TheChek News Flow

Adoption by business and consumer users has slowed as parent SpaceX rents out spare computing capacity to rival Anthropic

Elon Musk’s artificial-intelligence model, Grok, lags far behind its fast-growing competitors—and an agreement by parent company SpaceX to rent massive computing power to Anthropic raises questions about whether it can still catch up.

The deal, signed in early May, will give the maker of the Claude AI model and chatbot all the computing capacity at one of Musk’s main data centers. Anthropic and rival OpenAI have been racing to acquire all the computing capacity they can as booming demand challenges their ability to serve their models.

Since its launch two years ago, Grok has reached millions of users through its integration with Musk’s social network, X, and controversial features such as a sexualized AI companion. But new data shows its growth appears to have flattened.

Downloads of Grok fell to about 8.3 million in April, from a high of more than 20 million in January, according to analysis firm AppMagic.

In a survey of more than 260,000 U.S. consumers and workers who use AI, the percent of respondents who said they paid for Grok remained mostly flat at 0.174% in the second quarter of 2026 versus 0.173% a year ago, according to research firm Recon Analytics. More than 6% of respondents said they paid for ChatGPT.

“OpenAI is Coke, Anthropic is Pepsi and Grok is RC Cola,” said Ben Pouladian, an engineer and tech investor based in Los Angeles. “I never really saw people drinking it.”

Pouladian has adopted some of Musk’s tech in his life. He drives a Tesla and is active on X. When Grok came out in late 2023, he downloaded it and played around, but never became a power user. He said he prefers Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and sometimes Google’s Gemini.

Musk and Grok’s parent company, SpaceX, didn’t respond to requests for comment. In public statements, Musk has characterized it as less than competitive in the AI race.

In court for his suit against OpenAI in late April, Musk played down the size and significance of xAI, the AI company he recently merged into SpaceX. He described it as “pretty small,” “very small” and “the smallest of the AI companies.”

OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT in 2022 marked the introduction to AI for many consumers. By mid-2025, more than three-quarters of respondents in the Recon Analytics survey had heard of ChatGPT.

Musk released Grok in late 2023. He set out to make it the most popular AI in the world and said it would be “maximally truth-seeking” and less “woke” than its competitors.

Musk spent much of the summer of 2025 holed up at his AI startup, trying to catch up in the AI arms race. He personally oversaw the design of a racy chatbot. Grok also offered settings that let users create suggestive and sexualized content that former employees said spurred engagement.

The January peak in Grok downloads came after an update permitted users to virtually undress people in photos; widespread use of the feature on images of minors drew scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers, and the company limited access to it.

The hottest front for competition among the major labs is coding assistants, with corporate adoption of the tools driving rapid revenue growth.

Grok remains behind there as well. It is barely growing within enterprise organizations, according to Erik Bradley, chief strategist and research director at market research firm Enterprise Technology Research. Meanwhile, Bradley said, use of Claude and Gemini is soaring.

In a survey of about 500 people, ETR found 48% of respondents in March said their company was currently using and planned to continue to use Claude, up from 21% the prior year. Forty percent of respondents in March said their company was using and planned to continue to use Gemini, up from 27% a year earlier. Seven percent of respondents in March said their company was using and planned to use Grok, up from 4%.

Musk faces pressure to show investors his companies are making money ahead of SpaceX’s expected initial public offering this year. Analysts said the deal with Anthropic for the computing capacity at the Colossus 1 data center near Memphis, Tenn., could bring Musk a few billion dollars a year.

Arnal Dayaratna, vice president of software development at research firm IDC, said the deal shows how Musk is beginning to turn Colossus into an external computing platform for major AI companies rather than only using the facility for internal model development.

Guillermo Rauch, chief executive of Vercel, a hosting company for AI agents, cautions against counting Musk out of the AI race. He said he was optimistic Musk’s recent reorganization of his AI unit will strengthen its ability to compete.

“Once Elon focuses, which is what is happening right now, we see him perform very very well,” Rauch said.

Rauch said his customers’ behavior shows that developers often move quickly between models. He said engineers might flock to Grok if the company delivers better performance in one of its coming models.

Musk’s willingness to enter a deal with Anthropic marks a shift in his posture toward that company. In February, Musk described the company’s AI as “misanthropic and evil” in a post on X.

Tech investor Pouladian said Musk’s newfound embrace of Anthropic could stem from Anthropic’s antagonism toward OpenAI, which Musk is fighting in court. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and it’s also my compute partner,” he said.

