News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Anthropic, Blackstone bet the next trillion-dollar AI business is implementation, not models
AI models are becoming ever more capable, but exactly what enterprise adoption will look like remains a big question. In a bid to shape that future, labs like Anthropic and OpenAI have spun up separate businesses dedicated to deploying AI engineers to their customers' offices -- a bet that assisting businesses in figuring out how to use their AI models is the next trillion-dollar category. One of those businesses now has a name: Ode with Anthropic is the $1.5-billion, AI implementation company that the AI lab launched in May as part of a joint venture with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs and others. The move follows OpenAI's own take on this, The Deployment Company, underscoring a growing acknowledgement among frontier AI labs that winning enterprise customers requires far more than shipping better models. Ode was originally conceived by Blackstone, which noticed a gap when it had roped in large consulting firms and small AI services boutiques to implement AI across its portfolio companies. One of those boutiques, AI engineering services startup Fractional AI, apparently stood out, and the joint venture acquired the startup shortly after it was announced. (Fractional ended an 11-month partnership with OpenAI when it was acquired.) Fractional has become the foundation of what is now Ode -- a kind of "scaled boutique" AI services firm. And its leaders have ambitious goals. "It's pretty easy to imagine this as a trillion-dollar company someday if we execute well," Chris Taylor, CEO of Ode and co-founder of Fractional, told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview. "The key challenge of the business is how do you go through that phase of hyper growth without losing the emphasis on quality?" Ode currently employs 100 engineers, and works closely with Anthropic's applied AI team to identify where the tech can have an impact on different businesses, and create systems tailored to each organization's operations. Anthropic's internal team will continue to focus on strategic, mission-aligned deployments, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. The private equity firms backing Ode will funnel their own portfolio companies to the joint venture as potential customers, though Ode will not limit sales of its services to those companies. For Ode, an ideal customer is one whose CEO buys into the promise, according to Taylor. "A lot of the work that we're doing is the top one or two priority for the CEO of the company," Taylor said. "It's the most important product feature that the company is going to build over the course of the next two years, or it's reworking the most important business process they have."
Scottish Mortgage: Broker warns on SpaceX concentration
Canaccord Genuity (TSX:CF, LSE:CF) has initiated coverage of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC (LSE:SMT) with a 'hold' rating, warning that SpaceX now dominates the portfolio to an uncomfortable degree. Analyst Iain Scouller said the rocket company accounted for 28% of net assets at 30 June, once the trust's 8% balance sheet leverage is taken into account. He suggested investors who now view their holding as outsized after strong share price gains could top-slice their positions. The shares trade at 1446p against a net asset value of 1538p, a discount of about 6%. Canaccord thinks a discount of 5% to 10% is reasonable given the risk and reward attached to private companies and the potential volatility from the large SpaceX position. The trust has performed strongly, with the share price up 38% and net asset value up 36% over the year to 13 July. SpaceX contributed 14.9% to absolute performance over the year to 31 March, just over half the 27.4% net asset value return. Its valuation rose by £1.91 billion to £2.98 billion, equivalent to 79% of the £2.43 billion total increase in fair value across the private portfolio. Almost all of that gain remains unrealised. The realised gain over the year was just £0.8 million. Beneath the SpaceX number, the private portfolio was mixed, with 21 investments falling in value and only 14 rising. Scouller scored the trust's 126-page accounts eight out of 10, praising improved disclosure on unlisted holdings following a Financial Reporting Council thematic review. He would like to see a vintage year breakdown for private investments, more detail in regulatory announcements when valuations change, and industry classifications for each holding. SpaceX is currently classified as an industrial rather than a technology company, which helped lift the industrials weighting to 29% from 17%. Canaccord noted the trust applies a typical 10% illiquidity discount to unlisted valuations, and a further 10% for execution risk where a transaction has yet to close. The cost of debt is low at 3.6%, up from 3.1%, helped by long-dated debentures issued in 2020 and 2021 at rates below 3%. Gearing fell to 11% of net asset value from 13%. Scottish Mortgage spent £3.1 billion buying back 318.6 million shares, or 22% of share capital, over the two years to 15 March 2026. The board has reviewed the fee structure and rejected a performance fee, with the ongoing charge ratio at 0.33% of net assets.
Polymarket Traders May Be Manipulating Crypto Bets, Study Says
(Bloomberg) -- Researchers at Stanford University identified signs that traders may be manipulating one of Polymarket's most popular Bitcoin betting markets by briefly influencing the cryptocurrency's price used to decide the wagers. Most Read from Bloomberg The working paper, co-authored with a researcher at Singapore Management University, examined about two months of five-minute Bitcoin bets on Polymarket. It found repeated bursts of one-sided trading on the Binance exchange that temporarily moved Bitcoin's price in the final seconds before bets closed, benefiting traders positioned in the same direction. The activity was heaviest at times when small, temporary moves in Bitcoin's price could determine whether a bet paid out. The researchers described the pattern as a "transitory push to manipulate the spot price." Prediction markets have traditionally been used to forecast elections and sporting events, where traders cannot easily influence the outcome. The researchers argue bets tied to financial assets are vulnerable to manipulation because participants can trade the very asset that determines whether they win or lose. "These contracts have a structural vulnerability," Singapore Management University assistant professor Shihao Yu, one of the paper's authors, wrote in a LinkedIn post about the research. "They settle on a price that traders can move by trading the underlying asset itself." The findings come as exchanges expand prediction markets tied to financial assets. Cboe has begun rolling out products tied to stock indexes, while Nasdaq has sought approval for similar contracts, potentially extending the questions raised by the paper beyond crypto and Polymarket. "Polymarket uses multiple independent pricing oracles to aggregate data and ensure accuracy," a company spokesperson said. The company is looking to transition certain markets in the next year to settlement methods that use prices over a longer period rather than a single point in time. The change would "further ensure market integrity," the spokesperson said. While the researchers document unusual Bitcoin trading around when Polymarket's short-term Bitcoin bets settled, the paper does not prove that the trading necessarily came from Polymarket users who stood to gain from momentary moves in Bitcoin's price. The research also stops short of proving traders' intent but still presents evidence consistent with manipulation, according to Elton Shehdula, head of research at crypto analytics firm Allium.
Anthropic, Blackstone bet the next trillion-dollar AI business is implementation, not models
AI models are becoming ever more capable, but exactly what enterprise adoption will look like remains a big question. In a bid to shape that future, labs like Anthropic and OpenAI have spun up separate businesses dedicated to deploying AI engineers to their customers' offices -- a bet that assisting businesses in figuring out how to use their AI models is the next trillion-dollar category. One of those businesses now has a name: Ode with Anthropic is the $1.5-billion, AI implementation company that the AI lab launched in May as part of a joint venture with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs and others. The move follows OpenAI's own take on this, The Deployment Company, underscoring a growing acknowledgement among frontier AI labs that winning enterprise customers requires far more than shipping better models. Ode was originally conceived by Blackstone, which noticed a gap when it had roped in large consulting firms and small AI services boutiques to implement AI across its portfolio companies. One of those boutiques, AI engineering services startup Fractional AI, apparently stood out, and the joint venture acquired the startup shortly after it was announced. (Fractional ended an 11-month partnership with OpenAI when it was acquired.) Fractional has become the foundation of what is now Ode -- a kind of "scaled boutique" AI services firm. And its leaders have ambitious goals. "It's pretty easy to imagine this as a trillion-dollar company someday if we execute well," Chris Taylor, CEO of Ode and co-founder of Fractional, told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview. "The key challenge of the business is how do you go t ...
Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman Introduce Ode with Anthropic, an Enterprise AI Services Firm
Today, Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman introduced Ode with Anthropic ("Ode"), the AI services firm announced earlier this year, now launching under its official name and brand. Ode is a standalone company that combines Anthropic's frontier AI models, a team of experienced AI engineers and operators, and the backing of a consortium of leading investors. Alongside the founding partners, the investor consortium includes Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic, Leonard Green & Partners, Apollo Global Management, GIC, and Sequoia Capital. Ode is built on the foundation of Fractional AI, the applied AI services firm acquired in May 2026, whose team, alongside engineers from Anthropic, forms its operational core. The company is led by Chris Taylor as CEO and Eddie Siegel as CTO, who co-founded Fractional AI and held those same roles there.
Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman Introduce Ode with Anthropic, an Enterprise AI Services Firm
All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here Today, Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman introduced Ode with Anthropic ("Ode"), the AI services firm announced earlier this year, now launching under its official name and brand. Ode is a standalone company that combines Anthropic's frontier AI models, a team of experienced AI engineers and operators, and the backing of a consortium of leading investors. Alongside the founding partners, the investor consortium includes Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic, Leonard Green & Partners, Apollo Global Management, GIC, and Sequoia Capital. Ode is built on the foundation of Fractional AI, the applied AI services firm acquired in May 2026, whose team, alongside engineers from Anthropic, forms its operational core. The company is led by Chris Taylor as CEO and Eddie Siegel as CTO, who co-founded Fractional AI and held those same roles there. "Companies everywhere see the potential for what AI can do for their businesses, the challenge is making it real," said Ode CEO Chris Taylor. "Our teams partner closely with CEOs and across organizations to define and execute the highest priority AI initiatives. By pairing the deep subject matter expertise of our clients with our top applied AI talent, we're able to drive transformation level impact. There's enormous demand for Anthropic's technology, and we're scaling quickly to help clients adopt AI with a focus on outcomes." "As mid-size companies move from experimenting with AI to building it into their operations, they need partners with real implementation depth and a clear understanding of how their businesses actually work," said Garvan Doyle, Anthropic's Head of Forward Deployed Engineering, Americas. "Ode was built to be that partner, adding to Anthropic's growing ecosystem of partners that help enterprises put Claude to work." The team behind Ode brings years of experience helping organizations across financial services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, software, and other industries put AI to work. Many employees are former technical founders, and the majority hold advanced degrees with a decade or more of hands-on experience in engineering and AI. Until now, this caliber of frontier AI engineering talent has been effectively inaccessible for most organizations, and Ode was built to change that. As Ode scales to meet growing enterprise demand, the company is actively hiring engineers, product leaders, and operators who want to build high-impact AI systems in real-world settings. About Ode with Anthropic Ode with Anthropic is an AI services company launched in 2026 through a partnership between Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and a consortium of global investors including Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic, Leonard Green & Partners, Apollo Global Management, GIC, and Sequoia Capital. Ode combines Anthropic's frontier AI models with a team of experienced AI engineers to help organizations identify where AI can have the greatest impact, and then build the systems that deliver it. For more information, visit ode.com About Anthropic Anthropic is a frontier AI company whose mission is to steer the trajectory of AI to advance human progress. We are best known for building Claude, the intelligence platform trusted by millions of people and businesses worldwide. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation -- a for-profit committed to operating in service of social and public good -- and controlled by a Long-Term Benefit Trust, a group of independent experts in AI safety, national security, public policy, and social enterprise. About Blackstone Blackstone is the world's largest alternative asset manager. Blackstone seeks to deliver compelling returns for institutional and individual investors by strengthening the companies in which the firm invests. Blackstone's over $1.3 trillion in assets under management include global investment strategies focused on real estate, private equity, credit, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, secondaries and hedge funds. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com . Follow @blackstone on LinkedIn , X (Twitter) , and Instagram . About Hellman & Friedman Hellman & Friedman is a preeminent global private equity firm with a distinctive investment approach focused on a limited number of large-scale equity investments in high-quality growth businesses. H&F seeks to partner with world-class management teams where its deep sector expertise, long-term orientation, and collaborative partnership approach enable companies to flourish. H&F targets outstanding businesses in select sectors, including technology, financial services, healthcare, consumer services & retail, and information, content & business services. H&F was founded in 1984 and has over $115 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2025. Learn more about H&F's defining investment philosophy and approach to sustainable outcomes at www.hf.com . View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260715205134/en/
Elon Musk promises 'no exceptions' after Sam Altman's one word response on xAI's Grok 'uploading' customer code to its own servers
Elon Musk has promised total transparency after a security researcher revealed that xAI's coding assistant, Grok Build, was secretly uploading entire private customer code repositories to a company-controlled Google Cloud storage bucket. In response, the billionaire promised to make the entire codebase of X (formerly Twitter) open source with "no exceptions". Musk's push for absolute transparency follows a sharp online critique from rival OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who publicly labeled the data privacy issue as "concerning"."Once we have completed our review for security vulnerabilities, we will make the entire codebase of 𝕏 open source, with no exceptions," Musk said in the post. "Moreover, we will invite third party reviewers to examine the system that is running to confirm that the open source code is what is running. Trust through total transparency is the only thing that should be believed," he added.The controversy erupted over the weekend when a security researcher discovered that xAI's tool was harvesting vastly more information than was actually required to answer standard coding requests. In one extreme test, as per a report by Axios, Grok Build uploaded a massive 5.1GB of data for a task that only needed 192KB, essentially collecting up to roughly 26,000 times more data than necessary.Security experts warn that this excessive data grab likely scooped up proprietary source code, private database passwords, API keys and cloud credentials. The breach quickly caught the attention of OpenAI's Sam Altman, who posted a blunt, one-word response on X calling the situation: "Concerning". In a separate post, Altman added that the incident was "a reason to favor open-source harnesses".Shortly after the security researcher published the findings, the uploads stopped without users needing to download a software patch, indicating that xAI had quickly shut down the system from its end.xAI released an official statement on Monday claiming that "no trace and code data is ever retained" for enterprise customers who hold strict zero-data-retention agreements.Furthermore, Musk announced a total purge of the collected information to pacify outraged developers. "As a precautionary measure, all user data that was uploaded to SpaceXAI before now will be completely and utterly deleted. Zero anything whatsoever will remain," Musk stated.
