TheChek News Flow

Source class: synthesis of 6 Podcast Intel notes (episodes aired 2026-09-11 to 2026-09-14). T3 podcast commentary; T2 where principals discuss

their own firm. GA7 cross-rule B: quantify or omit. Ticker mappings marked "GA inference" were not named by speakers.

Episodes covered (all FULL transcripts):

• All-In — Jensen Huang, ft. President Trump (2026-09-14)

• Odd Lots — Greg Brockman, OpenAI (2026-09-14)

• Odd Lots — Robert Friedland, Ivanhoe Mines (2026-09-12)

• Odd Lots — Greg Jensen, Bridgewater (2026-09-11)

• Masters in Business — Seth Bernstein, AllianceBernstein (2026-09-11)

• Dwarkesh Podcast — Schulman / Millidge / O'Neill on recursive self-improvement (2026-09-11)

Verdict (TL;DR)

• Copper: tariff binary + acid shock. Copper fell ~3% from a ~$14,875/t record on 2026-09-10 on a "no decision yet"

refined-tariff report; Friedland's math: 30% tariff takes $6.00/lb to $7.80/lb US. Sulfuric acid $150/t to >$1,000/t in 8

months; ~25% of global copper supply depends on it. Next dated event: Xi visit to US 2026-09-24. Talked book (IVN sells

acid, T2).

• Cyber defenders get a ~6-month window. Brockman: Hugging Face-class breach capability reaches "a number of"

organizations by ~March 2027; OpenAI and Anthropic co-signed a letter urging defenders to act now. CRWD/PANW/ZS

mapping is GA inference.

• Compute stays the binding constraint through ~2028. Bridgewater estimate: OpenAI + Anthropic at 35% of world

compute by ~2028 (others 50%). Schulman/Millidge/O'Neill: compute, not data, is the bottleneck. Brockman: "pacing"

covers only frontier runs; compute "is revenue". Huang (T2): all frontier labs now run on NVIDIA vs only OpenAI ~1.5

years ago.

• Private credit: talked-book "buy the dip". Bernstein (T2): H1-2026 deterioration "not meaningful yet", fraud in "a

couple of places"; better vintage entry. Test against Q3-2026 BDC non-accruals (Oct–Nov 2026). AB catalyst: ~$100B

Corebridge assets (~11% of $905.5B AUM) on Equitable–Corebridge close (undated).

• AI policy: federal pause risk low, local permitting risk high. Trump (2026-09-14) called slowdown fears "a hoax";

Gallup via TechCrunch: 70% oppose a local data center. Jensen (Bridgewater) puts AI-run financial incident/deaths odds

at 30–60% "in the next few years" — an unpriced tail, self-described guess.

Ask me for the Full note

Laurent

We’ve been seeing increasingly dire warnings from AI researchers about the dangers of artificial intelligence, and even comments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that it may be time to “pace” AI development. But what would that actually look like?

In a new blog post, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei not only echoed the call to “pace the frontier,” but also outlined three broad strategies for doing so. And he said Anthropic is “unilaterally committing” to one of them, with Altman chiming in to say OpenAI will follow suit.

The debate over AI safety and alignment intensified this week after researcher Jacob Coxon wrote that he’s resigning from Anthropic over concerns that the leading AI companies are “gambling with our lives” while the people building the technology “earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” a claim repeated by others at Anthropic.

Amodei’s post doesn’t didn’t explicitly mention Coxon’s resignation or his concerns, but the CEO wrote that two things convinced him it’s time to take a more cautious approach to AI development: the OpenAI-HuggingFace hack, and the fact that “AI has been advancing drastically faster” in recent months, particularly with its “growing ability to build the next generation of AI.”

“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei wrote. “Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”

Other AI executives seem to have reacted positively to Amodei’s post, with Altman writing, “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.” And SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted, “Dario is right.”

Amodei’s proposed first step would involve “embedded evaluators” from third-party organizations like METR — evaluators who can verify that AI companies are actually following their pacing and safety commitments and can also ensure that safety incidents get reported. (OpenAI was recently criticized for not reporting an incident where its AI agents took over a German wiki forum.)

