News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Anthropic CEO to meet top Trump aide today amid Pentagon dispute
Anthropic's ethical AI stance challenges Pentagon's demands as tensions rise over advanced cybersecurity tools. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is set to enter the West Wing on Friday for a meeting with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, in what could mark a turning point in the company's dispute with the Pentagon over its advanced AI systems, Axios reported. The Trump administration is weighing the significance of Anthropic's Claude model, Mythos, a new frontier AI model focused on cybersecurity. Mythos is seen as highly advanced and potentially capable of breaching cybersecurity defenses. The AI system, unveiled earlier this month, can scan software, detect serious security flaws, and even figure out how those flaws could be exploited, often with minimal human input. The latest development comes as Anthropic continues its lawsuit against the Pentagon after being blacklisted for refusing to allow unrestricted use of its AI. Anthropic had drawn two firm lines. Its models would not be used for mass domestic surveillance. And they would not power fully autonomous weapons systems. These have been core to the company's identity since its founding in 2021, when a group of researchers left OpenAI specifically because they believed AI development needed stronger ethical boundaries. After the Pentagon blacklisted Anthropic, the company filed suit. A federal appeals court rejected its initial bid to block the blacklist, but the legal battle continues. Meanwhile, Anthropic pivoted to a parallel political strategy, hiring Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm with deep ties to Trump's inner circle. Despite the legal standoff, multiple US agencies including elements of the intelligence community and CISA are already testing Mythos, with additional interest from Treasury. The new model demonstrates the ability to identify zero-day vulnerabilities across major operating systems and browsers. The Treasury Secretary reportedly called Mythos a "step function change in abilities" at a Wall Street Journal event, triggering an emergency meeting with Wall Street CEOs and a briefing that included Vice President Vance and Elon Musk on AI-related cyber risks. Friday's meeting is Amodei's second high-stakes encounter with a senior Trump administration official this year.
Cerebras, Rebellions secure record funding; Nvidia's market position remains strong
Cerebras and Rebellions have closed record funding rounds, but Polymarket's odds on Nvidia being the largest company by market cap on June 30 have actually risen to YES, up from 86% a week ago. Market reaction Cerebras is now valued at $23.1B and Rebellions at $2.34B after their respective raises. The June 30 market is priced at YES with 75 days remaining and $37,689 in order book depth needed to move the price 5 percentage points. Daily volume is $4,432 in USDC. The largest single price move during this period was a 1-point drop. Why it matters The funding rounds reflect efforts by companies and governments to reduce dependence on Nvidia for AI compute. If Cerebras or Rebellions gain meaningful market share, that could pressure Nvidia's valuation. But Nvidia's stock has risen 18% during the recent AI boom, and the prediction market shows no sign of pricing in competitive risk. The odds moved in Nvidia's favor even as its competitors raised record capital. What to watch Nvidia's next earnings call and any comments from Jensen Huang on competitive positioning. Any major customer wins, partnerships, or product announcements from Cerebras or Rebellions could shift sentiment. Buying YES at pays $1 if Nvidia holds the top spot, a return. For Nvidia to lose its position, rivals would need to announce significant breakthroughs soon. API access
Why Anthropic's Custom Chip Plans Could Benefit Broadcom
Large language model developer Anthropic is one of the top names in the artificial intelligence (AI) race and is growing incredibly fast. From the end of 2025 to early April, Anthropic says its annual revenue run rate increased by more than three times, from $9 billion to over $30 billion. To support its growth, the company is partnering with semiconductor giant Broadcom NASDAQ: AVGO. Anthropic plans to access 3.5 gigawatts of Tensor Processing Unit (TPU)-based AI compute through Broadcom over the coming years. These are the same types of chips that Broadcom has co-developed with Google parent company Alphabet NASDAQ: GOOGL. However, reports have emerged stating that Anthropic is exploring the development of its "own" AI chips. For investors, it is important to understand what this actually means, and by extension, why Anthropic developing its own chips could ultimately be another big win for Broadcom. AI Chip Development: Why Anthropic's Exploration Could Include Broadcom As first reported by Reuters, Anthropic is "exploring the possibility of designing its own chip," with the outlet citing three unnamed sources. Notably, the report states that these discussions are early. The company may ultimately decide to simply buy chips from other parties rather than design its own. Importantly, Anthropic has yet to assemble a dedicated team to pursue this project. Nonetheless, should Anthropic commit to the project, it could have significant implications for Broadcom. Initially, it may alarm investors to hear that Anthropic could build its "own" chips, indicating it would do so completely independent of firms like Broadcom. However, evidence suggests that this path is unlikely. Typically, when companies say they want to develop their own chips, it means that they intend to partner with semiconductor experts, such as Broadcom. Many would consider the TPU to be Google's "own" chip, but in reality, they have partnered with Broadcom to develop this technology for around a decade. Meta Platforms NASDAQ: META also partners with Broadcom to develop its Meta Training and Inference Accelerator. Meanwhile, Amazon.com NASDAQ: AMZN partners with Marvell Technology NASDAQ: MRVL on its Trainium chips. This shows a clear trend; even the world's largest, most well-capitalized companies rely on semiconductor experts to help design their chips. Even with Anthropic's astounding growth, one would be hard-pressed to argue that its resources exceed those of the Magnificent Seven giants. Thus, if these firms are partnering with semiconductor stalwarts, it is more likely than not that Anthropic would do the same. If Anthropic were to partner with Broadcom to develop chips, the benefits to Broadcom could be very considerable. Expanding Beyond TPUs? Why Broadcom Could Benefit While Anthropic is currently purchasing TPUs, a partnership to develop specific chips alongside Broadcom would be even more attractive for the chip giant. First off, such an agreement would require more customized work on Broadcom's end. In turn, Broadcom would need to receive compensation for this added work, likely leading to a higher-margin revenue stream than the TPU deal. Margins could also improve since Google may not be part of the partnership. To the extent that there is a revenue-sharing agreement within the TPU deal between Broadcom and Google, a