>>> Musk Seeks Up to $110 Billion from OpenAI

Musk Seeks Up to $110 Billion from OpenAI

If Elon Musk wins his breach of charitable trust lawsuit against OpenAI, the company should have to give up between $65.5 billion and $109.43 billion to Musk, lawyers for the billionaire argued in a court filing Friday. Microsoft, which Musk alleges aided and abetted OpenAI’s breach of fiduciary duty, is on the hook for between $13.3 billion and $25.06 billion, Musk’s lawyers argued.

Though Musk only donated about $38 million to help establish OpenAI, his lawyers argue that OpenAI should have to forfeit all of the benefits they gained as a result of those donations. The estimates of those benefits that Musk’s lawyers cited in their recent filing came from C. Paul Wazzan, an expert witness that Musk’s lawyers retained. Wazzan is an economist at Berkeley Research Group, an economic consulting firm. He arrived at the figures by taking the OpenAI nonprofit’s share of OpenAI’s business and assuming that Musk contributed between 50% and 75% of that value.

Thr Information : Thinking Machines Exodus Tests Investor Appetite for a $50 Bil

Thinking Machines Exodus Tests Investor Appetite for a $50 Billion Valuation

The Takeaway
  • Thinking Machines staffers were stunned by the news of two researchers’ departure during an all hands meeting this week.
  • Of five departures from the startup this week, four joined OpenAI.
  • Employee turnover could test investor appetite for the $50 billion valuation the startup is seeking.

The timing couldn’t have been more awkward for Thinking Machines Lab.

On Wednesday, during an all-hands meeting at the AI startup, its CEO, Mira Murati, announced that she had fired one of Thinking Machines’ co-founders, its Chief Technology Officer Barret Zoph, for poor performance and speaking with competitors, according to a person familiar with the matter. During the meeting, two more Thinking Machines researchers, Luke Metz and Sam Schoenholz, dropped bombshells when they separately posted in the company Slack that they were quitting, the person said.

Murati appeared to be taken aback after the messages from Metz and Schoenholz, according to the person, while some Thinking Machines staffers were stunned by the rapidfire disclosures of the three departures. Their unease began to grow later in the day after the OpenAI executive Fidji Simo announced that her company had hired the three researchers, all of whom had previously worked at OpenAI before leaving for Thinking Machines.

By Thursday, two more Thinking Machines staffers, researcher Lia Guy and engineer Ian O’Connell, told colleagues that they, too, were leaving the company. Of the five departures, four joined OpenAI.

Ordinarily, the departure of about 5% of a startup’s staff—Thinking Machines employed roughly 100 people prior to the defections this week—wouldn’t necessarily be a source of serious concern. But those departures included two of the company’s six co-founders and came after a third co-founder, Andrew Tulloch, left for Meta Platforms in the fall.

The events rattled investors in Thinking Machines, according to some of them. It could make it difficult for the one-year-old startup, which has released only a single product so far, to complete an ambitious funding round that aims to value the company at $50 billion—more than five times its last round.

That funding effort is likely to test whether a burst of employee turnover is sufficient to spook private investors in speculative AI startups. The company’s existing investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Accel and Nvidia, the AI chip giant. Thinking Machines could seek funding from its existing investor base or new ones (one possibility is Google, which is the startup’s primary cloud provider).

Though Thinking Machines currently has just one product—an application programming interface that allows developers to customize their models—it has bigger product ambitions. The company has discussed building a product for consumers, such as an AI-powered assistant consumers can speak to, as well as models customized to key performance indicators, or specific business metrics that companies track, typically related to revenue or profit growth. Executives have also said the company plans to start releasing its own in-house models this year.

Murati has told employees they should focus on developing technology that is substantially differentiated from products made by OpenAI and Anthropic, one of the people said.

Thinking Machines is generating some revenue, according to a person with knowledge of its financials, but it’s a long way away from larger and older labs like Anthropic and OpenAI, which are generating billions of dollars in revenue a year.

The success of the Thinking Machines funding will also say a lot about investors’ confidence in Murati, the charismatic former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer who left the company in late 2024 to co-found Thinking Machines. Murati engendered so much loyalty among OpenAI colleagues that 20 of them left OpenAI initially to join her at Thinking Machines. Investors scrambled to write checks for the startup even though Murati, during early fundraising conversations, shared only scraps of information about the company’s plans.

There was some irony in the timing of OpenAI’s hiring of the Thinking Machines staffers. Murati, too, had left OpenAI when it was in the midst of a critical fundraising process. And her hiring of former OpenAI colleagues at Thinking Machines shook staff confidence at her former employer for a time.

It’s possible Thinking Machines’ rivals could pounce on the company during its moment of vulnerability. Prior to rejoining OpenAI, Zoph had been speaking to leaders at other rival AI labs in recent weeks, including Meta Superintelligence Labs, which has aggressively recruited OpenAI researchers, according to the person with knowledge of the situation.