Republican-led House Oversight Committee says it is investigating, and six GOP state attorneys general are calling for SEC review after WSJ article

WASHINGTON—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s personal investments are coming under intensifying scrutiny from Republicans as the company heads for an initial public offering, with the House Oversight committee launching a probe into potential conflicts of interest and several GOP attorneys general calling for a Securities and Exchange Commission review.

The moves follow an April article in The Wall Street Journal that detailed Altman’s efforts to have OpenAI back companies he personally invested in. They coincide with a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk in which the billionaire has alleged that Altman and OpenAI manipulated him into giving tens of millions of dollars to found OpenAI as a nonprofit organization, only for them to turn the AI lab into a for-profit venture.

The House of Representatives Oversight Committee on Friday sent a letter to Altman requesting a briefing from a top executive about potential conflicts of interest and documents outlining the company’s governance practices, according to a copy the committee posted to its website Monday.

“The Committee aims to ensure that funds donated for charitable purposes are not diverted for unintended uses, such as artificially increasing the market value of other companies in which an executive or board member may hold an interest,” the House letter from Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) says. It says the effort is part of an investigation into potential conflicts of interest involving nonprofits.

Comer supported Musk’s work on the Department of Government Efficiency last year, which included targeting nonprofits accused of fraud.

In the Comer letter and the SEC letter, which both cite the Journal’s reporting, the Republicans argue that Altman’s deals with companies he invests in, such as nuclear-fusion firm Helion, could pose conflict-of-interest concerns because OpenAI’s involvement could boost the value of the other companies.

OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor defended Altman in a court hearing Monday, testifying that Altman had been “forthright” and “proactive and transparent” about his involvements in other companies. Altman recused himself from recent discussions about a deal between OpenAI and Helion as well, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The comments were made during the continuing court case between Altman and Musk. OpenAI has said that Musk not only knew about the for-profit conversion plan but also supported it and asked for unilateral control.

The attorneys general wrote to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins asking him to scrutinize the potential conflicts ahead of the IPO.

The attorneys general from Florida, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, West Virginia and Louisiana said Altman “has a history of self-dealing and serious conflicts of interest that have created significant risk for the company.” Because Altman has no direct equity in OpenAI, “his personal financial interests have only limited alignment with OpenAI’s financial performance,” the letter says.

OpenAI is expected to quickly become a member of indexes and exchange-traded funds shortly after the IPO because of its gargantuan valuation, recently around $850 billion in the private market. That is set to give many investors exposure to the company.

“Altman’s troubling conduct thus far pales in comparison to the harm that would result if he were permitted to continue this pattern after OpenAI goes public,” reads a copy of the letter viewed by the Journal. The attorneys general ask for close review of documents submitted ahead of the public listing, including the S-1, an initial registration document companies file when they go public detailing their finances and conflicts of interest. “The consequences of any self-dealing by Altman could be borne by our state pensions and individual investors, creating enormous financial risk.”

SpaceX recently acquired Musk’s xAI, a competitor to the maker of ChatGPT. Critics of Musk say he and other OpenAI rivals are trying to turn regulators and the public against the company to keep pace in the AI race.

OpenAI’s IPO is expected to be one of the largest ever. SpaceX and Anthropic, another OpenAI rival, are also expected to pursue IPOs soon.

In addition to asking OpenAI to lead an investment in Helion, Altman last summer asked rocket-maker Stoke Space if it wanted to partner with the company to build data centers in space. Altman is an investor in Stoke Space through his family office, the Journal reported.

Both Musk and Altman are allies of President Trump and have generally supported Republican efforts to adopt industry-friendly AI rules. The SEC under Atkins is bringing fewer enforcement cases targeting Wall Street’s alleged rulebreakers.

Perceived conflicts of interest contributed to the OpenAI board briefly ousting Altman before he was later reinstated. The letter from the attorneys general asks the SEC for more details about his ouster and any governance mechanisms to prevent his potential conflicts of interest from becoming a problem.

Unitree aims to go public later this year in a crucial test for android industry

The forthcoming IPO of the world’s largest humanoid robot producer will offer investors a rare chance to evaluate the health of the android industry on public markets.

Unitree, which has impressed audiences with an increasingly advanced range of humanoid robots, applied in March to list on Shanghai’s tech-heavy Star market and is likely to make its debut in the second half of this year.

The planned listing for the Hangzhou-based group comes as investors enthusiastically assess a range of Chinese technology companies spanning AI, robotics, biotech and smart manufacturing.

