Zero Rss

In Charts: Communist Cuba's Lights Dim Amid US Oil Blockade

Authored by Sylvia Xu, Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Blackouts, shortages, fuel rationing, and empty streets now define daily life in Cuba.

People wait to fill their water containers during a nationwide blackout in Havana on March 22, 2026. Cuban authorities scrambled on March 22 to restore power to the island after the second nationwide blackout in less than a week, as the grid struggles due to an aging infrastructure and a U.S. oil blockade. Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images

Although the norm for decades, these hardships have reached catastrophic proportions as the island nation suffers its worst energy and economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Cuba’s energy infrastructure is collapsing amid restrictions on oil imports from its key ally Venezuela, along with a U.S. military operation that has further disrupted Venezuela’s production and shipping.

With the country’s main supplier impaired, Havana is without the energy needed to keep its grid stable, leading to rolling blackouts and widespread shortages of everything from medicines to food.

The White House aims to push the communist-led nation into talks and concessions. A combination of indirect pressure through increased tariffs on Cuba’s oil suppliers and direct intervention by the U.S. Coast Guard in the region has amounted to an effective blockade of the island.

A tugboat guides a Russian oil tanker as it arrives at the oil terminal in the port of Matanzas, Cuba, on March 31, 2026. The shipment of 730,000 barrels marked Cuba’s first crude import in three months as the White House aims to push the communist-led nation into talks and concessions. Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images

In February, the United States made a key exception: the sale of fuel directly to private businesses in Cuba. The shipments are small, however, totaling an estimated 30,000 barrels so far this year.

The Trump administration is showing some signs of easing pressure, allowing a Russia-flagged tanker to deliver 730,000 barrels of oil to Cuba on March 31—the island’s first sizable import of crude in three months. Given Cuba’s daily needs of nearly 80,000 barrels per day in 2025, the shipment provided less than 10 days of supply.

A gas station remains closed due to a lack of fuel in Havana on March 24, 2026. Cuba’s government confirmed on April 20 it had returned to the table to meet with U.S. officials, seeking to ease tensions and address energy restrictions. Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images Risky Reliance on Imported Oil

Imported oil is the lifeblood of Cuba’s energy infrastructure; net crude oil imports accounted for nearly 60 percent of the country’s total supply as of 2023, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

For more than 25 years, those imports primarily came from Venezuela, under a bilateral agreement based on bartering products and services instead of cash payment.

Alternative suppliers have included Mexico (25 percent), Russia (10 percent), and Algeria (4 percent), according to S&P Global Commodities at Sea data.

Even before the current blockade, imports from Venezuela and Mexico were jeopardized by those countries’ struggles to maintain fuel production.

Venezuela’s once-thriving petroleum industry has been crippled by years of mismanagement and sanctions, although the United States is now working with the interim government to rebuild its crumbling energy infrastructure.

Mexico’s state-owned company Pemex ended 2025 with its lowest level of production in 46 years amid operational and financial constraints on the country’s oil sector.

U.S. President Donald Trump signs a proclamation at the Shield of the Americas Summit at Trump National Doral in Miami on March 7, 2026. Trump said the United States is “looking forward to the great change” coming to Cuba following what he called a Energy Blockade

Now, U.S. foreign policy is making it even more difficult for Cuba to navigate global energy markets.

Following the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, President Donald Trump persuaded interim leader Delcy Rodríguez to halt oil and gas exports to Cuba.

A small shipment of oil from Mexico—86,000 barrels—arrived in Cuba on Jan. 9.

But crude oil flowing from Mexico dried up after Trump ramped up pressure on Jan. 29 with an executive order imposing tariffs on any country that “directly or indirectly provides oil to Cuba.” On Feb. 2, Trump announced that Mexico would cease oil shipments to Cuba.

On March 7, Trump told the Shield of the Americas summit: “As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba. 

“Cuba is at the end of the line. ... They have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time. And they used to get the money from Venezuela.”

Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel announced March 13 that the regime had opened talks with the United States, and on April 20, U.S. diplomats set foot on Cuban soil for the first time since 2016. 

Alejandro García del Toro, deputy director general in charge of U.S. affairs at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that “the elimination of the energy embargo against the country was a top priority” for the meetings.

Senate Republicans on April 28 rejected Democratic legislation that would stop the energy blockade of Cuba without congressional approval.

Energy Sources

Over the past two decades, Cuba has attempted to somewhat emulate its neighbors Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, which have managed to offset their petroleum needs with coal, natural gas, and renewables.

The Castro regime in 2005 launched an “energy revolution”—introducing solar and wind, bolstering bioenergy consumption, and expanding distributed generation—in an attempt to diversify the country’s energy portfolio. 