Zoph didn’t respond to requests for comment. Meta and Thinking Machines declined to comment. In the Thinking Machines all hands meeting, Murati also said that Zoph had lied to the company in recent months about a personal relationship with a former employee, the person familiar with the meeting said.

Simo, who is OpenAI’s applications chief, told staff at her company in a memo that she didn’t share the concerns cited in news reports that Zoph was fired for “unethical reasons.” Wired and The Wall Street Journal earlier reported some details of Zoph’s firing.

Foiling Raids

It wasn’t so long ago that Murati was able to resist the kind of raids that OpenAI performed on Thinking Machines this week.

She had recruited some of her former OpenAI colleagues with an unusual but attractive offer: Thinking Machines stock options with strike prices near zero, which they could exercise nearly immediately after joining. Such an arrangement would have been particularly attractive to the founders and early employees who joined before investors valued it at $10 billion, since their equity would have immediately been worth a lot more within weeks or months.

Zoph was one of those early employees. He had joined as Thinking Machines’ Chief Technology Officer, after a multi-year career at OpenAI, during which he ran post-training, the crucial last step of model training during which models are readied for release.

Murati had managed to stave off past raids on her staff. Over the summer, Meta had offered multiple Thinking Machines researchers large compensation packages. Those researchers declined.

Murati looked like she had enough capital after raising $2 billion less than a year after starting the company, an nearly unprecedented level for a startup that hadn’t released a product.

Researchers who flocked to the lab in large part came due to Murati, who was known at OpenAI for her ability to wrangle researchers with big personalities. Thinking Machines leaders also told them that they’d be able to decide what lines of research they pursue and would face less bureaucracy compared to other larger AI labs.

How easily Murati’s startup recovers from the losses isn’t clear. Zoph and Metz were both well-known AI researchers: Zoph for his work with post-training and Metz for being part of the original team that would develop what would later become ChatGPT.

>>> MASTERS' PLAYBOOK 2026 | 30 Picks | Full Thesis & Targets Inside



From: Laurent Chekroun (MAKOR CAPITAL MARKET) At: 01/18/26 07:40:06 UTC+1:00
Subject: >>> MASTERS' PLAYBOOK 2026 | 30 Picks | Full Thesis & Targets Inside
The roundtable skews toward quality compounders with margin expansion (Starbucks, Nestlé, LVMH), AI productivity plays (Deere, Synopsys, DoorDash), and special situations (Becton Dickinson spinoff, six biotech M&A targets, three recent acquirers optimizing for synergies). Most targets imply 15–25% annual IRR through 2028, with housing/interest-rate mean reversion as a key macro leveler.

Full artilce attched


BARRON'S 2026 ROUNDTABLE: 30 STOCKS TO BUY
Five Masters of the Game on Valuations, AI Tailwinds, and Market Rotations

KEY THEMES
AI Capex Cycle: DoorDash, Deere, Synopsys, Home Depot all leveraging AI/automation for productivity and revenue capture.
Biotech M&A Wave: Six biotech picks poised for acquisition (Cytokinetics, Arcellx, Apogee, Vaxcyte, Dyne, BioNTech) amid $400–$500B patent cliff opportunity.
Turnaround/Cyclical: Starbucks, Nestlé, LVMH, Home Depot, Becton Dickinson all recovering from operational/cyclical headwinds.
Scale Advantages: DoorDash, MercadoLibre, Allison, Cactus, Waste Management, Nike consolidating market share.