IBM stock plunges 11% as Anthropic's Claude Code threatens its COBOL cash cow
The AI startup's new tool automates legacy code modernization, rattling IBM investors and dragging Bitcoin down 5% in the process IBM just got a brutal reminder that being a pioneer in AI doesn't guarantee you won't get disrupted by it. Anthropic's newly unveiled Claude Code tool, designed to automate COBOL modernization, sent IBM shares tumbling 11.2% on February 23 and triggered a cascade across equities and crypto markets alike. Bitcoin dropped 5% to $64,000 on the same day. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all fell more than 1%. What Claude Code actually does, and why it matters Here's the thing about COBOL: it's a programming language from 1959 that somehow still runs the world. It underpins roughly 95% of US ATM transactions. Hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL production code execute daily across finance, government, and insurance systems. Modernizing that code, translating it into newer languages or restructuring it for cloud environments, has been one of the most lucrative consulting gigs in enterprise tech for decades. IBM has been the dominant player in that space, charging premium rates for teams of specialists who understand both the ancient code and the modern systems it needs to talk to. Anthropic's Claude Code aims to automate the exploration and analysis phases of that modernization process. In English: the tool can read through massive COBOL codebases, understand what they do, and map out how to update them, work that previously required expensive human consultants billing by the hour. IBM's AI identity crisis IBM has been synonymous with artificial intelligence since long before the current AI boom. Watson, its flagship AI platform, was beating humans on Jeopardy back in 2011. The company has been pursuing AI-blockchain integration strategies since at least 2016, restructuring its organization and launching dedicated Watson centers to position itself at the intersection of enterprise AI and emerging tech. But there's a meaningful difference between building AI tools and being disrupted by them. IBM's AI strategy has historically been about augmenting its consulting business, using machine learning to make its own teams more efficient while preserving the high-margin, people-intensive model that generates revenue. Claude Code represents a fundamentally different approach: replacing parts of that human workflow entirely. The market's reaction suggests investors see this distinction clearly. An 11.2% single-day decline isn't a gentle repricing. It's a signal that the market believes Anthropic's tool poses a genuine structural threat to one of IBM's most reliable revenue streams. The crypto spillover effect Bitcoin's 5% decline to $64,000 on the same day might seem unrelated at first glance. But the correlation makes more sense when you look at how institutional money moves during periods of tech sector uncertainty. When a major blue-chip stock like IBM gets hammered on AI disruption fears, it raises broader questions about which other established business models might be next, triggering risk-off behavior across portfolios. During previous episodes of tech equity volatility, digital assets have frequently moved in tandem with equities rather than serving as the uncorrelated hedge that crypto maximalists have long promised. This episode reinforced that dynamic.
Terrafab is 'critical' to SpaceX's valuation and future, Oppenheimer says (SPCX:NASDAQ) | Seeking Alpha
Since it was first announced, there has been much ink spilled on the Terafab project between SpaceX (SPCX) and Tesla (TSLA). Now, Oppenheimer believes the semiconductor project is "critical" to the valuation -- and future -- of SpaceX. "In typical SPCX fashion, the pitch is The Terafab project enables supply independence, scaling of AI capabilities, and positions SpaceX as the only vertically integrated AI company, which is central to its AI growth story and potential market dominance. Terafab faces complexity in building fabs, workforce expansion needs, high equipment costs, limited fab experience at Tesla, and potential execution risks due to the speculative nature and dependency on Intel's technology. The co-funding of Terafab by SpaceX and Tesla could set the stage for a future merger between the two companies according to some analysts.
Kraken Borrow: spend more than your cash balance
Use your cash first. Then use the crypto already in your portfolio to cover the rest. * Kraken Borrow now works inside your normal buy flow. Your cash goes first, and eligible crypto you already hold covers the rest. * Your buying power combines your cash balance and your on-platform crypto, so you can buy more without selling anything. * Repayment is flexible: no fixed term and no early repayment fee. * A 1x leverage cap keeps the feature simple and accessible for everyday investors, not just professional traders. Every investor has faced this situation: You're holding an asset you believe in. Then something new catches your attention, but you don't have free cash on hand, and suddenly you're doing mental math about what to sell to fund this next move. It's a frustrating position. Not because the opportunity isn't real, but because the choice feels artificial. You don't have the dry powder to act on it. In an ideal world, you shouldn't have to exit a long-term position you believe in just to enter one you're excited about. That's the problem Kraken Borrow is designed to solve. What is Kraken Borrow? Kraken Borrow is a feature that extends your buying power beyond your cash balance, backed by the crypto you already hold on Kraken. Your portfolio now counts toward every buy, without having to sell anything. The mechanics are straightforward. You buy the way you always have, on the same screen. Your cash is spent first. When a purchase goes beyond your cash, Kraken Borrow covers the rest, backed by eligible assets in your portfolio. At confirmation, you see exactly what's cash and what's borrowed. When you're ready, you repay on your own terms, with no fixed repayment schedule and no rigid deadlines. It's a revolving structure, meaning you can draw, repay, and draw again as your needs change. Built for everyday investors Crypto-backed borrowing isn't a new concept, but it has historically skewed toward professional traders comfortable with complex instruments and high leverage. Kraken Borrow is built for a different audience. Designed for a range of everyday investors, the feature includes a 1x leverage cap, a familiar buy screen with borrowing built in, and a structure that prioritizes clarity over complexity. Whether you're a long-term holder looking to stay invested through a volatile period, or an active investor looking to capitalize on something new, Kraken Borrow gives you a practical trading tool without requiring you to navigate a steep learning curve. Collateral and margin levels are clearly defined throughout, so the experience stays transparent from start to finish. Put your portfolio to work The best financial tools remove tradeoffs that don't need to exist. With Kraken Borrow, selling a position to fund another doesn't have to be your only option. Now, instead of choosing between holding and acting, you can do both. Kraken Borrow is available in the Kraken app for eligible customers. Kraken Borrow is a crypto-collateralized borrowing feature. Borrowing involves risk, including the potential loss of collateral through liquidation if your Loan Maintenance Ratio falls below the required threshold. Interest rates are variable and may change over the life of an open-ended loan. An origination fee of 0.5% applies. Collateral assets are ring-fenced and cannot be withdrawn while a loan is active. Kraken Borrow is not available in all jurisdictions and is not currently available in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, UAE, Brazil, or India. Geographic restrictions and eligibility criteria apply. See https://support.kraken.com/articles/borrow for full terms. These materials are for general information purposes only and are not investment advice or a recommendation or solicitation to buy, sell, stake, or hold any cryptoasset or to engage in any specific trading strategy. Kraken does not and will not work to increase or decrease the price of any particular cryptoasset it makes available. The unpredictable nature of the cryptoasset markets can lead to loss of funds. Tax may be payable on any return and/or on any increase in the value of your cryptoassets and you should seek independent advice on your taxation position.