direct Broadcom-Anthropic partnership would remove this dynamic. This would allow more value to flow to Broadcom itself. Still, the exact financial details of the TPU deal are unknown, making this potential benefit difficult to quantify. Additionally, when Broadcom co-develops chips with a buyer, the partnership is typically multi-year. While the company already has a multi-year TPU deal in place with Anthropic, a fully custom-built solution is a different animal. Such a deal would likely deepen Broadcom's relationship with Anthropic beyond what the firms have already agreed to. With Anthropic being one of the fastest-growing AI companies in the world, this would be highly advantageous for Broadcom. Despite all of this, it is by no means certain that Broadcom would actually win a deal to develop an Anthropic chip. Anthropic also has a very strong relationship with Amazon. Amazon has invested $8 billion in Anthropic, with the company using Amazon's Trainium chips within its infrastructure. This creates the potential that Marvell, Amazon's custom chip partner, could win a deal to develop Anthropic's chip. Anthropic's Potential Custom Chip: All Smoke, No Fire at This Point It is important to understand that Anthropic's custom chip may never become a reality. Still, it's worth noting the potential benefits that could accrue to Broadcom or Marvell if it does. Furthermore, these companies are not the only custom chip developers in the world. Thus, competition for a potential deal doesn't end with them. However, the links between Broadcom and Marvell to Anthropic are the strongest. This is particularly true of Broadcom, given that Anthropic has announced partnerships directly with the company. Anthropic's looser relationship with Marvell is a product of its relationship with Amazon. Should You Invest $1,000 in Broadcom Right Now? Before you consider Broadcom, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Broadcom wasn't on the list. While Broadcom currently has a Moderate Buy rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.
Woman Throws Cash From Balcony, Viral Video Shows Chaos On The Streets Below
In Shantou China a woman allegedly threw up to HK 2 million from her high rise after a dispute, crowds scrambled for cash as police intervened and urged people to return the money A viral video showing currency notes raining down from a high-rise building in China has sparked chaos on the streets below, with people rushing to grab the cash as it drifted through the air. The incident, reported from Shantou in Guangdong province, spread across social media almost instantly. Early reports suggest it started after a heated argument between a couple. At some point during the fight, the woman allegedly began throwing large amounts of Hong Kong currency from her apartment balcony, turning what was a private moment into something very public. Videos from the scene show notes drifting down through the air as people below slowly realise what's happening. Some try to grab the cash mid-air, while others rush to pick it up from the ground. Within minutes, the area turns chaotic as more people gather. The clip didn't take long to go viral. People began sharing it widely, posting screenshots and videos, with some even claiming they managed to collect multiple notes, which only added to the frenzy around the incident. Witnesses said the woman was seen throwing HK$1,000 notes in handfuls from a high-rise apartment in the Star Lake City residential complex, creating what many online described as a "money rain" moment. While not officially confirmed, some online estimates suggested that the total amount thrown could have reached as high as HK$2 million, though authorities have not verified this figure. Pedestrians stopped, gathered and began collecting the falling notes, turning the street into a scramble zone. Online, some users even jokingly dubbed the woman the "Shantou Coin Young Master," referencing a similar viral figure from Hong Kong. Police and firefighters reached the scene to manage the situation, while property management confirmed that the money had been thrown by a resident and that some of it had already been returned. They urged others to hand over any cash they had picked up to the management office or local police. The local Zhuchi Police Station said the situation had been "handled" and remains under investigation, with officials again asking the public to return any money they found. Last month, in Chongqing, two men reportedly threw money out of a window while being arrested in an attempt to destroy evidence. And in Hong Kong, a well-known case in 2018 saw a man scatter cash from a rooftop, triggering similar scenes before being arrested for causing a public nuisance. For now, the Shantou incident remains under investigation.
Anthropic's Mythos Gatecrashes IMF Meetings
I'm Cécile Daurat, a senior economics editor visiting Washington this week for the IMF-World Bank spring meetings. Today we're looking at how the new AI tool Mythos has become the talk of the town. Send us feedback and tips to [email protected]. And if you aren't yet signed up to receive this newsletter, you can do so here. Top Stories * US President Donald Trump claimed Iran made key concessions in talks, while a ceasefire in Lebanon raised the prospect of broader peace. * Meanwhile Trump sought to assuage voters' fears about the cost of living despite higher energy prices stemming from his Middle East war. * Historically when the job market is bad, people turn to grad school -- but for many in the class of 2026, that may not be a feasible alternative. Mythos Risks It seems like every time finance chiefs gather in DC for their bi-annual IMF-World Bank meetings, a new threat to the global financial stability emerges and becomes the talk of the town. Back in October, Jamie Dimon's now oft-quoted "cockroach" sparked concerns about private credit. This week, Anthropic's new AI model Mythos gatecrashed meetings. Little is known about the tool -- except that it's highly adept at finding vulnerabilities in computer systems and could power cyberattacks. The US Treasury Department has been seeking access to Mythos to uncover its own software vulnerabilities, and other government officials are eager to learn more about the model. No one had heard about Mythos until last week, when Anthropic revealed its existence and said it was too much of a risk to release generally. Yet within the past four days, top central bankers including the European Central Bank's Christine Lagarde, Bank of England's Andrew Bailey and New York Fed's John Williams have all brought it up in interviews or at events. "It would be reasonable to think that the events in the Gulf are the most recent challenge to us in this world," Bailey said at an event at Columbia University in New York early this week before heading to DC. That is, until "you wake up to find that Anthropic may have found a way to crack the whole cyber risk world open and you think, what did I do wrong in a past life." The potential threat presented by Mythos, which orchestrated the digital equivalent of a bank robbery in stress-tests, is particularly alarming at a time when the world is dealing with major oil and supply shocks as a result of the conflict in Iran. It's a threat