“Humanoid robots have been a hot investment area,” said Ethan Qi, associate director at Counterpoint Research. “If Unitree finally goes public . . . this will definitely further boost investors’ confidence.”

Unitree, founded by engineer Wang Xingxing in 2016, has become a champion in the Chinese robotics industry thanks to its robots’ dancing, flipping and boxing displays at lunar new year galas. Last year, the company’s success earned Wang a front-row seat at a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Unitree shipped 5,500 humanoid robots last year. In the first nine months, 74 per cent of android revenue came from research and education orders, 13 per cent from consumer customers and 9 per cent from industrial demand.

More than half of those industrial orders were for robots used in tours of commercial spaces. Unitree made a gross margin of 59.8 per cent over the same period — considerably higher than Shenzhen-based competitors UBTech and Dobot.

Analysts estimate the listing implies a valuation of about Rmb40bn ($5.9bn). That level would give it a price-to-sales ratio of 21.1 — a premium level they say is underpinned by high hopes that use cases for robots will expand.

UBTech, another listed Chinese humanoid robot producer, trades at a price-to-sales ratio of 21.2, according to a Bloomberg poll of analysts. It shipped about 1,000 bots last year, while Shanghai-based AgiBot shipped more than 5,000.

While Unitree’s figures would make it the world’s largest android maker, analysts say convincing investors that it can apply robots in more commercial, large-scale use cases will be key to sustaining its valuation.

“I think a key thing is that this is not the ultimate case,” said Kelvin Lau, an analyst at Daiwa Capital Markets. “After maybe three years . . . I do expect they can do much, much more.”

Unitree made adjusted net profits of Rmb600mn on revenues of Rmb1.7bn in 2025, according to its prospectus. In the first nine months of last year, about 42 per cent of revenue came from its quadruped robot dogs, which are used in safety inspections and logistics, with most of the rest derived from humanoid sales. The company has reduced costs of both humanoid and quadruped robots in recent years partly by building many components in-house.

The company has earmarked almost half of the Rmb2bn it hopes to raise in the listing for research into “intelligent robotics models” — the software “brain” that will power future androids. Doing so will help accelerate deployment across a wider range of use cases, Unitree argued in its prospectus.

Marco Wang, a researcher at Interact Analysis, estimated that just 9 per cent of Unitree’s shipments went to “real-world” uses such as logistics or industrial settings. While Unitree lists the average price of its humanoids as Rmb167,600 in its prospectus, revenue figures for each segment suggest the robots used in those cases are more expensive, he said.

Orders from universities and research centres were usually small and did not drive repeated purchases, Wang said. Both research orders and entertainment sales have also been helped by government demand, with local authorities setting up state-backed robot training centres across China.

Tourism authorities, local governments and state-owned enterprises have also invested heavily in display robots, a use case that analysts argue is less sustainable than applying androids in commercial settings.

“At the end of the day they would need to shift to a solution provider because that’s a market that has high potential and that is a larger market,” said Wang.

Deepak Jayaraj, vice-president of hardware engineering and manufacturing at US-based agricultural robotmaker Four Growers, said Unitree’s ability to cut costs while increasing net revenue was rare, but the company had yet to prove the existence of the industrial use cases driving its targeted valuation.

There were compelling reasons to suggest humanoid robots could be useful in industries such as elderly care, but the idea that androids would completely replace factory labour or more traditional machines like robotic arms was more far-fetched, Jayaraj said.

“Unitree is basically a hardware success story,” he added. “They’ve built the robotics system, but there’s not too much that they have proven in terms of ‘could this be an industrial labour replacement play?’”

In February, Unitree was included on the US Department of Defense’s list of “Chinese military companies”, but the list has been deleted by the Pentagon without explanation.

The boss of Italy’s defence champion fell foul of politics — and the army

Investors loved Roberto Cingolani’s high-tech strategy for Leonardo. The military establishment was less convinced.

Roberto Cingolani’s removal last month as head of Italy’s state-controlled defence group Leonardo dismayed investors after his push into next generation military technology helped drive a sharp rise in the company’s share price.

But his strategy unsettled the country’s defence establishment, according to people familiar with the company, while projects such as the “Michelangelo Dome” air defence shield prompted concerns among US and European officials.

Cingolani insisted his focus on advanced systems through alliances with the likes of Turkey’s Baykar and Germany’s Rheinmetall made sense, as it would allow the company to secure a larger role in Europe’s rapidly evolving defence architecture.

“Our financial results show that the ‘bullets and bytes’ vision was the right one,” he told reporters on his final day in the office last week. “I would be surprised if the new management changed course.”