Elon Musk Reverses Course and Calls Anthropic the AI Leader - Memeburn
For South African businesses, the deal shows how access to AI tools increasingly depends on a small group of foreign infrastructure providers. Elon Musk has made a sharp U-turn on Anthropic. After months of attacking the Claude developer as "woke," hypocritical and unlikely to win the AI race, Musk now says Anthropic has become the industry's clear leader. He also praised its newest models and promised that he wouldn't use his control over computing infrastructure to seriously harm the company. The warmer language matters because Anthropic isn't just one of Musk's competitors anymore. It's also a major customer. Musk admits he got Anthropic wrong Musk acknowledged the reversal in a post on X, writing that he was "clearly wrong about Anthropic." "They are obviously currently the leader in AI," he added, while praising Anthropic's Mythos and Fable models. The comments represent a dramatic change from his earlier public attacks on the company, as detailed in Business Insider's report on Musk's Anthropic reversal. Earlier in 2026, Musk accused Anthropic of stealing training data, promoting political bias and acting hypocritically. He also dismissed the company's chances of beating rivals such as OpenAI, Google and his own AI operation. Now, he's describing the company's technology as the best available. That doesn't mean the rivalry has disappeared. Musk continues to promote Grok as a serious challenger, especially after the release of Grok 4.5. You can read our breakdown of Elon Musk's Grok 4.5 "Opus-class" claims for a closer look at how his model compares with Anthropic's systems. The compute deal changed the relationship The friendlier tone emerged after Anthropic signed a major computing agreement with SpaceX. According to Anthropic's official announcement of the SpaceX compute partnership, the company gained access to more than 300 megawatts of capacity, representing over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs at the Colossus 1 data centre. Anthropic said the added infrastructure would increase usage limits for Claude subscribers and API customers. Reported contract documents indicate that Anthropic agreed to pay around $1.25 billion per month for capacity through May 2029. However, termination clauses may allow either party to leave the agreement with relatively short notice. That creates an unusual relationship. Musk responded to suggestions that he could simply cut Anthropic off. He said he wouldn't end access in a way that seriously damaged the company, even though Claude competes with Grok. Praise doesn't remove the business risk Musk's assurance may calm some concerns, but Anthropic still faces a clear dependency. A frontier AI company needs more than clever researchers and strong software. It needs enormous data centres, reliable electricity, advanced chips and enough cooling equipment to run those chips around the clock. Only a small number of companies can provide that infrastructure at the required scale. We think the real story here isn't Musk's change of heart. It's the growing power held by companies that control computing capacity. Musk can compete against Anthropic through Grok while earning billions from Anthropic's demand for GPUs. In other words, he can benefit whether customers choose his AI model or one built by a rival. That helps explain why public criticism may now matter less than commercial cooperation. What it means for South African AI users For South African companies, the dispute may feel distant. But the infrastructure behind Claude, Grok and other major models directly affects local pricing, reliability and availability. A startup in Cape Town or Johannesburg might build its customer service, coding or research workflow around Claude. Yet the servers powering that service sit overseas and may depend on commercial agreements between a handful of American technology companies. If those agreements change, local customers have limited influence. This matters because African businesses often access AI as imported infrastructure, rather than technology they control themselves. The Anthropic-SpaceX relationship offers another reminder that model access can depend on corporate negotiations taking place thousands of kilometres away. It also strengthens the argument for more African investment in data centres, energy capacity and locally hosted AI systems. South Africa has a growing cloud and data-centre sector, but training a frontier model still requires infrastructure on a completely different scale. Musk's endorsement could shift again Musk's latest position combines praise with competition. He has acknowledged Anthropic's technical lead while continuing to argue that his younger AI business could catch up. The recent release of Grok 4.5 shows that Musk hasn't abandoned the race; he's simply recognising the strongest current opponent. What we're watching now is whether the cooperation survives the next major model launch. Anthropic needs stable computing capacity. Musk wants Grok to win. Those goals can coexist while the infrastructure deal remains profitable, but a closer contest could test that arrangement. So, is Musk genuinely reconsidering Anthropic, or has a billion-dollar customer simply become harder to criticise? FAQs Why did Elon Musk change his opinion about Anthropic? Musk admitted that he had misjudged Anthropic's progress and now considers it a leader in artificial intelligence. The company's newer Claude models have performed strongly in coding, reasoning and business tasks. Anthropic's commercial relationship with Musk-controlled infrastructure may also have softened the rivalry. Does Anthropic compete with Elon Musk's xAI? Yes, Anthropic and xAI are direct competitors in the advanced AI model market. Anthropic develops Claude, while xAI offers Grok across X and other Musk-owned platforms. However, the companies can still cooperate on computing infrastructure while competing for users. Why does Anthropic need so much computing power? Training and operating advanced AI models requires thousands of powerful chips, large data centres and substantial electricity. More computing capacity allows Anthropic to improve Claude and support more users without severe usage limits. It also helps the company compete with OpenAI, Google and xAI.
My favorite Razer Kraken Kitty headset has never been this cheap, but there's less than 50% left of this purr-fectly ridiculous deal
A meowvelous good deal for those after a cute, quality headset Razer is known for its cat-ear headsets, but the Kraken Kitty V3 Pro is the set I'd recommend the most for those after the purrr-fect pair. While the majority of the Kraken Kitty line is full of limiting wired or Bluetooth-only headsets, the Kraken Kitty V3 Pro is the first to bring 2.4GHz into the mix. Its extra wireless options don't make it an entirely no-brainer recommendation as its $179.99 MSRP is a bit much for its boasted features. However, today's discounted $104.99 rate at Amazon feels far more reasonable, especially as it's never been this cheap before. There's always a bit of an assumption that headsets that cater to players with a love of everything cute and cozy must be pretty rubbish, but the Kraken Kitty V3 Pro is proof that's not the case. While it's definitely priced a bit higher than I'd like on a normal discount-free day, this is still a fantastic wireless option. Finding a pair with a trio of connectivity options around the $100 mark isn't a difficult feat, but it's important when you consider that so many of Razer's other pairs aimed at 'cute and cozy' players are usually wired or Bluetooth only. Even the most recently announced Cinnamoroll Edition Razer Kraken Kitty V2 BT pair drops 2.4GHz. Those after a cute pair with customizable Chroma-powered RGB ears deserve to take advantage of a low-latency wireless connection as much as anyone. * Join GamesRadar+ Deals on WhatsApp for our top daily discounts The headset also features the brand's 40 mm Razer TriForce Titanium audio drivers, the very ones found in the Razer Barracuda X Chroma -one of my favorite Razer releases. Amazon states that today's Razer Kraken Kitty V3 Pro headset is a "limited time" deal, and as of typing, 53% of people have already claimed one for their own setups. That's not too surprising given this is the lowest I've ever seen for this headset, which I'm more used to seeing marked down to $129.99, as it was during March earlier this year. But with that in mind, you need to be quick if you want to pick this up for a price that seems more than reasonable for its specs on offer. * View all Razer Kraken Kitty gaming headsets at Amazon If you're not a cat person, I've also rounded up the best PC headsets for gaming, the best PS5 headsets, and the best Xbox Series X headsets for your setup.