that would require collaboration among countries -- the kind of international coordination that is lacking at the moment. The Best of Bloomberg Economics * Governor Kazuo Ueda stressed challenges for the Bank of Japan, while Japanese wage growth held momentum. * The ECB must be "vigilant" to inflation risks, policymaker Madis Muller said. But economists reckon it will wait until June to hike. * Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned the global economy faces a "really dangerous moment" due to the Middle East conflict. * IMF formal contact with Venezuela will resume, maybe opening the door to financing. Meanwhile Kenya is in emergency talks with the World Bank. * China's central bank is using its daily reference rate to temper the yuan's rally as its war-fueled outperformance drives further bullish sentiment. * South African central bank chief Lesetja Kganyago said the war's impact on oil prices has validated wariness over inflation. Need-to-Know Research The Japan Center for Economic Research this week took a look at how that nation weathered the two oil crises of the 1970s to surface potential lessons for policymakers today. Senior research fellow Jun Saito highlights that Japan's experience was quite different comparing the 1973 shock to the 1979 one. In the first one, the BOJ mounted limited interest-rate hikes, leaving their setting deeply negative in real terms, price controls were introduced and workers were given big raises -- over and above the pace of inflation. In the second, the BOJ lifted borrowing costs to maintain at least 0% real rate, price controls were limited and wage increases were restrained. The result of the latter experience was that the burden of the oil shock was shared more broadly across the economy, Saito wrote. In the first go round, companies were especially hit by the wage increases plus price controls, causing them to rein in investment plans. GDP saw its biggest contraction since postwar records began in 1955. But in 1979-80 not a single quarter saw a decline in GDP. More from Bloomberg Enjoy Economics Daily? * Read more economic stories Plus, here are some newsletters we think you might like * Supply Lines for daily insights into supply chains and global trade * Business of Food for a weekly look at how the world feeds itself in a changing economy and climate, from farming to supply chains to consumer trends * Balance of Power for the latest in politics from around the globe
Nervous Indian Fintechs Push Anthropic for Access to Mythos
Regulators, central bankers and executives are on high alert due to fears that Mythos can discover cybersecurity vulnerabilities that have gone undetected for years, and could potentially enable mass looting of bank accounts or paralyze international payment systems. India's major financial technology firms are pushing Anthropic PBC to give them early access to Mythos, the artificial intelligence model that has sparked global fears about a new era of cyberattacks. One97 Communications Ltd., Razorpay Software Ltd. and Pine Labs Ltd. are among the Indian companies that have pushed the San Francisco-based AI developer to let them test Mythos and detect vulnerabilities on their own systems. Their requests came after Anthropic announced a limited roll-out of its latest large-language model, which it considers too dangerous to release more widely. "We had an urgent call with Anthropic to check when they're creating a second list of companies that will get access to Mythos," said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive of One97. Sharma said Anthropic representatives asked him what One97 would do with Mythos, and how it could help the company. The questions, he suggested, reflect just how seriously Anthropic is weighing who gets near this technology -- and why. "Is this the beginning of the end?" said Sharma, adding that the anxiety over such models is existential not just for businesses but for financial systems. "A country's technology networks and financial systems could be infiltrated from any node anywhere. You don't need to fire missiles to go to war anymore." The push among Indian firms to win access to Mythos reflects fears across the world. Regulators, central bankers and executives have been on high alert after it emerged that Mythos can discover cybersecurity vulnerabilities that have gone undetected for years. Anthropic first stress-tested Mythos internally before raising the alarm and extending access to a select group of a dozen companies, including Amazon Web Services Inc., Apple Inc., and JPMorgan Chase & Co. The AI company is looking to cautiously expand that access through a program it calls Project Glasswing. The move sent tremors through global financial circles, with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calling the model "a step function change in abilities" -- meaning a sharp jump. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde warned this week about the risk if Mythos fell into the wrong hands. Get the Tech Newsletter bundle. Get the Tech Newsletter bundle. Get the Tech Newsletter bundle. Bloomberg's subscriber-only tech newsletters, and full access to all the articles they feature. Bloomberg's subscriber-only tech newsletters, and full access to all the articles they feature. Bloomberg's subscriber-only tech newsletters, and full access to all the articles they feature. Plus Signed UpPlus Sign UpPlus Sign Up By continuing, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. The question now haunting boardrooms and government ministries alike is whether Mythos could enable the mass looting of bank accounts, paralyze international payment systems or even trigger a full-blown crisis in the global financial system. The Reserve Bank of India didn't immediately respond to an email on whether the banking regulator or India's banks and insurers were taking any steps to assess the risks from Mythos. Read More About Mythos Mythos AI Sparks Fear and Confusion Among Global Finance Elite Bessent Calls Anthropic's Mythos a Breakthrough in China AI Race Inside Anthropic's Race to Assess the Dangers of Mythos Security teams are already working overtime at Razorpay, a company whose platform businesses use to collect payments through credit and debit cards, online banking and electronic wallets. "It's a race against time for startups like us," said Razorpay's cofounder and chief executive officer Harshil Mathur. "We've asked for Mythos access as we want to test the weaknesses on our platform and strengthen our defenses." Mathur said that in the startup groups he's part of, Mythos has been the hot topic of discussion for the past 10 days. Anthropic may expand the roll-out with stringent contracts on limited use to test companies' own infrastructure, disallowing commercial use, he said. India is home to millions of engineers who write code for Wall Street banks, insurers and credit card giants. The country has become the second-largest market for Anthropic's Claude model, with coders mainly using it for building apps, debugging software and modernizing IT systems. "Regulators will push for more stringent security norms owing to the threat of increased attacks," said Pine Labs' Chief Executive Officer Amrish Rau. "Security can't be a compliance checkbox anymore."