Critics, however, say the physicist and former energy minister was too focused on the outer frontiers of technological possibility and failed to pay enough attention to the urgent need to expand capacity in its existing capabilities. 

“Leonardo has to seriously increase production of drones, ammunition and platforms — whether for land or air,” said Alessandro Marrone, head of the defence and security programme at Rome’s Institute for International Affairs.

While the company was publicly listed, Marrone added, “at the same time it’s a strategic asset for the Italian state. The CEO has to balance this dual nature”.

Leonardo’s partnership with Baykar on unmanned aerial vehicles drew criticism for binding it to a politically sensitive partner closely linked to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as well as doubts over whether Baykar could deliver drones fast enough to meet Italy’s urgent needs.

The Rheinmetall venture in land vehicles fed concerns that Italy was giving up too much industrial autonomy in a strategic business.

The pivot towards Rheinmetall came after negotiations with Franco-German tank maker KNDS broke down in 2024, with Leonardo walking away from the Leopard 2, the tank that comes closest to a European standard.

But it was Cingolani’s November presentation of a proposed AI-powered air defence system — the Michelangelo Dome — that generated the most friction. Although he presented it as a capability that could operate alongside countries’ existing architecture, officials in Europe questioned Leonardo’s direction given parallel efforts to co-ordinate missile defence.

The Michelangelo Dome also stirred concern in Washington, where it was seen as a potential challenge to US systems such as Patriot interceptors, according to the people familiar with the company.

Cingolani said more than 20 countries had expressed interest in the technology and that the first delivery to Ukraine — for use in blind spots that are not covered by radar — would take place by November. 

“The response of the market was very good,” he said. “I think we were interpreting a need. Not every country can afford to buy new weapons, so to offer them an air shield that can be used on any platform was a welcome initiative.” 

However, US concerns over the air-shield plans were raised this year by officials at a dinner with Italy’s ambassador in Washington, according to three people briefed on the conversations, as well as in conversations in Rome this year between US diplomats and Italian government officials.

Cingolani said that while he had “no idea” what was discussed, “I might imagine that the technology might have been considered a bit competitive . . . But I think free-market competition is good.”

The US state department said it talked to the Italian government on a regular basis but “doesn’t disclose those private conversations”.

The people said Cingolani had also unsettled US officials by walking away from a potential deal with data intelligence group Palantir.

Leonardo’s chief was approached by Alexander Alden, who serves as senior counsellor for Palantir while also having a part-time role as special adviser to US secretary of state Marco Rubio, according to the people.

But talks between the two companies — whose substance is protected by a non-disclosure agreement — made little progress, as Palantir wanted to sell its software to Leonardo, while Cingolani was only willing to explore a joint venture to develop the technology together.

Palantir’s core defence and intelligence platform, Gotham, is used to “integrate data, improve situational awareness, task sensors such as drones or satellites, and support operational decisions”, according to the company’s website.

Leonardo and Palantir declined to comment.

One person close to Leonardo said that while rumours had circulated in the industry that Washington had a hand in Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s decision to replace Cingolani, they believed dissatisfaction within Italy’s defence apparatus had been an important factor. 

Leonardo’s new CEO Lorenzo Mariani had been defence minister Guido Crosetto’s top pick to run Leonardo when Meloni first took power, but she instead installed Cingolani, who was a widely respected figure in the government of her predecessor Mario Draghi as well as a former chief technology officer at the group.

Mariani has recently won accolades for overseeing a rapid scale-up of production at the Italian division of European missile maker MBDA, in which Leonardo is a joint owner and where he was sent after missing out on the Leonardo top job. 

An engineer and former navy officer, Mariani is a Leonardo veteran with strong knowledge of the company’s inner workings and the wider military environment.

“Italy needs a CEO of Leonardo who is able to work well with the Italian military and other military interlocutors in Europe,” Marrone said. 

Cingolani believes he should have been given more time to execute his vision.

“If you perform well, continuity is beneficial to the company,” he said in his farewell call. “Three years is too short to develop a strategy and exploit it in an industry like defence.”

Crosetto paid homage to the outgoing CEO last week, thanking him on social media for his “tremendous work” and for “envisioning a more technological future for Leonardo, with great approval from the markets”.

But he said Italy’s largest manufacturer must now begin the next phase of its evolution “with the goal of becoming even more competitive, even faster and even more responsive”.

Hedge funds bet on biofuels to profit from Iran oil price shock

Traders expect corn and soyabeans to soar as demand for alternative fuel sources rises

Hedge funds are piling into agricultural commodities used to make biofuels, as the Iran war drives a huge surge in energy markets and increases fears of prolonged fuel supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.