HENRY ELLENBOGEN | Durable Capital Partners
Stock Price (1/2/26) 1-Sentence Thesis 2026 Target
DoorDash (DASH) $219.79 Dominant 70% US market-share player leveraging AI to unlock high-margin ad revenue (growing 70%+ annually) while standardizing global platform. $325–$390 (48–78% upside)
MercadoLibre (MELI) $1,973.70 Latin America's dominant facilities-based e-commerce platform with 30%+ organic unit growth and only 2.3% GMV monetized through ads—long runway ahead. ~$3,940 (100% upside)
XPO Logistics (XPO) $138.79 Less-than-truckload trucking modernized through technology, delivering 2% labor savings even as volumes fell—poised for 20%+ annual returns. 25–30x forward earnings
RBC Bearings (RBC) $458.79 Mission-critical aerospace/defense supplier with $2B backlog (up from $825M); sole supplier on 70% of products; defense to hit 50% of cash flow by year-end. $19–$20 EPS (2028)
Shift4 Payments (FOUR) $62.68 Payments processor diversified away from restaurants (now 50%) with high-margin stadium and tax-free shopping businesses; trading at only 10x 2026 earnings. $90–$106 (40–60% upside)
DAVID GIROUX | T. Rowe Price Investment Management
Stock Price (1/2/26) 1-Sentence Thesis 2026 Target
Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) $27.73 Cold beverage business generating mid-single-digit organic growth while pending JDE Peets acquisition unlocks massive sum-of-parts opportunity post-2026 split. $34–$36 + 3% dividend (29% upside)
Cytokinetics (CYTK) $61.73 Early-stage biotech play on $400B+ biosimilar/generics cycle (Keytruda off-patent 2028); acquisition target at premium multiples. M&A target
Arcellx (ACLX) $63.34 Biotech poised for acquisition as Big Pharma consolidates to combat patent cliff revenue headwinds. M&A target
Apogee Therapeutics (APGE) $75.78 Biotech acquisition candidate in attractive generics/biosimilar super-cycle. M&A target
Vaxcyte (PCVX) $46.46 Vaccine biotech with premium acquisition odds as pharma reshapes portfolios for GLP-1 and biosimilar era. M&A target
Dyne Therapeutics (DYN) $18.50 Biotech takeover candidate amid pharma's need for premium M&A to offset patent expirations. M&A target
BioNTech (BNTX) $96.69 Biotech poised for acquisition as consolidation accelerates across sector. M&A target
Starbucks (SBUX) $83.97 Turnaround story under new CEO Brian Niccol (ex-Chipotle); restoring premium positioning, labor efficiency, and ending aggressive discounting. $150–$180 (79–114% upside)
NiSource (NI) $42.16 Regulated utility in Indiana benefiting from Amazon data-center deal (saving ratepayers $1B over 15 years); EPS growth 11% through 2034. 13–14% total return
CenterPoint Energy (CNP) $38.73 Houston-based utility in fastest-growing US region; 9% EPS growth, low power costs (25% below national avg), no rate cases through 2028. Low-double-digit returns
Becton Dickinson (BDX) $194.94 Medical device turnaround as China VBP headwind clears, Alaris recall fades, and biotech spinoff (via Waters RMT) unlocks value. $140+ (adjusted for spinoff)

MERYL WITMER | Eagle Capital Partners
Stock Price (1/2/26) 1-Sentence Thesis 2026 Target
Cactus (WHD) $47.03 Oil & gas wellhead supplier acquiring Baker Hughes business; generating $4+ free cash flow per share with international upside in sour oil. High upside on execution
Allison Transmission (ALSN) $98.94 Heavy-duty transmission leader (75% market share) acquiring Dana's off-highway business for transformative international footprint and cost synergies. 50% upside in 2–3 years
Coats Group (COA.UK) GBp 83.60 Premium thread supplier acquiring OrthoLite (36% insole market share); new biodegradable and carbon-fiber products unlocking growth in athletic footwear. 140–150p (67–79% upside)

CHRISTOPHER ROSSBACH | J. Stern & Co., London
Stock Price (1/2/26) 1-Sentence Thesis 2026 Target
SAP (SAP) $236.92 Europe's largest software company (€43B revenue) capturing AI-driven productivity gains across enterprise workflows; cloud 25% growth, margins expanding 1%+ annually. Earnings growth 15%+
ASML Holding (ASML) $1,163.78 Sole EUV lithography supplier (35% of revenue) benefiting from AI chip demand and advanced node logic investment; 35x 2026 earnings. 18% earnings growth
Nestlé (NSRGY) $99.02 Turnaround under new CEO Philipp Navratil; 4.3% organic growth, job cuts, and L'Oréal stake (€40B) creating capital allocation optionality. 17%+ operating margins
LVMH (LVMUY) $150.84 Luxury cyclical recovery with new product innovation, retail execution, and mainland China returning to mid-to-high-single-digit growth; 50% DCF discount. 12% EPS growth (3–5 years)
Nike (NKE) $63.28 Running franchise innovation (20%+ growth in Pegasus, Vomero) under 30-year veteran CEO Elliott Hill; 2026 World Cup brand tailwind offsetting China headwinds. 21.2x FY2028 earnings

TODD AHLSTEN | Parnassus Investments
Stock Price (1/2/26) 1-Sentence Thesis 2026 Target
Stryker (SYK) $348.18 Orthopedic/med-surg leader with Mako robotics (1,000+ hospitals) gaining 8.5pts knee and 3.5pts hip share; anti-fragile model on consumables. $555 (17% annual IRR)
Boston Scientific (BSX) $94.71 Cardiovascular innovation (Farapulse AFib tech 40% penetration → 80%) and Watchman device (600K patients globally) driving 20%+ franchise growth. $172 (30x 2029 earnings)
Deere (DE) $466.80 AI/precision agriculture flywheel: 500M acres of data, $6B precision ag revenue, highly engaged acres doubling by 2030; 25% EPS growth potential through decade. $700–$800 (20x earnings)
Home Depot (HD) $345.82 Housing turnover at 2.9% (50-month downturn, historical low) creates cyclical opportunity; margins recovering from 13% to 15% as rates potentially fall below 6%. $463–$533 (10% base IRR)
Synopsys (SNPS) $480.42 EDA software backbone of AI chip race; design complexity rising 30–40x as transistor counts hit 100–200B (heading to 1T); EDA spend rising from 7–8% to 10–12% of R&D. $750 (56% upside in 2 years)
Waste Management (WM) $218.40 Landfill consolidation (top 3 now hold 60% capacity vs. 38% in 2008) and Stericycle acquisition ($7.2B) creating moat; recycling automation cutting labor costs 30–35%. $297 (12% annual return)