Anthropic Discusses Cyber Security AI Models with European Commission
Anthropic is engaging with the European Commission regarding its AI models -- including cybersecurity‑focused ones not yet active in the EU -- and has committed to the EU's General‑Purpose AI Code of Practice, which mandates risk assessment and mitigation measures. Anthropic Engages with EU on Cyber Security Artificial Intelligence Models Anthropic's Discussions and Commitments with the European Commission Ongoing Dialogue on AI Models BRUSSELS, April 17 (Reuters) - U.S.-based artificial intelligence company Anthropic is currently in discussion with the European Commission on its different models, including its cyber security ones, which are not yet available in the EU, the Commission said on Friday. Commitment to EU AI Code of Practice Anthropic has already committed to respect the European Union's general purpose artificial intelligence code of practice, spokesman Thomas Regnier told reporters in Brussels. Risk Assessment and Mitigation Obligations "In this framework, there is an obligation to assess and mitigate risks that could come from a service that may or may not be offered in Europe," he said. (Reporting by Inti Landauro, editing by Bart Meijer)
Deutsche Börse invests $200M in Kraken, DTCC advances cloud strategy, and more - WatersTechnology.com
SimCorp has introduced a new AI stress-testing capability within Axioma Risk, allowing investment managers to focus on portfolio insights and decision-making. The enhancement employs natural language to design customized stress scenarios, identify relevant historical precedents, propose realistic factor shocks, and assess scenario plausibility, allowing users to focus on interpretation and decision-making rather than configuration. Deutsche Börse invests $200 million in Kraken Deutsche Börse has made a $200 million investment in Payward, the infrastructure layer behind global cryptocurrency platform Kraken. The investment was made through the acquisition of shares in a secondary transaction, resulting in a 1.5% fully diluted stake in the company. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter. Separately, Clearstream, a part of Deutsche Börse, has partnered with Ondo Finance and 360X to connect traditional financial markets with on-chain infrastructure built on public, permissionless blockchains. In the first phase, Ondo-tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds are now live on 360X, the regulated digital asset trading venue backed by Deutsche Börse. TS Imagine launches event-driven automation platform TS Imagine has launched Automation 2.0, an event-driven trading automation platform that enables institutional desks to define, manage, and execute sophisticated rule-based workflows across asset classes from a single platform. Automation 2.0 provides desks with a rule-building environment capable of encoding trading logic -- including branching, fallback actions, sequencing, liquidity awareness, cost intelligence, and market calendar awareness -- alongside a workflow engine that executes those rules reliably and at scale across asset classes. L&G's liquidity funds go live on Calastone's tokenized network Legal & General Asset Management has announced that its suite of liquidity funds is now available on the Calastone Tokenized Distribution (CTD) Network. The CTD Network, which connects traditional fund products with digital distribution channels, enables investors to access L&G's liquidity strategies in tokenized form via a blockchain-enabled infrastructure. Calastone, part of SS&C Technologies, provides the underlying technology for token creation, order routing, trade aggregation, reconciliation, and on-chain settlement functionality. Within L&G Global Markets, liquidity funds are available in US dollar, euro and pound sterling. A series of marketplace notebooks, created by BMLL's quantitative analysts, allows Databricks users to discover and evaluate the BMLL product suite with minimal integration effort or costs associated with data storage. Use cases include execution analysis, research and backtesting, market structure analysis, transaction cost analysis, market surveillance, and risk. DTCC is working with Amazon Web Services to modernize its core clearance and settlement systems and risk applications by rearchitecting them to be more modular, cloud-enabled, and resilient. It is also expanding its partnership with Microsoft to further innovate and accelerate the delivery of its DTCC Digital Assets services on Microsoft Azure, which helps it design and operate digital asset platforms. The modernization initiative includes incrementally migrating some core applications to a public cloud infrastructure. This will be the first time DTCC migrates critical market structure services into the public cloud. DoubleZero launches Edge for on-chain market data delivery DoubleZero Foundation, a protocol that enables a global fiber network for high-performance distributed systems, has launched DoubleZero Edge, a new permissionless platform built to deliver market data in multicast format at institutional speeds. Edge brings institutional-grade data distribution infrastructure to crypto markets, with more than 350 data publishers and over 50 subscribers live at launch. The first product on Edge is a real-time feed of raw Solana block data. The platform is built to carry an expanding catalog of additional data feeds from centralized crypto exchanges, prediction market data, and order-by-order data from traditional financial exchanges. SmartTrade eyes role as direct streaming linchpin Direct streaming of client pricing for foreign-exchange and fixed-income assets through application programming interfaces is becoming the execution channel of choice for liquidity providers. But buy-side clients face a dilemma in connecting to APIs effectively. One way is to do it manually themselves, but the other is to adopt the third-party software vendor model to access aggregated real-time pricing from banks, with users paying fixed fees to the vendors instead of size-based fees to an execution venue. SmartTrade Technologies' chief executive, David Vincent, sees the vendor becoming a key piece in this new market structure. How banks are utilizing new AI forms in their KYC process The average know-your-customer review costs $2,274 and can take up to 90 days. Some banks are using AI to help with this. JP Morgan is building an agentic AI onboarding system to cut KYC onboarding times from days to less than a minute. ING and Standard Chartered are also revamping their KYC processes. ING has cut roughly 80% of manual onboarding tasks and is testing voice agents and agent-led mortgage applications, while Standard Chartered uses an AI governance "watchtower" and has a validation team that regularly audits tools, performs risk assessments, and implements controls. The rise of AI politics In this guest column, David Hardoon, former chief data officer and a special adviser on artificial intelligence to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, says firms are now operating in the era of AI politics. If ignored, this risks ceding ground in a world where compute, data, talent, and energy have become fresh chokepoints. Data industry spend hits $50B for first time in new report Expand Research, a BCG Consulting company, has launched a market data survey based on an updated methodology defined by Doug Taylor. The new report has, for the first time, found that industry spending on market data and related reasons hit $50 billion in 2025. Morgan Stanley participating in Anthropic's Claude Mythos testing Morgan Stanley is doubling down on agentic AI. During the bank's recent Q1 earnings call, CEO Ted Pick said the bank is already using client agents in its equities platform to answer technical and complex questions. It is also one of the select few granted access to Anthropic's Mythos AI cybersecurity model, which Anthropic said could identify zero-day vulnerabilities. Model risk in the age of generative AI For Its Next Act, Allbirds Makes an Unlikely Pivot From Shoes to AI, the Wall Street Journal Allbirds, a former shoe company, is changing its name to NewBird AI and pivoting its business to capitalize on the AI frenzy. It plans to buy high-performance GPU assets and rent out access to them. News of this move sent its shares up by 582%, reported WSJ. This story has nothing to do with the capital markets -- not yet at least, but maybe soon as the AI compute infrastructure takes shape. As someone who owns several pairs of Allbirds shoes, I am a little sad about the change, and I wonder if I'll still like their shoes once the sale of their intellectual property to American Exchange Group is signed, sealed, and delivered.
