online hits, the brick-and-mortar bookseller opened nearly 60 stores last year, and plans to open at least as many in 2025.
OpenAI is scouting more U.S. sites for its future data center network, part of the President Donald Trump-backed Stargate project to support artificial intelligence technologies. North Carolina isn’t one of the 16 states being considered.
First TikTok, next DeepSeek? Bipartisan legislation looks to ban the Chinese chatbot from U.S. government devices over national security worries.
This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 9:25 AM.