Funds have almost tripled their net bets on soyabean oil, which is used to produce biodiesel, since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, according to data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In corn, an ingredient in ethanol, they have switched from being positioned for falling prices to their highest level of positive bets this year.

With oil already having soared since the outbreak of the conflict, many funds see agricultural prices as the next market to take off, say hedge fund managers and traders.

“I don’t think it’s just a steady pivot,” said Doug King, head of RCMA Capital, of the rapid change in hedge fund positioning in these soft commodities. “I think it’s a blitzkrieg in.”

King, whose firm runs The Merchant Commodity Fund, added that hedge funds had “piled in” to soyabean oil, attracted by soaring processing margins and expectations that governments will accelerate domestic biofuel production in response to the energy shock.

With the US-Israeli war against Iran having driven up the price of oil from $72 a barrel to more than $100, demand is growing for corn, sugar and vegetable oils, as governments seek to reduce dependence on imported hydrocarbons by expanding domestic biofuel production.

Meanwhile, global supplies of fertiliser are being squeezed by the almost complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which before the conflict handled up to one-third of globally traded nitrogen fertiliser exports, while reduced gas flows have curtailed fertiliser production elsewhere. Fuel shortages are also driving up the cost of farming and of moving, processing and cooking food.

The UN has warned that the war, if it continues, risks unleashing a global food crisis due to rising fertiliser and fuel prices.

However, so far the reaction in agricultural markets has been less severe, with corn rising only around 6 per cent and soyabean oil up around 23 per cent.

Hakan Kaya, a portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman, said he is betting on agricultural commodities to position for potential rises both in biofuel prices and food prices. He has reduced direct exposure to oil and gas because of the risk of sudden price swings triggered by military escalation or ceasefire negotiations.

“If you look at energy now, it is a binary bet whether we de-escalate or escalate further, it’s almost impossible to know,” he said. “But we know one thing: if energy prices stay high at the current levels, they will spill over to the rest of the agricultural space.”

The firm has been building “proxy baskets” of agricultural commodities that could benefit from the shock to energy markets and inflation, including corn, soyabean oil, canola and livestock.

Corn is becoming “a proxy bet on gasoline”, he said, adding that vegetable oil prices are also increasingly tied to fuel markets.

The market’s view of agricultural commodities as being driven by fuel demand has particularly been a feature in the US, where policymakers have expanded access to higher ethanol fuel blends such as E15, in part to support US farmers.

One of President Donald Trump’s key voter bases, American growers, have been hit by trade tensions and rising fertiliser costs, and investors expect further support for domestic biofuel feedstocks over imported alternatives. Chinese purchases of US soyabeans are expected to be discussed when Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.

Vegetable oils such as soyabean oil, canola and rapeseed are now major biodiesel feedstocks, while roughly 40 per cent of US corn demand comes from ethanol production.

The Iran conflict is accelerating that trend as governments seek to reduce exposure to vulnerable oil supply routes. In Asia, where demand for biofuels is growing, the Indonesian government is preparing to launch a 50 per cent biodiesel blend requirement from July, while Malaysia is discussing expanding biodiesel blending requirements beyond its current B10 programme. 

Archer-Daniels-Midland, one of the world’s largest agricultural commodities traders, raised its full-year earnings guidance last week despite weaker first-quarter profits, with chief executive Juan Luciano saying soyabean crushing and ethanol margins had “strengthened meaningfully” following stronger US biofuels mandates.

He added that demand for soyabeans may have been boosted by “the perception of shortages, given the Strait of Hormuz issues”, while warning that higher energy and chemical costs were pushing up input prices for farmers.

Despite the conflict in the Middle East, crop shortages and soaring grain prices may never materialise, said RCMA’s King.

“It’s not an agricultural shock. It’s an oil shock,” he said, adding that the knock-on effect in agriculture was coming from higher biofuel demand, rather than any immediate shortage of crops. 

The UN’s food and agriculture agency, however, has warned that greater use of crops for biofuels could worsen any impending food shock.

“If you . . . see crops being used for energy rather than food, then, surely . . . we’re heading straight into a food crisis,” said Neuberger Berman’s Kaya.

Nelson Peltz in talks to raise funds for Wendy’s go-private bid

The move is a value play for the hamburger chain whose shares have slid 70% in the past 5 years

Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is seeking investor backing for a bid to take US fast-food chain Wendy’s private, after the restaurant operator’s shares have fallen more than 40 per cent over the past year.