Amodei compared these evaluators to regulators who have been embedded with bank employees, and he said that inviting them in is “something Anthropic is unilaterally committing to (and calls on governments to require other frontier companies to match).” That means giving evaluators company badges, desks, and laptops, and providing access “mostly comparable to what internal risk assessment teams have,” with exceptions when required by law or contracts.

Altman also said this was a “good idea” and said OpenAI would do the same: “We’ll have more to share soon.”

Next, Amodei called for the leading AI companies “within democratic countries” to coordinate “common safety standards as well as limits on the rate of unchecked AI progress.”

Such coordination might seem unlikely, because these companies are reportedly worried that a coordinated pause could lead to antitrust scrutiny. Amodei alluded to that concern in his post, writing that “for antitrust reasons, it’s helpful for the US government to mediate or at least enable these discussions — they don’t need to participate, but do need to issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations.”

Amodei also acknowledged the specter of Chinese AI dominance that’s often raised an argument against slowing development. But he said that if the US government and tech companies take steps like refusing to sell powerful chips or semiconductor manufacturing equipment to Chinese companies, as well as cracking down on model distillation, they could “slow China’s progress enough to widen America’s lead significantly over the next 3–5 years.”

Lastly, Amodei called for “global coordination,” where the United States and its allies “attempt to coordinate with authoritarian governments, to the extent this is possible.” Amodei said this would mean “cooperation with China,” and he admitted that there are “stark limits on what can be achieved,” but he still suggested there might be opportunities for agreement, even if it’s just “prohibiting certain narrow and obviously dangerous uses of AI, such as using AI for the production of biological weapons or allowing users to do so.”

With Amodei’s past willingness to acknowledge AI’s potential dangers, and with the company’s relative openness to certain forms of regulation, some AI boosters have already criticized him as a doomer whose comments have fed the current AI backlash. In response, Amodei said he’s tried to offer a “balanced” perspective” and argued that the backlash is “fundamentally a crisis of trust,” as people have become skeptical of tech companies, the tech industry, and the government.

Industry critics have also been skeptical about these apocalyptic AI warnings, suggesting that they’re a distraction from the harm that the technology is already causing.

Journalist Brian Merchant, for example, wrote that he has yet to see “a credible, step-by-step documentation of how exactly AI might move from self-recursively improving AI to killing every single human on the planet”; he also suggested that proposals similar to Amodei’s “would likely only wind up serving Anthropic and OpenAI; it’s what regulatory capture looks like in action.”

In his new post, Amodei wrote that he continues “to believe that AI can enormously improve the quality of human life.”

“My desire to achieve these benefits is undimmed,” he said. “But the benefits will only be achieved if we build the technology in the right way, and — so long as we use the time we gain well — it is worth taking unusually deliberate care to get it right.”

As bootleg versions of an experimental drug from Eli Lilly flood the market, regulators try to curb supply

Tiffinne Perkins, a nurse practitioner who ran an Ohio-based weight-loss clinic called Enbody, appeared on the local news and lifestyle morning show “New Day Cleveland.”

“How many people got skinny thanks to you lately?” asked the host, in a segment sponsored by Enbody.

“Oh, boy, all of them,” Perkins replied. “Hundreds.”

A little over a year after that 2024 TV appearance, inspectors from the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy arrived at Perkins’s clinic. They found more than 400 vials of illicit weight-loss drugs, including retatrutide, a next-generation weight-loss drug that Eli Lilly is developing but isn’t yet approved. The clinic’s license was suspended within days.

Perkins denied the clinic sold retatrutide. Her lawyer said they wouldn’t appeal the board’s decision or the $300,000 fine.

Clinics and medspas, promising people transformational weight loss, have figured out how to procure and sell an experimental drug that hasn’t gotten through the government’s drug approval process, prompting serious safety concerns from authorities.

Social media has amplified interest, with influencers promoting Eli Lilly’s retatrutide—often called “reta”—as a superior weight-loss solution. The black-market compound makes its way to the U.S. through a robust and loosely regulated peptide industry fueled by Chinese suppliers.

Regulators are trying to come to grips with this underground system. States like Ohio have started to crack down in the past year. While approved pharmaceuticals are subject to rigorous vetting, the same standards don’t apply to the black market, raising fears of potential contamination, mislabeling and unknown ingredients that could cause dangerous side effects.

Other states, including Oregon and Iowa, have put out notices warning patients and medical professionals about using retatrutide.