Polymarket lifts US-Iran invasion odds to 18.5% after blockade, strikes
Polymarket Reprices "U.S. Invade Iran Before 2027?" After Blockade-and-Strikes Catalyst Polymarket traders have pushed the "Will the U.S. invade Iran before 2027?" contract up to 18.5% Yes (81.5% No) on $41.7M in volume. The move follows fresh headlines about a renewed U.S. blockade and expanded strikes, giving a read on how quickly the market reprices tail-risk escalation versus a still-dominant No base case. Key Takeaways * Prediction market pricing still favors No at 81.5%, with Yes at 18.5% on Polymarket. * Traders repriced upward after reports of a reimposed blockade and intensified strikes, lifting Yes from 11.5% to 18.5% (+7.0pp). * The contract resolves by 2026-12-31, so pricing reflects a multi-month escalation window rather than a near-term headline bet. A report says the U.S. military reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports and carried out another wave of strikes hitting dozens of targets over several hours, after Tehran's attacks on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and as an interim deal to end the war unraveled. The report also describes Iranian threats to halt Middle East energy exports and cites Iranian officials on casualties and injuries from strikes. Market Reaction: Yes Jumps to 18.5% (from 11.5%) on $41.7M Volume as No Holds 81.5% This is a binary Polymarket contract: buying Yes pays out if the U.S. "invades Iran" before the 2026-12-31 resolution time, while No pays otherwise; today's 18.5% Yes price is the market's implied probability of that settlement outcome. The repricing is sharp in level terms (+7.0pp from 11.5% previously), but it still leaves a clear skew toward No at 81.5%, suggesting traders are treating the catalyst as escalation risk rather than a base-case shift. Volume sits at $41.7M, indicating the move is being expressed in a relatively well-trafficked venue rather than a thin, one-off print. The historical summary flags reversal_detected=true with moderate volatility and a "stable" consensus, consistent with a market that can jump on new information yet repeatedly mean-revert toward a lower Yes baseline (change_24h -2.0, change_7d -2.0) even after spikes. For pricing follow-through, watch whether Yes can hold above the recent 5-point average (avg_last_5 17.9%) or fades back toward the lower end implied by the bearish trend and negative 24h/7d changes; the longer time to 2026-12-31 also leaves room for repeated repricings as definitions of "invade" and escalation pathways become clearer to traders. What Traders Watch Next on Polymarket: Strait of Hormuz Disruption Odds, Oil Shock Contracts, and 2026 Macro Risk Market Beyond the headline invasion contract, traders are also spreading exposure across adjacent Polymarket lines that track the diplomatic and shipping aftershocks. "Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by July 31?" is priced at 98.85% (leading outcome: No) on $16.79M volume, while "US-Iran Final Nuclear Deal by...?" sits at 29.5% (December 31) on $10.11M. On the process side, "Iran announces withdrawal from MOU negotiations by...?" leads at 40.0% (August 15) with $5.78M traded, and "US charges Hormuz fees by...?" is just 9.5% (December 31) on $705K -- useful for gauging whether traders see escalation translating into policy and timeline shifts rather than just volatile headlines. Odds Trend By the Numbers * Platform: Polymarket * Market: Will the U.S. invade Iran before 2027? * Resolution window: Dec 31, 2026 (UTC) * Status: Active (open for trading) * Leading implied prob.: 18.5% * Volume: ~$41,700,626 * Top outcomes: Yes: Yes 18.5% / No 81.5%; No: Yes 18.5% / No 81.5%
SpaceX ushered in a 'new era' for investing in space. Why the stock is now cratering.
2026 has already broken records for investment in the so-called 'space economy' with half a year left to go Rocket-launch businesses can enable companies like SpaceX or Rocket Lab to pursue more lucrative markets, experts say. SpaceX has paved the way for the space industry to flourish, and its initial public offering drove investment to new heights. Space Capital, a venture-capital firm, reported Wednesday that some $31.6 billion had been invested in 129 companies in what it calls the "space economy" in the second quarter of 2026. That includes companies developing space-related infrastructure and those making hardware and software connecting and using space-based assets, as well as ventures that benefit from those assets. In just six months, 2026 is already a record-breaking year for investment in the sector, according to Space Capital. Both the first and second quarters of 2026 are the top periods ever tracked by the firm, which declared a "new era" for the space economy marked by the SpaceX (SPCX) IPO. Much of that investment is tied to dozens of infrastructure-related funding rounds. That includes the orbital-data-center startup Cowboy Space's $275 million fundraise and orbital-transfer-vehicle maker Impulse Space's $500 million fundraise. Prometheus, the Jeff Bezos-backed physical artificial-intelligence startup, raised $12 billion last month in the biggest round tracked by Space Capital for the quarter. It's reportedly pursuing technology for aerospace activities; Bezos' Blue Origin is also raising outside cash to fund its own space business. Space investing has grown over the last few decades, largely thanks to SpaceX, according to Space Capital's Chad Anderson. The company "made the space economy an investible category," he told MarketWatch, when it began flying the Falcon 9 rocket. Leading up to SpaceX's record-breaking IPO in June, space stocks surged. But those gains were sharply reversed last month, and losses have continued this month. After soaring 26.5% in May, the Procure Space exchange-traded fund UFO fell 22.4% in June and has so far shed 9.7% in July, according to FactSet. The Tema Space Innovators ETF NASA has shown comparatively steeper losses of 24% in June and 17% so far in July, per FactSet, after running up 36.7% in May. Anderson and others chalk the recent selloff to a case of "FOMO," which stands for "fear of missing out." First, that drove investment in public space companies while SpaceX lingered in the private market, then sold those stocks to buy SpaceX's newly minted shares. One expert previously told MarketWatch that space ETFs are feeling an "investment coma" as investors grapple with owning volatile space stocks. "People wanted access to SpaceX and they couldn't get it, and so they got similar exposure to other companies playing in the space," Anderson said. While there's "a lot of opportunity" with some of those companies, he said, some investors probably sold their shares to buy SpaceX, which has been volatile since its IPO. On both Monday and Tuesday, SpaceX nearly retreated to its IPO price of $135 a share, which valued the company at more than $1.7 trillion. The stock closed on Tuesday at $136.08 a share, down 32.6% from its June 16 closing price of $201.80. On Wednesday, the stock bounced 0.7% to get back to the $137 level in premarket trading. Don't miss: SpaceX's stock threatens to fall below the IPO price. Do investors face a 'crisis' if it does? "There's going to be even more volatility," Anderson said, citing the immense demand around the IPO and interest in SpaceX, the "apex player" in the space economy. Thanks to SpaceX's complicated lockup schedule, a large portion of insider-held shares is set to be released for trading next month. But if investors can stick it out, they could reap the rewards, analysts say. The average target price for SpaceX stock is $241.80 a share, according to the FactSet consensus, implying about 78% upside to Tuesday's closing price. And some analysts see potential in its rivals as well. KeyBanc analyst Michael Leshock sees room for Rocket Lab (RKLB) and Firefly Aerospace (FLY) to compete in "niche" markets for rocket launches, according to a note to clients last month. Both companies are currently working on new vehicles. Rocket Lab has also agreed to buy Iridium Communications (IRDM), its latest acquisition - one it called a "shortcut" to offering space-based applications. It somewhat mimics Amazon's purchase of Globalstar (GSAT) in April, which includes valuable spectrum licenses. Anderson said his firm expects to see more mergers and acquisitions in this quarter as space companies expand their offerings in search of profits. "Launch alone doesn't make a great business," he said. Most of SpaceX's revenue comes from its Starlink internet business, which comes from its rockets that send satellites into orbit. SpaceX has also agreed to buy an AI-coding startup to boost its Grok models. It also plans to eventually give its AI offerings a boost with space-based data centers. -William Gavin This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. (END) Dow Jones Newswires 07-15-26 0758ET Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman Says Elon Musk Found a 'Pretty Good Idea' in Leasing SpaceXAI's Unused Grok Capacity to Anthropic