Starlink's Cash Surge Fuels SpaceX's $2 Trillion IPO Push Amid Rocket Losses
Starlink pulled in $11.4 billion last year. That's 61% of SpaceX's total sales. The satellite internet arm delivered $7.2 billion in adjusted EBITDA. Margins hit 63%. Numbers from an April 13 report by The Information. SpaceX's rockets and AI units? They're bleeding cash. Launches brought $4.1 billion, up just 8%. AI generated $3.2 billion but lags rivals like OpenAI. Total revenue topped $18.5 billion. Net loss neared $5 billion, thanks to $20.7 billion in capital spending. Starlink stands alone as the cash cow. Chris Quilty at Quilty Space points to expanding satellite capacity. It now matches terrestrial broadband speeds in hard-to-reach spots. Forecasts call for $15.9 billion revenue this year. EBITDA could touch $11 billion. Elon Musk tweeted in February: "Vast majority of SpaceX revenue is the commercial Starlink system." NASA? Just 5% of 2026 sales. Yahoo Finance covered it. User growth explodes. Starlink hit 9 million subscribers by late 2025. Now over 10 million. Doubled from 4.6 million in 2024. Apptopia reports app downloads and monthly active users more than doubled in Q1 2026 versus last year. Four straight quarters above 100% MAU growth. Reuters, April 16. Quilty analysts predict $20 billion from Starlink alone in 2026. Nearly double 2025's $11.8 billion. Consumer side: $11.3 billion. Subscribers could reach 17 million. SpaceX total? $22-25 billion. San Antonio Express-News. But skeptics emerge. Tim Farrar of TMF Associates questions the margins. Starlink gets cheap launches from SpaceX. At market rates? It might lose money. Still, an amazing business, he says. Reuters broke SpaceX's 2025 profit in January. $8 billion EBITDA on $15-16 billion revenue. Starlink: 50-80%. Reuters. Sacra pegs 2025 total at $15.5 billion. Starlink $10 billion. IPO fever builds. SpaceX eyes mid-2026 debut. Valuation targets $1.75-2 trillion. Banks see $50 billion raise possible. Employee shares vest next week. Bloomberg noted it April 16. Starlink's subscription model feeds the machine. Residential ARPU around $2,000 yearly. Business, aviation, maritime, military pull it higher: $1,500-1,700 per user. Payload Space forecasts $18.7 billion Starlink revenue in 2026. 79% of SpaceX total. Cash burn hit $14 billion last year. Rockets and AI ate $17 billion. Starlink's positive flow covers it. But dependence grows. Launches flatline. AI trails. Network scales fast. Nearly 10,200 satellites. More launches weekly. V3 satellites promise 1 Tbps downlink. Ten times prior versions. Starship exclusive. Markets cheer. But valuation stretches. $1.5 trillion implies huge multiples. Payload: 53x 2025 sales at $800 billion private value. Starlink justifies it? Subscribers could double to 18 million. Challenges loom. Price cuts in spots. Competition from Amazon's Kuiper. Regulatory hurdles in places like South Africa, Namibia. Still, momentum holds. Starlink crossed 10 million users by February 2026. Adds thousands daily. Rural homes. Airlines. Cruise lines. Planes ditch bad Wi-Fi for Starlink. MarketWatch detailed deals with 30 carriers. SpaceX revenue history: $2.3 billion in 2021. Doubled to $4.6 billion 2022. 90% jump to $8.7 billion 2023. $13.1 billion 2024. Steady climb, Starlink led. Musk's vision ties it together. Starlink funds Mars. Funds Starship. Funds xAI merger. But investors bet on broadband, not dreams. Starlink must deliver. Recent X chatter echoes. SpaceX files hint at June roadshow. Starlink V3 boosts speeds. Dominance in satellite net. Profitability flips the script. From launch provider to telecom giant. Starlink's path? Clear. But sustaining 63% margins under scrutiny? That's the test.
Best Pokémon TCG deal: Chaos Rising ETB preorders $35 off at Walmart
Chaos Rising is the next stage of the Pokémon TCG's popular Mega Evolution set, and you can already secure its ETB under market price. As of April 17, Walmart has preorders for the Pokémon TCG's Chaos Rising Elite Trainer Box listed for $114.99, marked down from $149.99 with free shipping. Over at TCGplayer, presale listings are starting at $118.56 shipped. The ETB's market price is sitting at around $119. Compared to the higher prices of the Mega Evolution's most popular expansion, Ascended Heroes, a cent short of $115 is a decently tempered price for a hotly-anticipated set of trading cards -- set to come out on May 22. As Amazon preorders for Chaos Rising aren't up at the time of writing, we expect Walmart's allocation to sell out quickly. So grab yours now if you want the lowest price currently possible. Similar to other ETBs in the Pokémon TCG, the Chaos Rising Elite Trainer Box will grant you the following, no matter who you buy from: Similar to Perfect Order, Chaos Rising will feature over 120 cards, featuring Pokémon and Mega Evolutions featured in the Pokémon Legends: Z-A video game -- including Mega Greninja ex, Mega Pyroar ex, Mega Floette ex, Mega Dragalage ex, and Espurr.
