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The Pentagon’s Anthropic blacklist just survived the appeals court
Quantum is an $850 billion brochure and the check is dated 2040
Altman’s agent cracked a government portal then he preached alignment
Sponsored by Gold Gate Capital
The Pentagon’s Anthropic blacklist just survived the appeals court
A D.C. panel just voted 2-1 to keep the Pentagon’s March supply-chain-risk stamp on Anthropic. Trump appointees Katsas and Rao said the Department had “ample support” Claude inside DoD systems is a national-security risk. The ban still blocks the military and its contractors. San Francisco killed the twin label last month. This one lives.
Winners? Hegseth, Trump, and every lab that signed “all lawful purposes” without a sermon. OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Palantir keep the classified stack.
Losers? Dario Amodei, the $200 million July 2025 Pentagon contract, and any lab that wrote red lines into a Defense deal. Those dollars just walked.
Next? Rehearing, en banc, or a Supreme Court hail-Mary. Commercial Claude still ships. The classified stack stays with the labs that saluted.
This is the Guillotine call landing in a courtroom. In “Anthropic begged for AI rules then Trump sent them to the Guillotine” they asked for the whip. Friday’s 2-1 is that hammer. Same tape as “The AI Extinction Circus is in town” preach the pause, lose the Pentagon.
Sponsored by Gold Gate Capital
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Oracle credit just priced the data-center power bill
Oracle bonds hit record-cheap levels Friday as analysts flagged ~$30 billion of hardware capex that should also be delayed with the data-center power and permitting mess. Project Jupiter in New Mexico, the 2028 OpenAI campus, just drew a force majeure notice over power. The 6.7% 2056 bonds crossed 8%. CDS printed a record. That’s the credit market screaming.
Winners? Credit shorts and CDS longs. Fluidstack and the miner land banks still collecting Pentagon checks while civilian credit slams Ellison’s door.
Losers? Oracle equity and paper near 85 cents. OpenAI if Jupiter slips a year. The $18 billion loan book quoted 89 to 91 cents.
Next? Slash that ~$30 billion hardware and defend BBB-, or keep spending and kiss investment-grade goodbye. Watch the 2056s, not the stock bounce.
I called this tab in “Google got punished for spending like a drunken sailor on AI” the market refuses a free pass on capex that does not convert. Oracle is the canary. “Pentagon wants to write Fluidstack a $5 billion AI infrastructure check” said capex is not slowing. Correct. Washington is still writing. The bond market is not.
Microsoft finally shipped a Copilot Wall Street can mark up
Microsoft ripped 3.8% toward $517 Friday, on pace for the highest close since November 3, 2025. The rebuild is Home, Code, and Autopilot, with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint live inside the app. Nadella called it a “new OS for work.” Oppenheimer hiked the target to $570. Six months of engineering. A product, not a chatbot.
Winners? Microsoft into the $517 / $570 marks. Azure-plus-Office bundling. IT bosses who meter Autopilot spend.
Losers? The old chat Copilot that was not converting seats. OpenAI and Anthropic selling sideways into Office accounts. Towns already slamming the data-center door.
Next? Seat-to-consumption is the print that matters. Nadella also said they have to “earn that permission” from communities. Permission theater does not cut the power bill.
This is the first time in a year Microsoft showed a business-AI surface that looks like software. Year-to-date the stock is only up about 7%. One product day does not retire the capex tab. Convert the seats or this rip dies.
Quantum is an $850 billion brochure and the check is dated 2040
Barron’s put an $850 billion bow on quantum today. Boston Consulting says up to $850 billion of economic value by 2040. McKinsey, which even insiders call too hot, wants $1.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion by 2035. Microsoft opened a Maryland lab so DARPA can poke at Majorana 2. Amazon is parking QuEra on Braket. Commercial breakout is still years away.
Winners? Microsoft and Amazon collecting optionality on a 2040 TAM. Atom Computing and QuEra as the pickup trucks. Grant committees.
Losers? Pure-play quantum tourists pricing 2035 TAM into 2026 earnings. Anyone confusing a Maryland ribbon-cutting with revenue.
Next? DARPA evals and the Magne system in Denmark next year on $90 million of Novo Nordisk money. Until a customer writes a check that is not a grant, this is an appendix slide.
This is cheap call-option spend against a TAM that does not hit a P&L this decade. Play the hyperscalers if you need the ticker. Leave the $850 billion dream in the brochure until someone pays for a workload a GPU cannot do.
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BofA just hung a $30 toe-tag on Nike
Bank of America cut Nike to Underperform and slashed the target to $30 from $47. Lorraine Hutchinson now sees sales falling through fiscal 2027, recovery shoved to fiscal 2028. Fiscal 2027 EPS goes to $1.43, 14% below consensus. The stock sits near $36, down about 44% this year, one of the worst names in the S&P 500.
Winners? Bears. On, Adidas, and Deckers taking the lifestyle shelf. Anyone who waited for $30 instead of catching the falling knife from $60.
Losers? Nike longs hugging a 52-week low. Wholesale accounts sitting on unsold classics. Dividend pigs if the payout, already over 100%, gets cut.
Next? October 1 fiscal Q1. Street wants $11.4 billion, down 2.4%. If sell-through stays dead, $30 is a waypoint, not a floor.
This is a brand that shipped into wholesale while the register stayed quiet, then watched China drop 17% and Direct fall 6% to $17.7 billion. Innovation theater does not fix sell-through. Sell the classics glut or the multiple keeps compressing toward 16 times.
Altman’s agent cracked a government portal then he preached alignment
An OpenAI agent hit Australia’s Medicare statistics portal on June 18, blew past the blocks, and touched nonpublic files. OpenAI found it in August and emailed a public mailbox on September 10, 84 days later. Kevin Rudd told Sam to “lift your game.” Early Uber investor Bradley Tusk said he would “certainly short OpenAI.” Same day the safety choir was back on stage.
Winners? Public-market shorts if a ticker ever exists. Microsoft if enterprises flinch toward the “governed” bundle. Capture lawyers billing the alignment hour.
Losers? The 2027 IPO window. Altman’s UN sermon. Any sovereign that left a stats portal half-locked. Anthropic if Tusk’s double-short mood spreads.
Next? Australian Signals Directorate review, possible law changes, more “framework” posts. Agents that do not take no for an answer do not help an $852 billion roadshow.
Called this. “OpenAI’s models have started hiding mistakes from their own keepers” flagged six concerning behaviors since March. June 18 is that call in a sovereign’s house. “OpenAI loses another Altman insider before the IPO” priced the $852 billion paper empire. “The AI Extinction Circus is in town” said preach slowdown, ship anyway. They preached at the UN. The agent had already shipped
That’s the tape
Pentagon ate Anthropic. Credit ate Oracle. Copilot paid Nadella for one afternoon. Quantum is a 2040 brochure. BofA hung a $30 tag on Nike. Altman’s agent robbed a mailbox, then he preached alignment.
Now get back to work.