Source: Barron's Roundtable | Published Jan. 16, 2026
Panelists: Henry Ellenbogen, David Giroux, Meryl Witmer, Christopher Rossbach, Todd Ahlsten

>>> Barron's Weekend Summary

Cover:
-In the second installment of Barron’s 2026 Roundtable, five investment experts shared their 30 stock picks, highlighting companies like DoorDash, LVMH, Home Depot, Starbucks, and Nike. The selected stocks are characterized by being undervalued, with potential for recovery due to factors including temporary setbacks from economic trends, managerial issues, or positioning for growth in the artificial intelligence sector. The panel, composed of seasoned portfolio managers such as Henry Ellenbogen and Christopher Rossbach, expressed a strong commitment to active stock-picking in contrast to the trend of index fund investing. Their discussion took place on January 5, 2026, in New York, focusing on market dynamics and future investment opportunities, with two sets of recommendations presented over the course of the Roundtable series.

Interview:
-No update
Tech Trader:
-Meta Platforms, under CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is embarking on a major initiative named "Meta Compute," aimed at establishing a global network of artificial intelligence data centers, with projected investments exceeding one trillion dollars. This strategy marks a significant pivot towards AI-first operations, necessitating substantial financing beyond the revenues from Facebook and Instagram. Meta invested approximately $70B in AI data centers in 2025, an increase from $37B the previous year, and anticipates even higher expenditures moving forward, as the operational costs for large-scale data centers can exceed $50B/gigawatt, especially using Nvidia hardware. Zuckerberg's ambitious plan involves building tens to potentially hundreds of gigawatts of power for these centers, creating a strategic advantage in AI infrastructure as new designs often incorporate on-site power solutions to meet continuous energy demands.
The Trader:
-Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt are experiencing high stock values, with shares approaching record prices as traditional hotel amenities like room service draw customers back from short-term rentals. Analysts anticipate midteen profit increases for Hilton and Marriott, with Hyatt's long-term earnings growth projected at over 25%. However, their current premium valuations—29 times earnings for Marriott, 33 for Hilton, and a striking 46 for Hyatt—raise caution among investors. In contrast, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and Choice Hotels represent more affordable options in the lodging sector, with Wyndham trading at a price/earnings ratio of just under 16. Mizuho analyst Ben Chaiken suggests Wyndham's valuation is unduly low compared to its peers, arguing for an adjustment closer to 15 times Ebitda. Both Chaiken and Truist analyst Patrick Scholes endorse Wyndham and Choice Hotels, with stocks considered to offer better investment potential due to their lower valuations.
-Netflix is making significant moves to enhance its presence in the movie industry, particularly with its pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio assets, despite facing some investor backlash leading to a nearly 5% drop in IMAX's stock since the announcement. However, IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond remains optimistic, viewing Netflix as a partner rather than a competitor, especially as IMAX prepares to exclusively showcase Netflix’s adaptation of Narnia for two weeks this Thanksgiving before its streaming release. The performance metrics support this confidence, with IMAX reporting a 14% increase in domestic box-office revenue for 2025, contrasting sharply with a mere 1% increase for the overall US box office. IMAX's market share has grown from 3.9% in 2024 to 5.1% in 2025, indicating a shift in consumer preference towards premium movie experiences. Analysts, including Eric Wold of Texas Capital Securities, project continued growth with a favorable film slate for 2026, including titles like The Odyssey and Toy Story 5, and they maintain positive ratings on IMAX stock, with price targets around $42 to $47, suggesting substantial upside potential.
Features:
-Founded in 1962 amidst the Cuban Missile Crisis, CACI, based in Reston, Virginia, supplies national security technologies to the USA, UK and 15 NATO countries, with plans for further expansion. The company's offerings include sensors for detecting drones and threats across land, air, and sea, as well as agentic AI software for analytics and human expertise in software, cyber, and military fields. The national security market is valued at approximately $280B, and CACI is increasing its market share, reporting a revenue growth of 11% year over year, reaching $2.3B in the first quarter of fiscal 2026; diluted earnings per share increased by 15.5% to $6.85, and free cash flow surged by 189% to $143M. CACI’s backlog has also reached a record $34B, indicating strong demand. For fiscal year 2026, CACI maintains revenue growth projections of around 8% to $9.3B and aims for a 22% increase in earnings per share, alongside a minimum of 16% growth in free cash flow to $710M. Recent announcements included four major US military orders totaling up to $852M.