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Cerebras Systems Inc. CEO Andrew Feldman says SpaceXAI, formerly xAI, moved into rented AI computing because its processors were not busy enough, as Grok drew less usage than expected. Feldman Blames Grok's Weak Early Adoption Speaking with Molly O'Shea on the Sourcery podcast on Monday, Feldman explained that Musk's company pivoted to an operator that rents out AI infrastructure because its Grok model struggled with early enterprise market adoption, leaving billions of dollars in hardware sitting idle. "You have to ask why they had available capacity," Feldman said. "They had available capacity because the Grok model wasn't used very much." Cerebras CEO @andrewdfeldman explains why @elonmusk and SpaceXAI made a deal to lease GPUs to Anthropic: "You have to ask why they had available capacity... They had available capacity because the Grok model wasn't used very much." "They had these GPUs sitting around, and... https://t.co/1IHsE98NR3 pic.twitter.com/ssomhhLJJl -- sourcery (@sourceryy) July 13, 2026 Trending: Avoid the #1 Investing Mistake: How Your 'Safe' Holdings Could Be Costing You Big Time Feldman said SpaceXAI could not afford to leave equipment idle. "They had these GPUs sitting around, and that's a bad idea," he said. He pointed to IPO-bound Anthropic's agreement to use SpaceX's Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee. Anthropic said the site provides more than 300 megawatts through over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs, allowing it to double Claude Code limits, remove peak-hour reductions and raise API ceilings. "They leased a whole block of them to Anthropic, and looked up and said, 'Whoa, that's a pretty good idea,'" Feldman said. "We had all these GPUs. Our model wasn't a success, but we can have a great business by stepping into what is a constrained market." Anthropic Deal Monetizes Idle GPU Capacity In May, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.25 billion per month for Colossus and Colossus II capacity through May 2029. Both sides can terminate with 90 days' notice, and Musk described the arrangement as a six-month lease, leaving its long-term value uncertain. See Also: Skip the Regrets: The Essential Retirement Tips Experts Wish Everyone Knew Earlier. Colossus 1 supported Grok's development, but Reuters described its capacity as unused prior to the Anthropic agreement. SpaceXAI said Grok 4.5 trained across tens of thousands of Nvidia GB300 processors.
SpaceX is the Dutch East India Company of the space age
In August 1602, more than 1 100 investors - from wealthy merchants to ordinary craftsmen - subscribed to the world's first initial public offering. The Dutch East India Company, the VOC, raised Gld6.4-million to build a maritime trade network stretching from Amsterdam to the East Indies. On 12 June 2026, SpaceX raised US$75-billion in the largest IPO in Wall Street history, pricing at $135/share and closing its first session more than 19% higher. Demand was roughly double the shares on offer - and South Africans were not left out, pouring R179-million into the stock through EasyEquities in just two days. Separated by 424 years, the parallel is worth taking seriously. Neither company was first into its frontier - Portuguese fleets reached the East Indies long before the Dutch, and governments have been launching rockets since the 1950s. What both did first was ask the public capital markets to fund a frontier, at a scale and time horizon no private syndicate would stomach. The VOC's real innovations were financial. As economic historian Gerard Koot notes in his history of the company, it introduced limited liability for shareholders and, unlike earlier ventures wound up after a single voyage, locked in its capital for a decade - a permanent fund for voyages that took years to pay off. Tradeable shares made the risk bearable, and gave the world the Amsterdam Stock Exchange as a by-product. SpaceX's logic is strikingly similar. The capital-hungry Starship programme - the company wants to be flying a rocket every 53 minutes within five years - and the Starlink constellation that is rewriting the economics of global connectivity consume cash on a scale that outgrew even Silicon Valley's deepest private pockets. As in 1602, the public market was the only pool of capital big enough. State-like influence The VOC's monopoly came stamped with sovereign powers: the right to make treaties with Asian governments, enlist soldiers, wage war, and build and administer forts - a company that behaved like a state. SpaceX holds no royal charter, yet its position is not far off a monopoly in practice. In 2025 it accounted for roughly half of all orbital launches worldwide and, by mass delivered to orbit, more than 80% of global upmass. It is also the de facto ferryman for Nasa astronauts: when a bungled test flight of Boeing's Starliner left two astronauts stuck on the International Space Station for 286 days, it was a SpaceX capsule that brought them home last year. Read: China nets a falling rocket in reusability race with SpaceX More telling still is Starlink's geopolitical weight. The constellation became crucial to Ukraine's communications infrastructure within days of Russia's invasion, and decisions about its coverage have shaped battlefield outcomes - leading Foreign Policy to argue that Starlink has effectively privatised a slice of geopolitics. Buyers of SPCX are not simply buying a technology company; they are buying into an entity with sovereign-level leverage over who connects, where and on what terms. The VOC was never just a shipping line: it ran an inter-Asian trading system from Persia to Japan, dealt in spices, textiles, porcelain and silver, and administered territory - a diversified enterprise built on control of a frontier's logistics. SpaceX, likewise, is no longer just a rocket company. In February 2026, it executed the largest M&A deal on record: an all-stock acquisition of Elon Musk's xAI valued at $250-billion, folding the X social platform and Grok AI models into the listed entity in service of Musk's ambition to build orbital data centres. The result is a company betting the rocket farm on AI: a space, connectivity and AI conglomerate whose parts reinforce one another the way the VOC's ships, ports and monopolies once did. The VOC is one of the few frontier enterprises with a share price record spanning two centuries - and its first lesson is patience. Shareholders waited more than seven years for a dividend, and the first, in 1610, was paid in mace - the spice, not money. Frontier infrastructure pays out slowly. There is no SpaceX moonbase yet, let alone Mars colonies. The second is that the frontier premium was real, but earned over decades. Economist and historian Lodewijk Petram, who reconstructed the price record from 17th-century merchants' papers, calculates an average annual return of 8.69% between 1603 and 1697 - comfortably above the 4-6% paid on Dutch government bonds. The third is that the premium decays as the frontier matures. After 1650, returns settled at a bond-like 3.5-4% a year. As economic historians Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude concluded: "The profits earned by the Company's actual equity were modest after the 1650s, and vanishingly small after 1730." The fourth is that price and reality can part ways entirely. The VOC's share price hit its all-time high in 1720 - not because of anything happening in Batavia, but because a speculative frenzy had spread from London across the continent. By then the company's underlying returns were already bond-like. (And the viral claim that the VOC was once worth $8-trillion in today's money is, as Petram has shown, off by a factor of roughly 8 000. SpaceX, at over $2-trillion, is already far larger in real terms than the VOC ever was - the comparison is about the category of enterprise, not its size.) Where the analogy strains The last lesson is the bleakest: dominance is not a perpetuity. From 