Trian in recent weeks has held discussions with outside investors, including in the Middle East, about financing a potential takeover of Wendy’s, according to people familiar with the matter.

Wendy’s was founded by Dave Thomas, who often featured in the company’s advertising, in 1969 as an “old fashioned” hamburger chain with square beef patties and a milkshake known as a Frosty.

Trian has a history with Wendy’s dating back to a 2005 activist campaign, and owns with Peltz 16 per cent of the company. Trian executive Peter May is on the Wendy’s board along with Bradley Peltz, one of Nelson Peltz’s sons. The Peltz family also holds a minority stake in an investment vehicle that owns 87 Wendy’s franchises in the New York region.

Wendy’s — which runs 7,000 stores globally, mostly in the US — reported lacklustre earnings last week citing high beef costs and weak traffic, pushing its share price down further. Its shares are down 71 per cent over the past five years. As of Monday’s close, the chain’s enterprise value was $5.1bn.

Fast-food chains have been trying various promotional tactics and new menu items to keep market share amid stingier consumers, elevated labour and material costs and competition from higher-end “fast-casual” restaurants such as Chipotle and Sweetgreen as well as sit-down burger rivals including Chili’s and Applebee’s.

McDonald’s and Burger King have had recent success with menu innovation and value pricing. However, their achievements have hurt Wendy’s and the high-end Shake Shack — the latter’s shares fell a quarter after disclosing a disappointing outlook for the current quarter.

Trian said in a regulatory filing in February that the fast-food chain was “undervalued”, pushing for the company to consider strategic alternatives and saying it was considering whether to launch a takeover bid or sell down its stake.

Trian has not made a formal approach to buy Wendy’s and there is no guarantee that the financing discussions will result in a takeover bid, the people said. Peltz pushed for Wendy’s to consider strategic options in 2022 before backing down a year later.

Following Trian’s regulatory filing in February, Wendy’s said it would “carefully evaluate” if and when any takeover approach from the activist investor materialised. Wendy’s is in the early stages of its so-called “Fresh Start” turnaround plan, an attempt to boost ailing US sales by improving its menu and closing down underperforming locations.

Trian earlier this year sealed an $8bn takeover of London-based asset manager Janus Henderson, in which it was also a longtime shareholder, with the backing of General Catalyst and the Qatar Investment Authority.

Wendy’s did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trian declined to comment.

Best known for fighting activist campaigns at US corporate giants including General Electric, Mondelez International and Disney, Trian has roughly $7bn of assets under management.

Low valuations among listed restaurant operators have driven a wave of take-private interest in the sector in recent months. Denny’s earlier this year was taken private in a $620mn deal. Papa John’s is also considering takeover interest from Qatari-backed fund Irth Capital Management, said separate people familiar with the matter.

The deal will give Sony Music Publishing ownership of works performed by Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Journey, Red Hot Chili Peppers and others

Sony 6758 8.29%increase; green up pointing triangle Group has agreed to acquire the full catalog of Recognition Music Group, a collection of more than 45,000 pop songs from artists ranging from Rihanna to Fleetwood Mac.

The deal, made through Sony’s venture with Singapore’s sovereign-wealth fund GIC, will give Sony Music Publishing ownership of works performed by Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Journey, Red Hot Chili Peppers and others.

The venture is acquiring the catalog from alternative asset manager Blackstone, which began building its presence in music rights in 2021 when it committed $1 billion to a new fund with Hipgnosis Song Management to buy large catalogs. Blackstone later backed Hipgnosis’s 2024 takeover of the London-listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund, now renamed Recognition Music Group, giving the firm control of a portfolio of popular songs.

The transaction follows Sony Music Publishing’s 2025 acquisition of Hipgnosis Songs Group and continues its collaboration with Recognition and Blackstone.

No financial details were disclosed on Monday, and spokespeople for Sony, Recognition and GIC said they wouldn’t comment further. Blackstone wasn’t immediately available for comment.

As they attempt to lower the cost of their electric vehicles, major Western automakers have mostly struggled with a single component: the battery, which can be up to 40% of an EV’s cost.

One answer has arisen repeatedly—the swappable battery. That is, a consumer could buy the EV without a battery and simply rent one to swap into the vehicle at a commercial location. But the idea hasn’t taken off, partly because automakers have been reluctant to commit to installing swapping equipment on the underside of their EVs, and partly because it would be expensive to position thousands of batteries at swapping stations in big and small cities. Instead, automakers make batteries a permanent component of an EV, increasingly embedded in the chassis.