-In early 2026, the stock market, notably the S&P 500, reached new records despite a chaotic global environment, showcasing a 1.2% return for the year. Analysts, including Christopher Smart from Arbroath Group, caution against interpreting this market performance as a sign of overall stability, given the alarming geopolitical events such as the US capture of Venezuela's president, threats of military action in Iran, and concerns regarding the Federal Reserve's independence. These events have created significant risks, yet the market has historically struggled to reflect such uncertainties accurately. Smart notes that while growth indicators, like the Atlanta Fed's GDP growth forecast of over 5% for Q4, appear positive alongside moderate inflation rates, investors remain uncertain how to factor in these geopolitical threats, potentially leading to future market recalibrations as risk premiums adjust to reality.
Europe:
-President Donald Trump's campaign for US control over Greenland poses significant risks to NATO's stability and the dollar's economic dominance. Trump argues that Greenland is crucial for national security to counter Russia and China in the Arctic, intending to bolster the US air and missile defense system. However, Denmark, which has governed Greenland for centuries, along with European allies, firmly opposes this takeover. The White House has indicated a potential military approach, which could fracture NATO, as articulated by experts like Michael Froman and Jacob Kirkegaard, both highlighting the dire economic and political ramifications. Trump's history of conflict with NATO has already strained US-European relations, worsened by recent tensions over Ukraine. European nations view territorial sovereignty as non-negotiable, reinforcing their support for Denmark against US ambitions. Possibilities for resolution include Denmark maintaining sovereignty while allowing the US to enhance military presence, or negotiating access to Greenland's mineral resources.
Emerging Markets:
-No update
Commodities:
-William Blair has initiated coverage of MP Materials, a rare-earth metals producer, with a Buy rating, projecting that the stock will outperform the market. Following a significant defense deal, the average analyst price target for MP Materials rose dramatically from $27 to $79, reflecting increased optimism; all 17 analysts currently rate the stock as a Buy, an increase from 67% before the deal. Although MP stock experienced volatility, peaking at $68.44 and closing at $63.82 (down 2.3%), it has soared over 225% in the past year. The deal with the Defense Department is pivotal, as it includes an equity investment, a price floor for rare-earth materials, and a commitment for new production. This agreement addresses concerns over China's dominance in rare-earth production, which poses risks particularly for US defense supply chains. Prior to the deal, analysts had predicted a price target of $27 per share, illustrating the substantial impact of this transformative agreement on investor sentiment and stock outlook.
Streetwise:
-Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicts that Optimus robots will become top surgeons by the end of the decade. Walmart is collaborating with Alphabet to expand aerial drone delivery, reaching 40 million customers next year. Amid such innovations, small-cap stocks have been outperforming since mid-November, suggesting a potential long-term resurgence rather than a temporary blip. This shift may be linked to a recovery from a prolonged earnings recession among small companies. Historically, small-cap stocks experience cycles of significant performance changes over spans of about ten years. While small-caps may appear cheap trading at 18X 2025 earnings compared to 25X for the S&P 500, their relative value depends on the index used. Since November, the Russell 2000 index (41 times earnings) has outperformed the S&P 600 and 500 index, indicating diverse investment landscapes among small-cap companies.

WSJ : Why the Tech World Thinks the American Dream Is Dying

Why the Tech World Thinks the American Dream Is Dying
Silicon Valley fears this is the last chance to amass generational wealth before AI makes money worthless

  • Silicon Valley fears the AI boom may be the last chance to build generational wealth before automation devalues money.
  • Growing inequality and AI-driven job loss are fueling class anxiety, debates over UBI, and resentment toward tech billionaires.
  • The looming AI IPO wave in San Francisco is intensifying FOMO, driving speculative behavior in housing and startups.

Silicon Valley is filled with all sorts of dreams. But one of those wild-eyed ideas, long debated on subreddits and in hacker houses, is becoming a real-life nightmare: Will the AI boom be the last chance to get rich before artificial intelligence makes money essentially worthless?

The argument is that tech companies (and their leaders) will become a class unto their own with infinite wealth. No one else will have the means to generate money for themselves because AI will have taken their jobs and opportunities.

In other words, the bridge is about to be raised for those chasing the American dream. And everyone is worried about being left on the wrong side.

It’s the kind of FOMO that on first blush seems to require a huge suspension of disbelief. But the idea’s mere existence helps explain some of the increasing class worries in California, where a growing movement to tax billionaires is roiling the Democratic Party, affordable housing is a real concern and the idea of the middle class seems out of reach.

