Good morning. Andrew here. On my mind: a new report that the White House wants to limit the wider rollout of Anthropic’s powerful new model, Claude Mythos Preview. It’s not just about safety — the Trump administration is said to be worried that Anthropic doesn’t have enough computing power to serve both corporate customers and the government adequately. There’s a growing risk of “compute inequality,” in which those without huge hardware resources are exposed and get left behind. (Then again, some skeptics suggest that the government is throttling the commercial expansion of Mythos to help out OpenAI and xAI, which have less-fraught ties with the administration.) Also, this will be a talker today: Amazon, which acquired “The Apprentice” franchise when it bought MGM, may reboot the show. The potential host? Donald Trump Jr. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
Powell for longerThe succession intrigue hanging over the Fed may be subsiding, but President Trump and Kevin Warsh, his pick to run the central bank, may soon face a new drama if Warsh takes over. Rate cuts, which Trump wants the next Fed chair to orchestrate, may not be imminently in the cards. Futures traders this morning see the Fed on hold until December 2027. This all comes after major developments yesterday on Capitol Hill and at the Fed. A recap:
Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to fire Powell, wrote on social media: “Nobody wants him.” (The last Fed chair who decided to stay on the board was Marriner Eccles in the 1940s, also in an effort to preserve central bank independence. The Fed’s headquarters, the focus of a since-dropped Justice Department criminal investigation involving Powell, is named after him.) Warsh looks set to inherit a messy situation. Yesterday’s 8-to-4 vote signals that the central bank is near a crossroads. Reaching consensus on how to confront inflation that is running well above the Fed’s 2 percent target is becoming more difficult, especially with the effects of the war in the Middle East and tariffs unclear, analysts say. The wild card: Powell said yesterday he planned “to keep a low profile” while he remains on the board. But it’s not hard to imagine him having a key swing vote if divisions grow, especially if the economy show signs of stagflation. “Setting aside the political drama, the Mideast war will have more influence on whether the Fed’s next move is a cut or a hike,” Bill Adams, the chief U.S. economist at Fifth Third Commercial Bank, wrote to investors yesterday. Could Trump fire Powell? In coming weeks, the Supreme Court is set to disclose its ruling on Lisa Cook, a Fed governor whom the Trump administration has sought to fire. In January, justices expressed their skepticism over Trump’s effort. But if they were to rule in his favor, would that open the door for Trump to get rid of Powell, too?
LIV Golf could reportedly disband after this season. The golf league will tell players and staff by today that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has pulled its funding, according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s unclear whether LIV will find new backing — or whether the PGA Tour will welcome back stars who have defected. Bill Ackman’s new fund posts a lackluster debut. The I.P.O. of Pershing Square USA raised $5 billion, the low end of its expected range, and slumped 18 percent on its first day of trading. But the billionaire investor got good news on another investment. Universal Music, which he has offered to buy through his hedge fund, said it would sell half of its stake in Spotify and increase its share buybacks — addressing issues he had raised in his takeover proposal. PayPal is said to spin out Venmo amid sale speculation. The company’s new C.E.O., Enrique Lores, told PayPal managers that he was separating out the mobile payments app, CNBC reports, citing unnamed sources. Wall Street is closely watching the move to see if it spurs buyout interest in part or all of PayPal. A $700 billion spending spree for the agesTech giants have been warning investors for several quarters now that they expect to keep spending big on artificial intelligence. Four of the biggest companies confirmed that plan again in quarterly earnings releases yesterday — and in some cases stepped on the accelerator even more. But investors remain anxious about how much the spending will pay off. What to know:
All told, the four expect to spend roughly $700 billion this year. The tension over spending played out in different ways. For Alphabet and Amazon, strong results in their core businesses was more than enough to allay worries about higher capex. Those companies are also developing their own A.I. chips, new sources of revenue that are growing rapidly. But for Meta, ambitions to keep spending tons on A.I. infrastructure clashed with worries that doing so would eat into business margins. Meta is also rebuilding its A.I. efforts, an expensive task whose outcome is highly uncertain. As for Microsoft, the concern is whether the company is seeing enough adoption of its Copilot A.I. tools and whether its traditional Office apps are under pressure from newer A.I.-enabled offerings. But investors appear to remain bullish on A.I. over all. Consider that Anthropic is now reportedly fielding funding offers that value the company at more than $900 billion, according to Bloomberg. That’s more than what OpenAI was valued at in its most recent fund-raising round, and reflects Anthropic’s success in poaching corporate clients. How high will it go?The stock market has held up fine during the war in the Middle East, but the oil market is telling a starkly different story this morning. Fears of an escalation in the war have sent oil prices yo-yoing again. The latest:
President Trump reportedly will receive a briefing today on new plans for possible military action in Iran from Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, Axios reports, citing unnamed sources. The plan is said to include a “short and powerful” wave of strikes in which Iranian infrastructure would probably be among the targets. Central Command is said to have requested the deployment of Dark Eagle, a hypersonic missile from the U.S. Army designed to fly at more than five times as fast as the speed of sound, reports Bloomberg, citing a person with knowledge of the request. A resumption of fighting could further disrupt shipping traffic in the vital Strait of Hormuz, traders fear, sending energy prices higher. Could the business world help? Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hosted executives from Chevron as well as those from the commodity traders Trafigura, Vitol and Mercuria, at an event on Tuesday to discuss ways to lower rising energy prices, Axios reported, citing people with knowledge of the event.
Casa raises money to automate handyman jobsHaving a property manager, someone to oversee the care of one’s home and order up repairs when needed, was traditionally seen as a privilege reserved for the 1 percent. But Casa, a start-up created by two former Uber executives, aims to make that perk more accessible — and has raised millions to do so, Michael de la Merced reports. Casa has raised $20 million in a Series A round, bringing its total fund-raising to about $27 million. The round was led by Forerunner Ventures, the consumer-focused, early-stage venture capital firm. Other participants included Neo, the firm run by the venture investor Ali Partovi; Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, the firm co-founded by Sheryl Sandberg, the former Meta C.O.O.; and Travis Kalanick, the Uber founder. How it works: Subscribers pay about $200 a month. On a first visit, Casa scans their homes — including with lidar readers and gadgets that can determine paint colors — to create a 3-D model, and interviews the homeowners about needed repairs and wish-list projects. Members then get 1.5 hours of free repair time each month and pay for additional tasks. They can schedule Casa workers to do the jobs. The company also offers services like weekly pickups for packages as well as help with charity donations and monitoring property taxes. “The ultimate vision is that Casa is building the autonomous home,” Michael York, a Casa founder and its C.E.O., told DealBook. Software keeps track of what needs repairing and when, and informs the handymen. What’s next: Casa operates in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. But Kirsten Green, the founder of Forerunner, told DealBook that the company was eyeing up to six more markets. York added that while its membership plan was priced as a premium service, there’s room to lower the cost. The company is also focused on customer service, since its revenue comes from subscriptions: “If we’re not earning your business every month,” he said, “you’ll leave.” We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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