However, the leadership failed to address fundamental problems, such as aging Soviet-era infrastructure, underinvestment, reliance on subsidized crude, failure to finance new technologies, and lack of long-term planning and maintenance.

As of 2024, Cuba still relied on oil for 87 percent of its energy, exceeding the Central and South American average of 54 percent, according to a Reuters analysis.

The island nation dedicates more than 80 percent of its oil to electricity generation, according to 2023 data from the IEA. In fact, utilities consume more than double the oil of all other sectors combined, underscoring Cuba’s reliance on petroleum.

Cuba’s thermoelectric infrastructure, loaded with high-sulfur oil, is “old, tired, and highly inefficient,” Jorge Piñon, senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute, said in a 2023 interview with the Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas.

To revive its power system, Cuba “must decentralize its economic model and resolve its political differences with the United States.”

“Cuba has to abandon its failed Soviet-style centralized command economic model based on state ownership of all means of production and industrial transformation,” Piñon said.

“It should welcome a market economic system in which the decisions regarding investments and production are guided by supply and demand market forces.”

More than 1 million individuals have fled Cuba since 2021. Analysts compare the exodus to that seen during 1994’s Special Period—a time of food scarcity, energy shortages, and agricultural decimation after the demise of the Soviet Union.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 18:05

USAF Tests Interceptor Drone To Hunt Iranian Shahed-Style Threat

Defense Blog's Dylan Malyasov reports that U.S. Air Force Special Warfare Airmen tested a counter-drone interceptor in Arizona, designed as a low-cost solution against one-way attack drones, such as Iran's Shahed drone. 

Malyasov said the Guardian-1 Interceptor from defense startup Powerus was recently tested at the Arizona Army National Guard's Florence Military Reservation and involved Airmen from the 48th Rescue Squadron, 7th Air Support Operations Squadron, and 316th Civil Engineer Squadron EOD.

The field training exercise allowed the Guardian-1 Interceptor to intercept a Shahed-style drone, which is widely used by Russia in Ukraine and has become a major nuisance for US airbases in the region amid the ongoing US-Iran conflict.

Malyasov explained:

The exercise integrated a commercial kinetic interceptor with an expeditionary counter-small UAS capability to address what the Air Force describes as critical capability gaps for small teams operating outside the wire — forward-deployed elements that lack access to the fixed-site air defense systems that protect larger bases and installations.

"A beautiful sight. Our interceptor drone locking onto a target drone high above a U.S. military base. Clean skies, pure precision. This is next-gen air defense in action," Powerus founder Brett Velicovich told the defense media outlet.

The Guardian-1 weighs around 6.6 pounds with its battery and can reach speeds in excess of 200 mph, with a maximum range of about 9.3 miles. The interceptor can reach altitudes of up to 16,400 feet.

US Air Force tested a Powerus commercial drone killer in Arizona against a simulated Shahed-type target — the same one-way attack drone used in Ukraine and the Gulf. Weighs 2.65 kg, costs a fraction of what it kills.

Read more: https://t.co/qIbZ9JHnT0 pic.twitter.com/Zy4vhbOCtZ

— Dylan Malyasov | 🧐 (@DylanMalyasov) April 30, 2026

Interceptor drones are a low-cost solution for the U.S. against Shahed-style drones, especially after the draining of critical missile stockpiles, which cost millions of dollars per unit. Meanwhile, Shahed-style drones cost around $20,000, if not less.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently launched a sales pitch to the world, claiming that his military-industrial base is ready to produce millions of interceptors and autonomous weapons to the highest bidder. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 17:40

The Elites And Their Contempt

Authored by Rev. John F. Naugle via The Brownstone Institute,

Last week, I was unexpectedly hit with a post-lockdown trauma response. While driving to a baseball game days before the NFL Draft came to Pittsburgh, I passed a digital highway sign instructing me to avoid nonessential travel.

Suddenly, memories of empty highways with signs instructing drivers to “Stay Safe and Stay Home” came flooding back to me.

As the week developed, it began to occur to me that the parallels were deeper than my subjective emotional response. Road closures intensified, rendering my beloved city of Pittsburgh less and less functional. Even sidewalks were closed. 

Entire parking garages were emptied and abandoned. Pittsburgh’s “most visited museum,” the Kamin Science Center, has been closed to the public for weeks because it was within the footprint of the upcoming event. For the actual days of the draft, Pittsburgh Public Schools were shuttered as if a blizzard had rendered travel impossible.

How do I walk to PNC Park?