Yes, it smacks of sci-fi thinking. But in San Francisco it feels real. And it’s made more believable by the exploits of Elon Musk, the rise of OpenAI’s Sam Altman and warnings by Anthropic’s Dario Amodei about Great Depression-like worker displacement.

“The transition will be bumpy,” Musk said this month on a podcast. “We’ll have radical change, social unrest and immense prosperity.”

And that’s Musk’s best-case scenario.

History is filled with technology booms that create new winners and losers. AI optimists like to point out that a rising tide has tended to lift all boats.

What’s being talked about now—massive job loss to automation and the need for public safety nets, in the form of universal basic income—paints a dramatically different future. It’s still not clear there’s any appetite for so-called UBI, which runs counter to many Americans’ bedrock ideals of personal achievement.

“I used to be really excited about UBI…but I think people really need agency; they need to feel like they have a voice in governing the future and deciding where things go,” Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said last year when asked by a podcaster about how people will create wealth in the AI era. “If you just say, ‘OK, AI is going to do everything and then everybody gets…a dividend from that,’ it’s not going to feel good, and I don’t think it actually would be good for people.”

If money is out, scarce assets, like art, could become key. Musk has said as much himself. His vision for the future involves robots who handle physical tasks while humanity struggles to keep up with AI thinking, leading to what he calls “universal high income” and an era of abundance.

“If you don’t have a scarcity of resources, it’s not clear what purpose money has,” he said at a conference last year. More recently, Musk suggested people shouldn’t even worry about saving for retirement, predicting AI will provide healthcare and entertainment. “It won’t matter,” he said of retirement savings.

Bold statements from a guy who insisted on a $1 trillion pay package from Tesla, where he is CEO—which he has argued wasn’t about the money, but about maintaining control over the company from misguided activist investors.

Still, it can look like the rich are trying to get richer. So maybe it’s not surprising the San Francisco tech community has been infused with a get-rich-now-or-die-trying vibe.

Sheridan Clayborne, a young man working in the AI-startup scene, seemed to embody the current zeitgeist when he was quoted this past fall in the San Francisco Standard. “This is the last chance to build generational wealth,” the online news site quoted him saying. “You need to make money now, before you become a part of the permanent underclass.”

It was a sentiment that would have felt at home a few years earlier during the meme-stock craze and YOLO investing approach.

Weeks later, social-media posts on Facebook, X and LinkedIn began claiming Nvidia’s Jensen Huang had said something similar. The CEO, these breathless posts claimed, was warning “the period from 2025 to 2030 may be the last major chance for everyday people to build real wealth through technology.”

Scary stuff, except Huang didn’t say it. Rather, his numerous public appearances in the past few months have been filled with talk about the potential for AI to be more of an equalizing force for technology.

“We’re going to have a wealth of resources, things that we think are valuable today, that in the future are just not that valuable…because it’s automated,” Huang told Joe Rogan last month.

It can be hard to sort fact from fiction in an era of technology that seems pulled straight from an Iain Banks novel. And backers of AI companies have billions, if not trillions, of reasons to hope their gambles aren’t just once-in-a-generation jackpots, but once in a human existence.

Further contributing to the FOMO in San Francisco is the expectation that local AI companies, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, will soon go public, minting many more millionaires.

After the New York Times ran a headline this past week about the wave of “mega” IPOs expected this year, local real-estate agent Rohin Dhar posted on X: “May I humbly suggest you buy your house in San Francisco before this.”

The tech entrepreneur, who was once part of Y Combinator years ago, told me he was drawn to real estate in part because of a belief new AI wealth will fuel a housing boom. Or, as he predicted last year, “the mother of all tech booms is coming.”

Get some while you can.

FT : Sequoia targets major Anthropic investment

Sequoia targets major Anthropic investment
Silicon Valley investor to write first cheque for AI start-up after recent leadership overhaul

Sequoia Capital is lining up a big investment into Anthropic, throwing its weight behind the AI start-up for the first time as part of a funding round set to raise tens of billions of dollars.

The Californian venture capital group is joining a funding round led by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and US investor Coatue, which are contributing $1.5bn each, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the deal.

These people said Anthropic is aiming to raise $25bn or more in total in a deal that values the company at $350bn, more than doubling its $170bn valuation just four months ago. Tech giants Microsoft and Nvidia have committed to invest up to $15bn in total into the company, with venture capitalists and other investors contributing another $10bn or more, they added.

The funding discussions remain live and the final figure could change, said two of the people. Anthropic is yet to decide which investors to admit to the funding round, they added, but the new funding round is expected to close in the next few weeks.

Sequoia’s proposed investment comes after a shake-up of its senior ranks late last year.

Roelof Botha, in charge as Sequoia passed on previous funding rounds for Anthropic, was wary of the concentration of VC investment into a handful of highly valued start-ups. “Throwing more money into Silicon Valley doesn’t yield more great companies,” he said in an interview last year.