Battery swapping, however, is starting to take off in China, driven not by its automakers but by its largest battery manufacturer. Over the last year, Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. has installed some 1,400 swapping stations in 99 Chinese cities, with plans to expand to 4,000 in about 190 cities by the end of 2026. CATL charges $83 for a monthly subscription allowing unlimited swapping, and roughly $20 for one-time-only swaps.

While most of China’s high-profile EV makers are sticking with permanent batteries, at least for now, CATL said it has struck agreements with 11 largely state-owned automakers to adapt some of their EVs for its Choco-Swap battery system. In all, it said those carmakers were offering 25 swappable EV models. In addition, CATL has struck deals with 10 Chinese cargo truck manufacturers that will use its swapping system.

The emergence of battery swapping in China illustrates another facet of its aggressive, all-of-the-above approach to getting consumers into EVs. Much of the effort relies on a massive 50% expansion of charging stations over the last year.

Swapping is another approach. One advantage is that the price of an EV without a battery is generally thousands of dollars less than that of a traditional EV because you don’t pay for the battery. You can swap out a nearly empty battery for a fully charged one in just a few minutes.

I tried out the swapping process at a small CATL station in the city of Ningde, on China’s east coast.

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I drove up to the station entrance in a compact Changan Oshan 520 sedan provided by CATL. At the barrier arm, you use an app on a screen to indicate how many 75-mile battery blocks you want—you can fit up to three at a time. I could see on the screen that the system recognized me and my car. The arm rose, and I drove in just as I would at a car wash. Once centered in the station, I stopped the car and put it in neutral.

You could feel a mechanism engaging underneath the car. The vehicle then rose just a bit. On the app, I could follow the progress—in green, I could see the removal of the battery; then in blue, the installation of the new one. All that happened in about a minute and a half. I drove out with a fully charged battery. That’s a lot faster than even the fastest fast-charging station.

China’s main maker of battery-swapping EVs is Nio, whose sales grew 71% year on year in the first four months of the year. It aims to sell at least 450,000 cars this year, a 40% increase over 2025. Cumulatively, it has sold 1.1 million EVs and has roughly 3,800 swapping stations across China.

Last year, CATL and Nio said they would coordinate their build-out of swapping stations. The two companies are targeting somewhat different demographic groups. Nio is generally going after affluent buyers: It has priced most of its models above $50,000, though its Onvo line sells for under $30,000, and $21,000 without the battery.

A CATL representative said the company is aiming at buyers looking for cheaper cars. For instance, the compact electric Changan Eado sedan, which comes with a CATL battery that is not swappable, costs $18,300. The Oshan I drove costs roughly $13,500 without the battery, or 26% less.

At $83 a month for unlimited charging, the battery-swapping car would be a better deal for nearly five years. If you add in interest payments from a typical car loan, the cheaper battery-swapping EV would be an even better deal, since the owners likely would have borrowed less.

The CATL stations aren’t only for swapping but also for ultrafast charging if a consumer is driving a traditional EV or plug-in hybrid. CATL says the stations can charge some of its batteries from 10% to 98% of capacity in just six and a half minutes without damaging the battery.

EV battery swapping has been tried outside China but has failed there. In the U.S., California swapping startup Ample filed for bankruptcy in December after raising more than $330 million. In the mid-2010s, Tesla opened a single swapping station on a pilot basis but quietly closed it in 2016. Israeli swapping startup Better Place went bankrupt in 2013 after burning through $850 million in funding.

In Europe, Nio has roughly 60 swapping stations, mostly in Germany and Norway, nowhere near enough to persuade large numbers of Europeans to buy the cars. Last year, CATL said it would build a battery-swapping network in Europe as well, but it hasn’t deployed any stations as of yet.

It could be that someone will have another go at swapping in the U.S. Cutting an EV’s price by a quarter makes that an attractive option. So far, though, we have heard of no one taking the plunge.

One strike in April hit an oil refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island

DUBAI—The United Arab Emirates has carried out military strikes on Iran, people familiar with the matter said, casting the Gulf monarchy as an active combatant in a war in which it has been Iran’s biggest target.

Its military is well-equipped with Western-made jet fighters and surveillance networks. And the attacks suggest the country is now more willing to use them to protect its economic power and growing influence across the Middle East.

The strikes, which the U.A.E. hasn’t publicly acknowledged, have included an attack on a refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf, the people familiar with the matter said. That attack took place in early April around the time President Trump was announcing a cease-fire in the war after a five-week air campaign and sparked a large fire and knocked much of its capacity off line for months.