1730, the VOC paid dividends it had not earned, funding them by drawing down its capital. War with Britain finished the job, the state nationalised the wreck in 1795 and the charter lapsed on 31 December 1799. There are caveats. The VOC's monopoly was granted by the state and enforced by cannon - its most profitable decades followed ruthless violence in the Banda Islands - while SpaceX's dominance is commercial and contestable. Rivals are massing: Europe's Iris2 constellation and Amazon Leo, which is heading for South Africa before Starlink is even licensed here. And as TechCentral has noted, the biggest IPO ever is also one of the riskiest, given its dependence on one man and on programmes whose economics remain unproven. None of this is a prediction about the share price. What the comparison establishes is the category of thing investors have just been offered: not a stake in a product company but a stake in the infrastructure of a frontier, with all the reach, entanglement and political gravity that implies. The VOC's record suggests such an investment can beat the market for decades - and that the premium fades once the frontier is tamed, and that the price, at the moment of greatest euphoria, can be the least reliable guide to what lies beneath. Space is the "final frontier", after all: no one knows how it will play out. Going boldly where no company has gone before carries immense potential reward - and equally immense risk. - © 2026 NewsCentral Media
Anthropic official says stopping AI usage is 'the wrong' response to AI cost concerns
* Anthropic officials are cautioning companies against knee-jerk reactions to rein in AI use. * Angela Jiang, head of product for the Claude Platform, said some customers are making those sorts of moves. * The initial tokenmaxxing hype has morphed into a more ROI-focused moment. Top Anthropic officials are cautioning against companies cutting back on their AI use as costs increase. "Something that's really top of mind for us that we kind of try to spend some time with users on is what you don't want to do is stop AI usage. That's kind of the wrong move," Angela Jiang, head of product for the Claude Platform, recently told Sequoia Capital's "Training Data" podcast. "And we do actually see some of our customers do that." Katelyn Lesse, head of platform engineering at Anthropic, said the focus on costs was part of "a normal natural cycle for companies" as they figure out the best way to deploy AI. "The thing that gets dangerous is when you're kind of just like, here's a cap and you're stuck within your cap," said Lesse, who joined Jiang for the interview. Jiang said that Anthropic often finds that AI spending has "erupted" in companies where employees procure Anthropic's AI models themselves through "some kind of shadow IT." Instead of curtailing usage, she said companies can find ways to use AI more efficiently. "What we try to kind of encourage our customers is like, you don't want to stop the innovation," she said. "If you are getting returns on top of this, you are shipping faster than ever before, you can run more operationally efficient -- then those are gains." Lesse said it's about "encouraging innovation" while understanding the different ways to get the desired result. "One is like you take Opus and you run it all night and you do something crazy," she said. "And another is maybe to get a little bit smarter with the strategies that you put together in order to create that same outcome within a lower cost. And I think that's the next layer of thinking that everyone's going to start to do." AI companies are facing an increasingly skeptical Corporate America that sees rising AI bills without what some executives have said is an adequate ROI to justify the spending. In response, AI companies like Anthropic have emphasized the cost efficiency of their models and services, which can better tailor AI to specific enterprise needs. Cost concerns could weigh on the broader AI market as companies like Anthropic approach highly anticipated IPOs. A new kind of router. Companies like Vercel are seizing this cost-conscious moment by offering customers a way to route their AI usage to the best model suited for the task. Analysts have said that routing requests will remain in high demand so long as AI token costs remain high.
SpaceX's slide risks turning blockbuster IPO into confidence test
NEW YORK -- SpaceX's slip close to its initial public offering price risks turning a marquee stock-market debut into a confidence test, potentially unsettling retail investors and complicating decisions for other companies weighing high-profile listings. Elon Musk's company, spanning rockets to AI, debuted on June 12 and soared in the ensuing days, at one point valuing the company at well above US$2 trillion. Since then, trading has been rocky. The stock has slipped below its $150 opening price, but remained above the $135 offer price, with concerns about lofty tech stock valuations continuing to weigh on global indexes. SpaceX shares are at risk of falling below that level. They ended on Tuesday down 2.2 per cent at $136.08, their lowest closing level since the IPO, a week after they started trading as part of the Nasdaq 100 index. The stock dipped as low as $135.52. A break below the IPO price would be a psychological blow for SpaceX shares, said Matthew Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. "It raises the narrative that the stock is up on fluff, on speculation, on froth, and not on real fundamentals," Maley said. Investors who bought into the excitement around SpaceX's listing, "hoping to 'make a killing' will be disappointed," said Greg Halter, director of research at Carnegie Investment Counsel. He said weakness in SpaceX would put it more in line with 30 years of heavily hyped IPOs, where average and median returns over the first month are often negative. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Price discovery not panic? A drop below the IPO price would not be unusual for a newly listed company. Shares of Cerebras Systems, which went public in May, have dropped below the IPO price, and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, fell similarly after its debut. Investors often fixate on IPO prices and early trading, said Ryan Lee, senior vice president of product and strategy at financial services firm Direxion. "The reality is, (SpaceX) is still undergoing some of this price discovery process," Lee said. A fall for SpaceX below $135 would reflect "normal, albeit painful" market mechanics, especially as investors, venture capitalists and employees sell shares after lockups expire, said Gabriel Shahin, CEO at Falcon Wealth Planning. "A near-term dip below the $135 threshold would not fundamentally alter our current positioning or cause us to panic-sell," he said. Caution or green light for next IPOs? Some investors think SpaceX's stock performance could influence the market for future public listings. OpenAI and Anthropic are eyeing the public markets. Neither company responded to a request for comment. Carnegie's Halter said companies and investment banks considering large IPOs this year are watching SpaceX closely. "No one wants an IPO to flop or have the initial price be ratcheted down," Halter said. He suspects some IPOs would be pulled rather than priced at lower valuations. But Direxion's Lee said SpaceX's capital raise could encourage some companies with large funding needs to move faster. "If I'm OpenAI or if I'm Anthropic and I'm in this true arms race to build the frontier AI model and I need capital, I'm going to try to beat the other one out the door," Lee said. Risking retail traders' skepticism A drop below the IPO price could hit retail investors, who received about 20 per cent of the allocation, hard. "Many novice investors have approached SpaceX with a 'meme stock' mentality, buying in with capital they cannot afford to lose," Shahin said, warning that losses could fuel perceptions that markets favor insiders. "The market needs to understand that post-IPO volatility is normal." SpaceX's first earnings report will be a major test for the stock. Underwriters typically support stocks in the first 30 days and may do more for SpaceX given the deal's size, the public attention and the fact other high-profile offerings are imminent, said Maria Llerena, director of financial research at Domini Impact Investments. "Loss-making companies without a clear path to profitability are typically volatile and can fall below their IPO price," said Llerena.