It looks like a game of whack-a-mole.

“They shut down a company, and it pops up again under a slightly different name with a new website,” said Tenille Davis, a pharmacist and chief advocacy officer for the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding, a compounding-pharmacy trade group.

Between March 2025 and August 2026, Ohio’s board conducted 1,102 proactive inspections of wellness clinics and medical spas across the state, leading to 54 immediate emergency shutdowns of businesses that posed a “danger of immediate and serious harm.”

Inspections in Ohio jumped 56% since fiscal year 2024, when regulators started seeing illicit retatrutide and other peptides, board data show.

The Food and Drug Administration has sent warning letters to telehealth companies marketing retatrutide, distributors for selling it and outsourcing facilities for repackaging it. But critics say the federal regulators either don’t have or aren’t fully using the limited authority they do have to stop this influx of illicit drugs.

An FDA spokeswoman said that the agency would continue to take action to remove illegal drugs from the market and that it urges consumers not to use retatrutide unless they are part of an official study.

The explosion in use of compounded versions of weight-loss drugs has “really exposed these gaps in our regulatory structure,” said John Hertig, board chair of the advocacy group Collaborative for Evidence-Based Medicines.

Other news:

Gapping up
In reaction to earnings/guidance:

Other news:

Renault sous le feu des vendeurs à découvert (L'Événement, Transports)
Les positions courtes sur Renault ont atteint environ 8,6 % du capital, soit 13,9 % du flottant, un niveau sans précédent pour le groupe dirigé par François Provost (norme historique : environ 2 %). Le chiffre est une estimation basse, le seuil de déclaration AMF étant de 0,5 %. Renault rejoint le palmarès des valeurs du SBF 120 les plus ciblées, derrière Ubisoft, Rémy Cointreau et FDJ United. Six hedge funds sont à la manœuvre, Marshall Wace et Citadel Advisors détenant à eux seuls 4,9 % du capital depuis leur renforcement du 1er septembre. Les bons résultats semestriels (chiffre d'affaires en hausse de 9,5 %) n'ont desserré l'étau que quelques semaines, les shorters revenant fin août sur la baisse des immatriculations en France. Stellatis subit le même traitement à Milan, avec plus de 11 % du flottant shorté. Florent Chaix, directeur des relations investisseurs, mobilise le Cliff pour un lobbying auprès de l'AMF : abaissement du seuil de déclaration de 0,5 % à 0,2 %, voire plafonnement de la part du capital shortable. Renault espère rééditer le coup de Valeo, shorté à près de 20 % en mai et dont le cours a bondi en juin après l'annonce d'une diversification dans les data centers.

Gabriel Attal et les fonds américains (Politique, Partis et élections)
Le candidat Renaissance s'est adjoint le soutien bénévole de Gabriel Eshaghian, investisseur franco-américain de l'immobilier et de l'aviation sur la côte ouest, pour ouvrir des portes et organiser d'éventuelles levées de fonds auprès de la communauté française aux États-Unis, ainsi que des visioconférences avec des think tanks. L'équipe de campagne, après un premier démenti, parle d'une initiative individuelle. Eshaghian, 52 ans, ex-PwC, a travaillé pour le fonds familial The Somerset Group, siégé au conseil des aéroports de Los Angeles de 2013 à 2024, et fut un grand donateur d'Eric Garcetti. Il a fondé en France fin 2024 Golany Courcelles (immobilier) et, au 1er janvier 2025, GEL Holding France dont il est seul actionnaire.

Industrie duale : priorité aux drones et à la robotique (Exécutif)
L'enveloppe de 300 millions d'euros promise en mars par Sébastien Lecornu prend forme. Financée par des reliquats de France 2030 et distincte des crédits de la LPM, elle ciblera en priorité la robotique, l'IA et les drones, avec deux axes complémentaires sur les coopérations civil-militaire et la relocalisation des chaînes de matériaux critiques. L'architecture arbitrée entre Bercy, la DGA et le ministère des armées combine appels à projets et financements de gré à gré. Le Gicat (Emmanuel Levacher) plaidait depuis avril pour une filière de robotique terrestre à l'horizon 2030 ; le Gifas (Olivier Andriès) devrait suivre, 75 % de ses adhérents ayant une activité duale et son club StartAir regroupant 105 start-up.