Iran said at the time that the refinery had been struck in an enemy attack and launched a barrage of missile and drone strikes against the U.A.E. and Kuwait in response.

The U.S. wasn’t upset by the attack, as the cease-fire hadn’t yet settled into place, and it has quietly welcomed the participation of the U.A.E. and any other Gulf states that want to join in the fight, one of the people said.

The U.A.E.’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on the strikes but pointed to previous statements in which it asserted its right to respond—including militarily—to hostile acts.

The Pentagon declined to comment. The White House didn’t address questions about the UAE’s involvement during the war but said that President Trump has every option at his disposal, and that the United States has maximum leverage over the Iranian regime.

“It’s significant to have a Gulf Arab country as a warring party that struck Iran directly,” said Dina Esfandiary, Middle East analyst and author of a book on the rise of the U.A.E. “Tehran will now aim to further drive a wedge between the U.A.E. and other Gulf Arabs who are trying to mediate an end to the war.’”

Gulf countries said ahead of the war they wouldn’t let their airspace or bases be used for attacks. But once the war started, Iran responded by launching missile and drone attacks against Gulf population centers, energy infrastructure and airports in an effort to raise the economic and political costs and make it harder for the U.S. and Israel to continue the attack.

Iran focused much of its fire on the U.A.E., targeting it with more than 2,800 missiles and drones—far more than any other country, including Israel.

The attacks have hammered the U.A.E.’s air traffic, tourism and property market, and have led to a wave of furloughs and layoffs. They also have prompted a fundamental shift in the country’s strategic outlook to one that now sees Iran as a rogue actor bent on undermining the country’s economic and social model based on expatriate talent and a reputation for safety and stability, Gulf officials have said.

The U.A.E. has since emerged as the most openly confrontational country in the Gulf and has maintained strong military cooperation with the U.S. throughout the war, according to people familiar with the matter.

“The Emiratis made it clear early on that they didn’t want this war, but it’s also clear that since the first Iranian strikes on the U.A.E. took place, Abu Dhabi’s been quite transparent that they see the regional picture as having changed dramatically,” said H.A. Hellyer, senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in London. “Abu Dhabi hasn’t confirmed what they have targeted, or even if they have targeted, but from the early days of the war it seemed only a matter of time before we saw increased kinetic involvement of different Gulf states in the war.”

Speculation about the U.A.E.’s involvement in the war has swirled since mid-March, when a jet fighter that didn’t appear to belong to Israel or the U.S. was filmed over Iran.

Researchers who track publicly available images and other information have pointed to photos purporting to show French Mirage fighters and Chinese Wing Loong drones—both used by the U.A.E.—in action in Iran.

Militarily, the U.A.E. is dwarfed by the U.S. But it has a highly trained and capable air force with Mirages and a fleet of advanced F-16 jet fighters supported by refueling planes, command and control aircraft and surveillance drones.

Those capabilities give it unusually sophisticated air power for the region, according to retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, who planned the air campaign for Desert Storm.

“They are very strong in terms of precision strike, air defense, airborne surveillance, refueling, and logistics,” Deptula said. “If you have that capable of an air force, why would you sit back and absorb attacks from Iran without responding?”

Tehran’s strategy of pulling the Gulf into the war has exacerbated political divisions among its Arab monarchies and sent them scrambling for new arrangements that might guarantee their security.

While all Gulf states are wrestling with growing security risks and the reliability of their American protector, the Emirates is doubling down on its relationship with the U.S., Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the United Arab Emirates president, told a group of reporters in April.

In addition to the strikes, the U.A.E. backed drafts of a resolution at the United Nations that authorized the use of force if necessary to break Iran’s chokehold on the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway.

The U.A.E. also acted against Iran’s financial interests, closing schools and clubs in Dubai that were linked to Tehran and denying visas and transit rights to Iranian citizens. The moves crimped the economic lifeline the Emirates have long provided to Iran amid heavy sanctions by the West.

Iran has responded by repeatedly accusing the U.A.E. of joining the U.S. and Israeli campaign.

After the U.S. and Israel wiped out Tehran’s air defense capabilities, the risk of flying combat missions over the country dropped sharply, said retired Col. John “JV” Venable, who commanded operations at the Al Udeid air base in Qatar during his time in the U.S. Air Force.

“If you’re an ally and you want to be engaged, it’s a really good time to do that, because the threat is really low,” Venable said. “At medium to high altitude, aircraft are going to be able to do what they want, and there’s nothing the Iranians can do about it.”