Aramco awards Halliburton long-term contract for unconventional gas program
HOUSTON - July 15, 2026 - Aramco awarded Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) a multi-year contract to deliver integrated stimulation and completion services for unconventional gas development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This award is part of a broader multi-billion contract, supporting one of the largest unconventional gas development programs globally. This award builds on Halliburton's established portfolio supporting Aramco's unconventional program. Across many of the Kingdom's unconventional plays, Halliburton delivers a comprehensive suite of drilling and completion solutions. Its integrated service model is designed to support high-intensity development programs and improve operational efficiency, workflow predictability, and execution reliability. This collaboration supports broader regional efforts toward integrated unconventional development programs. This award highlights our long-standing collaboration with Aramco and builds on more than 80 years in the Kingdom, while advancing unconventional gas development in the Kingdom. Beginning in the third quarter of 2026, Halliburton will deploy the Kingdom's first fully integrated intelligent fracturing platform through OCTIV® Auto Frac and Sensori™ fracturing monitoring services to contribute to asset value for one of the world's largest unconventional fields. Under the program, Halliburton will deploy intelligent automation solutions for fracturing to optimize performance in real time and support disciplined implementation across multi-well campaigns. These technologies support digital integration across operations while advancing efficiency and operational reliability. Development activities in the Jafurah Basin are underway. To support this effort, Halliburton plans to increase its investment in local manufacturing, improve its supply chain, and expand workforce development programs within the Kingdom, aiming to scale operations and sustain high performance as unconventional activity accelerates. About Halliburton Halliburton is one of the world's leading providers of products and services to the energy industry. Founded in 1919, we create innovative technologies, products, and services that help our customers maximize their value throughout the life cycle of an asset and advance a sustainable energy future. Connect with us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
Inside Anthropic's state-by-state plan to ratchet up AI rules
Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic is pursuing a strategy of one-upmanship that encourages states to impose increasingly tougher AI guardrails, rather than align around a single set of regulations. The approach stands in stark contrast to the one favored by the company's archrival, OpenAI, which has pushed state lawmakers toward common ground on regulating the breakthrough technology. "While there are some in the industry that think of state policy as a way to create a ceiling for federal legislation, Anthropic is not just looking to support the same bill across the country in every single state," Cesar Fernandez, the company's head of U.S. state and local government relations, said in an interview with POLITICO -- which, like Business Insider, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network -- on Tuesday. "We're looking for legislation that meaningfully raises the bar on safety for the most capable AI systems." Fernandez's comments came in response to questions from POLITICO about OpenAI's ongoing campaign to shape states' AI regulations. The ChatGPT maker's top lobbyist, Chris Lehane, has coined the term "reverse federalism" to describe its attempts to bypass a paralyzed Congress and build a national AI framework by mirroring bills state-by-state. The veiled jab at OpenAI is on-brand for Anthropic, whose executives left OpenAI in 2020 over concerns the company wasn't prioritizing safety. Anthropic has consistently pushed for stronger AI safety rules at both the federal and state level -- an effort that some critics, particularly those close to the Trump administration and in venture capital, frame as an attempt to hamstring regulators and lock out competitors. In a statement, OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois defended its approach, saying "reverse federalism, where effective state safeguards shape national standards, helps regulators enforce the law, gives the public clearer protections, and allows developers to focus resources on safety rather than conflicting requirements." The split between OpenAI and Anthropic's approach to statehouses comes at a critical time for AI regulation. With Congress reluctant to act and the White House flip-flopping between a light touch and a heavy hand, the AI industry is increasingly looking to states for regulatory clarity. Whether state legislators ultimately coalesce around a single AI safety framework or work to outdo each other over time will have a massive impact on the final shape of AI rules in the U.S. Similar to Lehane, Fernandez said he wants a federal framework, but that a government response to the risks posed by advanced AI models "can't wait for action in Washington." The Anthropic lobbyist also set his company apart by touting its early inroads into state policy debates. Anthropic was the only leading AI lab to endorse California's 2025 law to regulate advanced AI models, the first such law in the country. OpenAI didn't take a position on the California proposal ahead of its passage. But it has since turned to the law, which aims to foster greater transparency into companies' safety plans, as an example for other states to replicate. Anthropic, on the other hand, saw the California law as a springboard to ratchet up its efforts on AI safety. Fernandez said the rapid development of increasingly powerful AI models was the main factor behind his company's endorsement of more ambitious bills -- in New York, Illinois and now Massachusetts -- and its move to weigh in earlier in the legislative process. "Each one of those bills was stronger than the previous bill, and the bills all moved real safety obligations forward," Fernandez said. "Transparency and self-reporting, we don't believe are sufficient anymore." He pointed to Anthropic's powerful Claude Mythos model, which the company found to be capable of exploiting security flaws in every major computer operating system during its testing. The cybersecurity concerns raised by Mythos (and its public-facing version, known as Fable) sparked panic inside the Trump administration, which slapped export controls on the technology until Anthropic and the government could address alleged vulnerabilities. Late last year, OpenAI lobbyists successfully pressed New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to amend her state's AI safety bill to more closely resemble California's rules. But to the surprise of some safety advocates, it joined Anthropic in backing an Illinois measure seen as stricter than those in New York and California. That proposal, signed into law this month by Gov. JB Pritzker, requires leading AI companies to submit to annual independent third-party audits of their safety plans -- a first-of-its-kind mandate. Anthropic is pushing the bar further. In late June, it endorsed regulations under development in Massachusetts for an economic development bond bill that Anthropic calls the nation's strongest state AI safety proposal. The language it supported included a requirement for leading AI companies to hire independent evaluators to assess the potential for catastrophic risks such as the technology assisting in the development of bioweapons, as well as a provision empowering the state's attorney general to enforce that mandate. Bourgeois, the OpenAI spokesperson, said the company is still reviewing the Massachusetts proposal, but added OpenAI supports the state legislature's focus on AI safeguards. The AI giants have also clashed on the campaign trail. Each is associated with dueling super PAC networks that so far have sunk tens of millions of dollars into political campaigns across the country. And in June, Anthropic started cutting checks directly to California legislators. "We back candidates for election and re-election when their point of view of AI safety regulation is aligned with our mission to make sure that the transition to a world with powerful AI does well for people in this country and throughout the world," Fernandez said. "We're very much supporting candidates where there's ideological alignment." Fernandez said the company isn't coordinating with employees who also have made contributions to political candidates in California and elsewhere. "We don't direct our employees to make contributions, but they work at Anthropic because they're concerned about the future of AI and where this is headed if there's not proper safety policy that's enacted by governments," said Fernandez. "I would assume that that drives them to engage in the political process." The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company's newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists -- including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet and Fakt -- to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.