Anthropic CEO scheduled to meet with White House Chief of Staff Wiles today
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is expected to meet today at the White House in an effort to resolve his company's ongoing rift with U.S. Department of War over the use of its artificial intelligence technologies. Amodei is scheduled to meet with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, reported Axios. It is believed to be a first step in Anthropic's attempt to resolve differences between what the company will permit and what the Trump administration is requesting for the use of the AI technology, particularly Anthropic's Claude model. Earlier this year, the Department of War categorized Anthropic as a "supply chain risk," reportedly restricting its use by the defense industry. "The Trump administration recognizes the power of Anthropic's new Claude model, Mythos, and its highly sophisticated -- and potentially dangerous -- ability to breach cybersecurity defenses," reported Axios.
SpaceX & Beyond: Decoding the ETF Paths to Space Investing
One of the hottest themes in investing this year has been Space. Partly due to its tie-in with the broader Defense theme, and more recently, thanks to investor excitement over the upcoming SpaceX IPO, space investing as a thematic opportunity has been capturing attention and investor dollars. This is a buzzy but relatively young category for ETF investors, and it has certainly been interesting to watch. Today, the conversation around the opportunity in Space investing isn't one about rocket launches as much as it's about an infrastructure buildout and growth that has far reaching implications. The space economy, according to Space Foundation's most recent data, is roughly a $700 billion global market. It is also one that has doubled in the last decade. This economy is driven by a mix of government budgets and contracts, commercial infrastructure and support industries like satellite manufacturing, launch and hardware-heavy operations, as well as commercial services such as direct-to-device satellite and communications, location and navigation services, and delivery applications. For ETF investors, access to this burgeoning segment is both easy and expanding, with a batch of new strategies coming to market this year. One of the veteran ETFs in the segment is the Procure Space ETF (UFO), which launched in 2019. UFO seeks to deliver as pure-play an exposure to the Space economy as possible by implementing revenue screens in its security selection. The fund looks to own companies that generate the majority of their revenues from space-related activities. This means a portfolio that not only includes rocket launchers but also a lot of communications, satellite, and navigation names. (Read more here.) UFO tracks a benchmark that's designed to capture the broader Space opportunity set while narrowing it down through revenue criteria. According to the methodology, SpaceX could be added to the mix shortly after it goes public. As one of the first ETFs in this category, we've watched it grow from a niche idea to one that's been capturing increasing investor attention. The fund recently crossed $500 million in assets under management, and is the market's biggest Space ETF today by assets. Among the pioneers in this category, another fund of note is the ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX), actively managed by Cathie Wood and team. ARKX has perhaps a broader mandate, diving into what it considers "enabling technologies" like 3D printing, for example. As a portfolio, ARKX leans into defense, as a theme, offering a broad swatch of companies in this actively managed mix. ARKX has about $260 million in assets. Among the year's newcomers, the Tuttle Capital UFO Disclosure ETF (UFOD) is an actively managed fund that focuses on the potential economic impact of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), or what we usually know as UFOs. The central idea here is that recognizing activity outside of Earth would have a meaningful, disruptive impact on the economy. UFOD invests primarily in industrial, materials, and energy segments that may benefit or be in the frontlines of new aerospace technology. By comparison, the Tema Space Innovators ETF (NASA), which also launched in 2026, focuses on space-related activities including rocket launchers, space exploration, and satellites. The fund already owns SpaceX through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) -- a derivative -- provided by Forge, a subsidiary of Charles Schwab. At launch, NASA had SpaceX at about 10% of the portfolio. Here's a look at how these funds compare at a data level: There's overlap but enough distinction between these funds. Sector allocation and single stock positions vary significantly given each ETF's methodology. Here are some comparative stats: Portfolio differences have led to dispersion in performance, which are to be expected. Here's how these ETFs stack up in recent months and longer: While this is not a comprehensive list of Space ETFs, it showcases not only this unique opportunity set, but also the many ways in which you can access it. Product innovation is ongoing in this category, and the highly anticipated IPO of SpaceX will only add to its mystique and appeal in the near term. As you consider the Space frontier, a final note on its tie-in with the Aerospace and Defense theme. My colleague Roxanna Islam has done great work comparing the two themes, and the intersection of space and defense. You can read her most recent piece here. For more news, information, and analysis visit the Thematic Investing Content Hub.
After calling software engineering 'dead,' Anthropic's Claude Code creator Boris Cherny says coding tools like Microsoft VS Code, Apple Xcode, and others will be 'dead soon'
Boris Cherny, the creator of Claude Code, thinks the tools developers have relied on for decades are on borrowed time. Having already predicted that the software engineer job title will "start to go away" this year, Cherny is now pointing his finger at the tools of the trade. He believes coding environments like Microsoft's VS Code and Apple's Xcode will become obsolete as AI agents grow capable enough to handle the entire development workflow themselves."There's a good chance by end of year people aren't using IDEs anymore," Cherny said during a recent talk at Anthropic, responding to a question about why Claude Code was built as a terminal-based CLI rather than a full IDE. "We want to get ready for this future and avoid over-investing in UI on top, given the way models are progressing. It just may not be useful work pretty soon."The decision to build Claude Code around the terminal wasn't just practical -- it was a bet on where the industry is heading. Cherny noted that engineers at Anthropic use a wide range of IDEs, from VS Code and Zed to Xcode, Vim, and Emacs, making the terminal the lowest common denominator. But the deeper reasoning was about model velocity: the team could see firsthand how fast Claude was improving, and didn't want to build UI scaffolding that might be redundant within months.Claude Code is already fully agentic, capable of writing entire features, fixing bugs, and navigating sprawling codebases across multiple files without hand-holding. Cherny says he hasn't manually edited a single line of code since November.The IDE prediction follows Cherny's broader thesis, which he laid out on Lenny's Podcast last month, that the role of software engineer is itself being redefined. Everyone will code, he said, but the job title will be replaced by something closer to "builder" -- a generalist who orchestrates AI rather than writing line-by-line.Anthropic's own 2026 Agentic Coding Trends Report backs this up. It finds that while engineers use AI in roughly 60% of their work, only 0-20% of tasks are truly "fully delegated." The human role is shifting toward architecture, oversight, and strategic judgment -- not disappearing, but fundamentally changing shape.Cherny acknowledged the disruption won't be comfortable. "It's going to be painful for a lot of people," he said. His advice to workers navigating the shift: experiment early, stay curious, and resist the urge to wait for things to stabilize. "Don't be scared of them. Just dive in."The question of what happens next, he added, isn't one Anthropic alone should answer. "As a society, this is a conversation we have to figure out together."