OTAN : les dossiers sensibles de la NSPA (Mouvement, Exécutif)
La nouvelle directrice générale de la NSPA, la Canadienne Paula Folkes, hérite d'une agence en crise après le départ mouvementé de l'Américaine Stacy Cummings. Le chef de cabinet hongrois Zoltan Nagy a annoncé son départ par surprise. Sur 32 recours déposés au tribunal administratif de l'OTAN, 20 concernent la seule NSPA, avec des audiences tenues à Bruxelles les 7, 8 et 9 septembre. Les enquêtes judiciaires pour corruption se poursuivent en Belgique et au Luxembourg ; le fournisseur roumain Global Defense Logistics a été blacklisté. La NSPA n'a toujours pas publié son rapport d'audit financier 2024, et la direction de la communication n'a pas répondu à La Lettre.

Sénat : bataille pour le rapporteur général du budget (Parlement)
Jean-François Husson (LR) quitte ses fonctions en septembre. Christine Lavarde, sénatrice LR des Hauts-de-Seine, ancienne rapporteure extérieure de la Cour des comptes, lance sa campagne par lettre à son groupe, avec l'objectif de porter le PLF 2027. Elle affrontera probablement Stéphane Sautarel, qui doit d'abord être réélu le 27 septembre. Thierry Cozic (PS) vise la présidence de la commission des finances, remise en jeu avec le départ de Claude Raynal ; Stéphane Piednoir et Roger Karoutchi convoitent les vice-présidences.

Tikehau Capital écarte sa DRH (Entreprises, Mouvement/Finance)
Antoine Flamarion et Mathieu Chabran remercient Emmanuelle Costa, DRH et directrice générale adjointe de Tikehau Investment Management, après plusieurs décisions défavorables aux prud'hommes de Paris : deux évictions requalifiées en licenciements sans cause réelle et sérieuse début mai, et en juin 2025 la nullité du licenciement d'un ex-contrôleur des risques avec reconnaissance de harcèlement moral. C'est la première fois que le premier cercle des fondateurs est touché par la vague de départs qui s'accélère depuis 2024. Le département RH a perdu plus de la moitié de son effectif en quelques mois ; le directeur général adjoint Henri Marcoux est mis en cause en interne pour un management jugé rugueux.

Louis Vuitton : la direction sécurité dans la tourmente (Luxe et conso)
Pascal Ellena, vingt-deux ans de maison, prend la direction de la sécurité monde de Louis Vuitton dans un climat tendu, à quelques semaines de la Fashion Week. D'autres pressentis avaient refusé. Un audit mené depuis le printemps et une saisie de la conformité du groupe scrutent les relations de l'ancien directeur sécurité Gaël Marchand, devenu consultant-directeur par intérim via sa société Add Lumen, avec le prestataire Heracles sécurité privée de Salvatore Furnari, liquidé judiciairement après la révélation de dettes sociales et fiscales. Des dénonciations pour surfacturation et factures de prestations fictives ont été transmises à la direction éthique et conformité de LVMH, visant la double casquette de Marchand. Furnari annonce des plaintes pour détournement d'actifs, violation du secret des affaires et harcèlement moral. Le défilé du 6 octobre à Paris se tiendra sans Heracles pour la première fois depuis sept ans. La direction générale de LVMH, notamment Olivier Richardot et Jérôme Sibille, cherche à régler le dossier avant toute exposition publique. Article réalisé avec Intelligence Online.

Summary, La Lettre, 14 September 2026

Renault under short-seller assault (Lead story, Transport)
Short positions in Renault have reached roughly 8.6% of capital and 13.9% of the free float, an unprecedented level for the group led by François Provost (historic norm around 2%). The figure is a conservative estimate, since the AMF disclosure threshold is 0.5%. Renault now ranks among the most heavily shorted SBF 120 names, behind Ubisoft, Rémy Cointreau and FDJ United. Six hedge funds are involved, with Marshall Wace and Citadel Advisors alone holding 4.9% of capital after adding to positions on 1 September. Strong H1 results (revenue up 9.5%) provided only a few weeks of relief before shorts returned in late August on weak French registrations. Stellantis faces the same pressure in Milan, with over 11% of its float shorted. Investor relations director Florent Chaix is mobilising the Cliff association to lobby the AMF for a disclosure threshold cut from 0.5% to 0.2%, and possibly a cap on the shortable share of capital. Renault hopes to repeat Valeo's June squeeze, when a data centre diversification announcement cost short sellers, Citadel included, several million euros.