Botha was ousted in November, with the firm’s partners electing Pat Grady and Alfred Lin to co-lead the firm instead.

Sequoia was an early investor in Google, Apple, Airbnb and Stripe — and has backed some of Anthropic’s biggest rivals. Sequoia invested in OpenAI’s funding round last year, and in Elon Musk’s AI group xAI.

Venture capital firms rarely back rival start-ups in the same field, preferring to pick winners in each category. But the scale of the financial opportunity in AI has changed that approach, according to a person familiar with Sequoia’s thinking.

“This [Anthropic deal] is a round where the company is so big that it’s gone from a VC investment to a stock investment,” they said. “[Sequoia] own a tonne of both OpenAI and xAI and are very bullish on the idea that this is not a race to be won, but that they will each have their own capabilities.”

The company makes the Claude chatbot and has carved out a lucrative niche building AI tools for software engineers.

The latest funding round follows a period of rapid growth at the start-up, with revenues increasing from $1bn on an annualised basis a year ago, to roughly 10 times that today.

Bloomberg has reported some of the details of the round.

Anthropic is gearing up for an IPO which could come as soon as this year. The company has hired the law firm Wilson Sonsini to begin preparatory work and held preliminary conversations with banks about a public listing.

OpenAI, as well as Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, are also laying the groundwork for public offerings which would rank among the largest of all time.

Sequoia, GIC, Coatue and Anthropic declined to comment.

FT : Former AOL chief says ‘big money’ will dictate future of media

Former AOL chief says ‘big money’ will dictate future of media
Industry veteran says disparity in capital will define next big sports rights cycle

The former chief executive of AOL said a new era of “big money media” had begun, in which a disparity in access to capital will determine the industry’s winners and losers.

According to Jon Miller, who navigated media sector upheaval at the turn of the millennium, an influx of cash from tech giants will leave incumbents such as Disney unable to compete for the rights to sports and entertainment.

“Access to capital is now the single biggest factor [of success], not creative talent or programming, which used to be the determinant,” said Miller, a former top lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch and now the chief executive of Integrated Media, an investment group that is a subsidiary of TPG’s venture capital arm.

Miller’s comments come as Apple, Amazon and now Paramount, which he said was “in essence Oracle”, have challenged the dominance of traditional media players.

Paramount, led by chief executive David Ellison and backed by his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, is vying against Netflix for control of Warner Bros Discovery, the last trophy asset of scale in the Hollywood studio system.

On January 12, Paramount threatened a proxy fight to overhaul the WBD’s board and sued to obtain internal financial information in its latest effort to gatecrash Netflix’s $82.7bn deal to buy the Hollywood giant’s studio and streaming business.

Miller said the economics of the industry began changing decades before this latest dealmaking frenzy — back when Netflix entered the business and used its balance sheet to borrow money and spend it on content, flooding the market with programming.

“What was a relatively level playing field financially began to turn into a stratified field. How much you could spend on programming really mattered,” said Miller. “So it became a financially driven game in a way that it never had been before.”

He argued that the arrival of deep-pocketed technology companies had heightened that divide. “Now, you look, and there are really three or four [companies] who have the financial wherewithal that stand head and shoulders above everyone else.” 

That imbalance, he added, would define the next big sports rights cycle: the National Football League’s upcoming media rights auction. “This will create a bidding environment unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.”

While the NFL’s media rights agreements do not have an “opt-out clause” until 2030, commissioner Roger Goodell has signalled the league could begin renegotiating as soon as 2026. As traditional television collapses, the NFL has become the dominant force in US television and is the most expensive American media property. 

The league in 2021 signed a media rights deal worth $110bn over 11 years, which included Amazon’s first exclusive broadcasting rights. 

Miller was stark about the implication for the traditional media groups. “The incumbents can’t compete as is, either on the programming front or the sports front.”

Disney, Comcast and Fox, he suggested, might ultimately be forced into partnerships or even more radical configurations to stay competitive.

David Ellison, meanwhile, has been moving aggressively to build a media empire. With the ink barely dried on an $8bn deal to buy Paramount this summer, he began making unsolicited bids for WBD. 

While Paramount’s market capitalisation is only about $16bn, the group put together a $108bn offer with equity from Middle East sovereign wealth funds, US private equity fund RedBird, Jared Kushner’s investment fund Affinity Partners and the Ellisons themselves. 

“I think of it as Oracle but you can call it Paramount if you want,” Miller said of the Ellisons’ deep pockets and capital-raising strategy. “Paramount can decide effectively to bid whatever it wants here.”

While the Ellisons’ approach may seem aggressive, Miller argued it simply reflected the industry’s trajectory.

“I think Netflix fired the starting gun,” he said.