NanoClaw partners with Vercel to deliver one-click approvals for AI agents working on sensitive tasks - SiliconANGLE
NanoClaw partners with Vercel to deliver one-click approvals for AI agents working on sensitive tasks NanoCo, the startup behind NanoClaw, a fast-growing alternative to OpenAI Group PBC's OpenClaw project, said today it's teaming up with Vercel Inc. and OneCLI to try to fix the "trust problem" holding back artificial intelligence agents. Their idea is to bring human-in-the-loop oversight to AI agents performing sensitive tasks via popular messaging applications such as Slack, WhatsApp and Microsoft Corp.'s Teams, where professionals already organize their working lives. To do this, NanoClaw is integrating with Vercel's ChatSDK and OneCLI's credential vault to create a unified architecture that will ensure AI agents cannot go rogue. The way it works is that when an AI agent needs to perform a sensitive task such as making a payment or deleting a cloud resource, it will trigger a "native approval card" within the user's messaging platform of choice. All users have to do is tap to approve the action, and it's good to go. According to NanoCo, this kind of oversight is necessary for AI agents to achieve their true potential, for they generally provide the most value when they're able to access "high-stakes" information such as financial data, calendars and powerful tools. But granting unrestricted access simply won't do, because of the unpredictable nature of AI agents. At present, developers can only grant agents broad permissions, but doing this is akin to playing Russian Roulette given the risk of AI hallucinations. This is why many enterprises have only deployed AI agents to handle low-stakes tasks, such as drafting emails and summarizing meetings, where they can't cause much damage. But to witness the promised productivity gains of AI automation, agents must be trusted to handle more critical work, and that's where NanoClaw and Vercel believe they can make a difference. NanoClaw is a secure, lightweight and open-source personal AI agent that's designed to run on people's computers, offering a more secure alternative to complex agentic frameworks like OpenClaw. It utilizes containerization Docker containers to isolate agent sessions, ensuring that they can only access explicitly authorized files and directories. OneCLI's credential vault plays a vital role in NanoClaw's agentic trust solution, acting as a kind of gatekeeper that encrypts and secures user's credentials. It will inject authentication into an agent's workflows only at the moment a request is approved, and that permission will immediately be revoked once the action has been taken. Moreover, it means the agent never sees the user's credentials itself. Once an agent identifies a task that requires sensitive permissions, NanoClaw then leverages Vercel's Chat SDK to create an interactive card that pops up in the user's favored chat application. The card contains the full context, namely what the agent is asking to do, and why, and gives users the option to approve or deny that request. Enforcement is built at the infrastructure level, so the agent has no way to override the requirement for permissions, regardless of how it's prompted. NanoClaw creator Gavriel Cohen said thousands of people have given AI agents access to their most sensitive systems because the value they provide is too great to ignore. But he warned that these people are really just hoping for the best, because giving them such broad access can be extremely risky. "We built NanoClaw to end that tradeoff," he said. "Because that trust layer exists, agents can do more, not less. They can add their own tools, expand their own capabilities and even modify their own configuration, all through the same approval flow. That's what a real trust layer makes possible."
Anthropic launches Claude Opus 4.7 with stronger coding
Anthropic introduces an extra high effort level, file-based memory across sessions, and new verification program Anthropic has released Claude Opus 4.7, an upgrade to its flagship model that sharpens the capabilities developers have leaned on most heavily, autonomous coding, high-resolution image processing, and sustained performance across long, multi-session tasks. The model is available today across Claude's full product suite, the API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud's Vertex AI, and Microsoft Foundry, at unchanged pricing of $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens. The headline improvement is in software engineering. Early-access users report being able to hand off their most demanding coding work tasks that previously required close supervision, and trust Opus 4.7 to complete them with minimal hand-holding. The model verifies its own outputs before reporting back, a behavioural shift that reduces the back-and-forth typically needed on complex agentic runs. Instruction-following has also been tightened significantly, and developers should take note: where earlier models interpreted prompts loosely or skipped steps, Opus 4.7 takes instructions literally. Anthropic advises users to re-tune existing prompts before migrating, as the stricter parsing can produce unexpected results from legacy system prompts. Opus 4.7 now accepts images up to 2,576 pixels on the long edge roughly 3.75 megapixels, more than three times the ceiling of prior Claude models. T hat jump is not cosmetic. It opens practical use cases that were previously blocked by resolution limits: computer-use agents reading dense UI screenshots, data extraction from complex diagrams, and any workflow that depends on pixel-level visual accuracy. Because higher-resolution images consume more tokens, Anthropic notes that users who don't require the extra fidelity can downsample images before sending them to the model to manage costs. Opus 4.7 is the first Claude model to carry Anthropic's new cybersecurity guardrails, introduced under the company's Project Glasswing framework. Automatic detection and blocking is active for requests that indicate prohibited or high-risk cyber uses a deliberate decision to test these controls on a less capable model before applying them to the more powerful Claude Mythos Preview. Security professionals with legitimate needs penetration testing, vulnerability research, red-teaming, can apply to Anthropic's new Cyber Verification Program to access the model for those purposes. Alongside the model itself, Anthropic is shipping several supporting features. A new xhigh effort level sits between the existing high and max settings, giving developers finer control over the reasoning-versus-latency tradeoff. Task budgets are entering public beta on the API, allowing developers to guide token spend across longer autonomous runs. In Claude Code, the new /ultrareview command runs a dedicated review session that flags bugs and design issues the way a careful human reviewer would. Pro and Max users get three free ultrareviews to test the feature.