Gabriel Attal courts Californian Democratic money (Politics)
The Renaissance presidential candidate has enlisted the unpaid support of Gabriel Eshaghian, a French-American real estate and aviation investor on the US west coast, to open doors and organise possible fundraising within the French community in the United States, plus videoconferences with American think tanks. After an initial denial, the campaign describes it as an individual initiative. Eshaghian, 52, ex-PwC, worked for family investment fund The Somerset Group, sat on the Los Angeles airports board from 2013 to 2024, and was a major donor to Eric Garcetti. He founded Golany Courcelles (real estate) in late 2024 and GEL Holding France, of which he is sole shareholder, on 1 January 2025.

Dual-use industry: drones and robotics prioritised (Executive)
The EUR 300m envelope promised in March by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is taking shape. Funded from France 2030 residuals and kept separate from military programming law credits, it will prioritise robotics, AI and drones, with two further strands on civil-military industrial cooperation and reshoring critical materials supply chains. The architecture, settled between Bercy, the DGA and the armed forces ministry, combines calls for projects with direct negotiated grants. Gicat (Emmanuel Levacher) had argued for a French land robotics sector by 2030; Gifas (Olivier Andriès) is expected to follow, with 75% of its members active in dual-use and its StartAir club gathering 105 start-ups.

NATO: sensitive files for the new procurement chief (Movement, Executive)
New NSPA director general Paula Folkes, a Canadian, inherits an agency in crisis following the turbulent exit of American predecessor Stacy Cummings. Hungarian chief of staff Zoltan Nagy announced a surprise departure. Of 32 cases filed at NATO's administrative tribunal, 20 concern the NSPA alone, with hearings held in Brussels on 7, 8 and 9 September. Corruption investigations continue in Belgium and Luxembourg; Romanian fuel supplier Global Defense Logistics has been blacklisted. The NSPA has still not published its 2024 financial audit report, and its communications directorate declined to answer La Lettre's questions.

French Senate: contest for budget rapporteur general (Parliament)
Jean-François Husson (LR) steps down in September. LR senator Christine Lavarde of Hauts-de-Seine, a former external rapporteur at the Cour des comptes, is launching her candidacy by letter to her group, aiming to handle the 2027 budget bill. She will likely face Stéphane Sautarel, who must first be re-elected on 27 September. Socialist Thierry Cozic is running for the finance committee chair, vacated by Claude Raynal; Stéphane Piednoir and Roger Karoutchi are eyeing the vice-presidencies.

Tikehau Capital removes its HR director (Companies, Movement/Finance)
Founders Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran have dismissed Emmanuelle Costa, HR director and deputy CEO of Tikehau Investment Management, following several adverse rulings at the Paris labour tribunal: two dismissals requalified as unfair in early May, and a June 2025 ruling voiding the dismissal of a former risk controller while recognising workplace harassment. It is the first time the founders' inner circle has been hit by the departures wave that accelerated in 2024. The HR department lost more than half its staff in a few months; deputy CEO Henri Marcoux is criticised internally for a rough management style.

Louis Vuitton security division in turmoil (Luxury and consumer)
Pascal Ellena, a twenty-two-year LVMH veteran, takes over as global security director of Louis Vuitton in a highly tense context weeks before Fashion Week. Other candidates had turned the job down. An audit running since spring, plus a compliance seizure, is scrutinising the relationship between former security director Gaël Marchand, who stayed on as interim consultant-director through his firm Add Lumen, and contractor Heracles sécurité privée, founded by Salvatore Furnari and placed in judicial liquidation after Intelligence Online revealed major social and tax debts. Whistleblower reports alleging overbilling and invoices for fictitious consulting work have been sent to LVMH's ethics and compliance division, targeting Marchand's dual role. Furnari says he will file complaints for misappropriation of assets, violation of trade secrets and harassment. The 6 October Paris show will be the first in seven years without Heracles. LVMH senior management, notably Olivier Richardot and Jérôme Sibille, is seeking to settle the matter before it becomes public. Produced in collaboration with Intelligence Online.