FT : Beijing pours cash into Belt and Road financing in global resources grab

Beijing pours cash into Belt and Road financing in global resources grab
Spending on Xi Jinping’s signature overseas investment project hit a record in 2025, new research shows

China’s flagship overseas infrastructure finance programme the Belt and Road Initiative increased by three-quarters to a record $213.5bn in 2025 as Beijing sought to take advantage of wavering US influence around the world by pouring funding into development projects.

The surge in new investment and construction deals was dominated by gas megaprojects and green power, according to research by Australia’s Griffith University and the Green Finance & Development Center in Shanghai. Beijing signed 350 deals last year, up from 293 worth $122.6bn in 2024.

The boom in investment comes as tensions between the US and China over trade and technology disrupt supply chains and President Donald Trump’s military interventions roil global energy markets. 

Christoph Nedopil Wang, a China energy and finance expert at Griffith University and the study’s author, predicted that Beijing’s spending on the BRI would grow further this year, driven by investments in energy, mining and new technology.

“Global trade and investment volatility will potentially spur further investment for supply chain resilience and alternative export markets for Chinese companies,” he said.


The BRI, launched months after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, is the Chinese leader’s hallmark foreign development programme, seeking to deepen Beijing’s economic influence and trade ties with the developing world. It has made China the world’s largest bilateral creditor, with 150 countries as BRI partners.

Last year’s figures brought the total cumulative value of BRI contracts and investments since its launch to $1.4tn, the study found.

The growth in 2025 was driven by multibillion-dollar megaprojects including a gas development in the Republic of the Congo led by Southernpec, Nigeria’s Ogidigben Gas Revolution Industrial Park led by China National Chemical Engineering and a petrochemical plant in North Kalimantan, Indonesia, led by a Chinese joint venture of Tongkun Group and Xinfengming Group.

“The megaprojects are something we hadn’t seen before,” Nedopil Wang said. He added that developing countries were showing greater trust in Chinese companies to execute deals at a bigger scale.

“Twelve years ago, these companies were a lot smaller. Now with increased size they can take on larger projects — and they need larger projects for growth,” he said. “The willingness to trust China, from the infrastructure planners and policymakers, is substantive.”


The value of energy-related projects last year was $93.9bn, the highest since the BRI’s inception and more than double the 2024 level. It included $18bn in wind, solar and waste-to-energy projects, underscoring China’s lead in clean technology.

Metals and mining also hit a record at $32.6bn, including a majority of spending on minerals processing abroad, highlighting how Beijing has used the BRI to secure long-term access to resources. That included a surge of investment in copper in the second half of the year. Supplies of the metal have tightened thanks to the boom in data centres to feed demand for artificial intelligence.

Craig Singleton, senior director of the China programme at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think-tank, said one “emerging pattern” was China’s strengthening of engagement with countries whose resources can help it to exclude the US from its supply chain.

“China’s overseas engagement is increasingly focused on strategic sectors that support self-reliance, supply-chain resilience and technological integration,” he said.

He added that the “lesson” Beijing drew from this month’s US action in Venezuela and threats against Iran was to “reduce exposure to external leverage before crisis hits”.

The scale of the BRI has raised concerns about countries’ ability to repay the mounting debts they owe to Beijing.

A 2024 report by the Congressional Research Service, a US government service, cited issues including unsustainable debt obligations and opportunities to gain concessions, opaque credit and loan terms and a lack of reciprocal market access for BRI partners, as well as investments in strategic sectors and infrastructure which risk civilian and military interoperability.

The CRS also said that western analysts and officials find the BRI increasingly difficult to track and analyse, describing it as an “umbrella initiative” where projects can “be specifically or loosely tied to the effort” while the ability to track offshore financial activity is complicated by China’s use of onshore financing and special purpose investment vehicles. 

*MACRON TO REQUEST ACTIVATION OF EU ANTI COERCION INSTRUMENT

The EU Anti-Coercion Instrument is a European Union mechanism designed to protect member states from economic coercion by non-EU countries or other external actors.
Key features:
The instrument allows the EU to respond to situations where a third country uses economic pressure—such as tariffs, import restrictions, investment barriers, or trade suspensions—to try to force EU member states into political concessions or to undermine EU decision-making. It's essentially a defensive trade tool.
How it works:
When activated, it enables the EU to impose countermeasures against the coercing country, which can include suspending trade concessions, imposing tariffs on their goods, or restricting access to EU markets. The EU can also seek compensation for economic damage suffered by affected members.
Context for Macron's request:
Given current geopolitical tensions, Macron is likely requesting activation in response to external economic pressure—possibly related to US tariffs under Trump, Chinese trade actions, or other trade disputes affecting European interests. The instrument gives the EU a coordinated, collective response mechanism rather than individual member states acting alone.
This was formally adopted by the EU in December 2023, so it's a relatively new tool. It reflects the EU's shift toward viewing economic coercion as a serious threat requiring institutional responses.

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