SpaceX to launch Falcon 9 rocket Saturday from Vandenberg Space Force Base
SpaceX is targeting Saturday evening to send a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The mission will send 25 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit. The launch window will open from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., with a live webcast starting five minutes beforehand. According to the aerospace company, this will be the eight flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission. After stage separation, the first stage will land back on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship in the Pacific Ocean.
Anthropic talks to EU, including on its cyber security models, Commission says By Reuters
BRUSSELS, April 17 (Reuters) - U.S.-based artificial intelligence company Anthropic is currently in discussion with the European Commission on its different models, including its cyber security ones, which are not yet available in the EU, the Commission said on Friday. Anthropic has already committed to respect the European Union's general purpose artificial intelligence code of practice, spokesman Thomas Regnier told reporters in Brussels. "In this framework, there is an obligation to assess and mitigate risks that could come from a service that may or may not be offered in Europe," he said.
Financial Officials Sound Alarm About Anthropic's Banking Risk | PYMNTS.com
By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The FT reports that Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, who chairs the Financial Stability Board, called the issue "a very serious challenge for all of us" and said regulators need to move quickly to assess the threat. The core fear is that models such as Mythos may be able to identify and chain together software vulnerabilities at a speed and scale beyond human capability, shifting the balance between attackers and defenders. Anthropic said earlier this month that Mythos had found thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including flaws in major operating systems and web browsers. So far, the company has reportedly limited access to about 40 companies, including Amazon, Apple and J.P. Morgan Chase, so they can test the model and address weaknesses in their systems. The FT's broader take is that this is becoming a governance story as much as a technology story. Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, told Bloomberg TV, as quoted by the FT, that there is no framework in place "to actually mind those things." That captures the tension running through the article. Policymakers do not want to slow a technology with major economic upside, but they also do not want regulation to arrive only after the damage is done. The FT also notes that some officials doubt a coordinated global response will come easily, given geopolitical strains and uneven access to the new model outside the U.S. Recent PYMNTS coverage of Anthropic has tracked that same push and pull. PYMNTS reported that the Treasury Department wants access to Anthropic's Mythos, a sign that U.S. officials want a closer look at how the model works and what vulnerabilities it can uncover. PYMNTS also reported that Anthropic is ready to offer Mythos to British banks and that the Bank of England is probing AI threats to U.K. financial stability. At the same time, PYMNTS has covered Anthropic's commercial momentum, including how the company hit a $30 billion run rate as enterprise demand accelerated. Together, those stories show the split-screen reality around Anthropic right now. The company is gaining traction fast in the enterprise market even as regulators and banks scramble to understand the risks that come with more powerful AI tools.
Perplexity launches AI assistant for Mac users
Perplexity has expanded its AI offerings by introducing its Personal Computer assistant for Mac systems, enhancing user experience with advanced multi-model orchestration. This rollout builds on the capabilities first showcased with Perplexity Computer, aiming to streamline tasks and improve productivity. The launch marks a significant step in making AI assistance more accessible to Mac users.
Anthropic's Mythos AI model could expose trading data, warns US financial group
The growing use of advanced AI tools is starting to unsettle parts of the US financial ecosystem, and the latest warning centres around how such technology could interact with one of the market's most sensitive data systems. Anthropic's Mythos AI model has triggered fresh concerns after the American Securities Association (ASA) flagged the possibility of misuse involving the market-tracking infrastructure overseen by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The group believes the combination of large-scale financial data and increasingly capable AI systems could create a new kind of vulnerability that regulators may not be fully prepared for. At the heart of the issue is the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), a system built to give regulators a detailed view of trading activity across US markets. While the database has been useful for surveillance and investigations, the ASA argues that its design does not account for the kind of AI-driven threats that are now emerging. In its communication to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, ASA President Chris Iacovella warned that tools like Mythos could make it easier for malicious actors to tap into the system. According to the group, this could lead to large-scale identity theft, exposure of individual portfolios, and a rise in insider risks if such data is analysed or reconstructed using AI. The association has pushed for immediate safeguards, including a halt on collecting personal data from retail investors and even the deletion of existing records stored in the CAT. This marks one of the strongest calls yet to rethink how much information the system should hold. Experts say the risk is not limited to personal identifiers. Sultan Meghji pointed out that even anonymised datasets can carry strategic value when processed with modern AI tools. He noted that the cost and effort required to extract meaningful insights from such data have dropped sharply. "The concern isn't just personal identity data," Meghji said, adding that what earlier required highly specialised teams can now be done with far fewer resources. "Mythos and systems like it push that further, enabling synthesis and misuse of decades of market data at industrial scale," he said. The issue has also caught the attention of top policymakers. Recent discussions involving Jerome Powell and leading Wall Street executives reportedly included a review of Mythos and its possible impact. The ASA has used this to underline its argument that the CAT could become a major cybersecurity weak point if not updated. The regulatory debate around the system is already evolving. The SEC, led by Chairman Paul Atkins, has invited public feedback on potential changes, suggesting that even foundational aspects of the CAT could be reconsidered. This comes as authorities balance the need for market transparency with rising concerns around data security in the age of AI.