The attempt by local officials to trigger hysteria in the populace worked, maybe too well. People traveling to Pittsburgh for the event heeded the instructions to use the special free public transit to make their way in. Parking operators, expecting a huge windfall, saw themselves lower their exorbitant prices midday. For example, the Rivers Casino quickly abandoned their plan to charge $250 per day, lowering their rate to $100 for the first day of the draft and then abandoning charging altogether for subsequent days.

Local businesses outside the official footprint of the event were told to prepare for heavy crowds, but instead experienced a weekend worse than anything they had seen since the Covid hysteria. Those who didn’t want to go to the draft were terrified to go anywhere near the city.

In summary, children were deprived of education, small business owners were drastically harmed, public spaces which exist for the common good were shuttered, and normal life ceased for those who actually live in the City of Pittsburgh. While all of this was happening, local politicians were patting themselves on the back for how well everything was pulled off, taking pride that this draft broke attendance records for the NFL and that their plans of getting people in and out of the city were effective. It was our own personal Operation Warp Speed.

I think there’s a lesson here that applies not merely to Pittsburgh politics but also to the wider dysfunction we see in elected officials throughout what used to be Western Civilization.

Our political leaders view their own constituents with a sort of boredom or indifference. In the leadup to the draft, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania engaged in a number of public works projects designed to improve the area in preparation for the draft. 

Suddenly, our governments remembered that potholes aren’t supposed to be allowed to exist and that crime isn’t supposed to be allowed to happen. For three days, Pittsburgh had a heavily subsidized and highly functional public transit system, something that hasn’t existed the entirety of my lifetime.

Any one of these projects could have been accomplished at any time, but the actual people who live there provided insufficient motivation for our leaders. Rather, what really mattered to them was looking good in front of millionaires, soon-to-be millionaires, and the powerful elites who would gather to party the night away with Nelly, Steve Aoki, and 2 Chainz.

Meanwhile, the elites themselves seem to view the common people with at least implicit contempt. They desire entire blocks to be shut down for their own amusement. The common man, including those who wait upon them, should be relegated to buses or walking so as not to encroach upon their experience. This is their party, and the city is lucky to have them there.

We live in a world where the elites view the common man as a problem to be solved and the leaders elected by the common man anxiously present themselves as lapdogs to these elites, forgetting any sense of duty or obligation to those who placed them in power.

We saw this during lockdowns, we saw this as inflation raged on, and we see it now as gas prices remain above $4. The urgent and pressing question that faces all of us: what is the political solution in a system where elected officials conspire with elites who hold the voters themselves in contempt?

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 17:15

8 In 10 Chatbots Inclined To Assist Users In Planning Attacks

Eight out of ten AI chatbots have been found to actively assist users in planning violent attacks, according to a new investigation by CNN and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, when asked to plan violent attacks including a school shooting, an antisemitic bombing and a political assassination, platforms such as Perplexity, Meta AI and DeepSeek regularly assisted users in finding answers.

Only one, Anthropic’s Claude, repeatedly discouraged users from taking action.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Researchers tested ten chatbots by acting as a user planning to carry out several types of violent attacks both in the United States and in Ireland, providing a European comparison.

The tests were designed to reflect plans for school shootings or knife attacks, assassinations targeting politicians or bombings targeting political parties or synagogues.

In over half of the responses for eight of the chatbots, the subjects were provided with advice on locations to target and weapons to use in an attack.

Snapchat’s My AI and Anthropic’s Claude refused to offer help in 54 percent and 68 percent of cases, respectively. Claude was also the only chatbot to consistently recognize the intentions of the user and to discourage them from acting. Meanwhile, Character.AI actively encouraged violence, including suggesting that the test user “use a gun” on a health insurance CEO and physically assault a politician that the user dislikes.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 16:50

Meta Buys Robot Brain Startup As Zuck Wants Humanoids In Homes

After the Oculus and Metaverse bets turned into costly disappointments for Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms, the tech giant's pivot to real-world humanoid robotics appears to be gaining momentum, with news Friday afternoon that it is acquiring Assured Robot Intelligence.

Bloomberg reports that Meta has closed the acquisition of the humanoid robotics startup, which develops AI models to help robots understand, predict, and adapt to human behavior in complex environments.

What Meta has acquired appears to be a "robot brain" designed to give Zuckerberg's humanoid robots better control, self-learning capabilities, and whole-body movement, enabling them to operate around people and perform physical tasks. Eventually, Zuckerberg wants these bots in your home.

Under the deal, co-founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang will join Meta Superintelligence Labs and work with the Meta Robotics Studio.

There is no information about the robot brains on ARI's website. Using the commercial risk intelligence firm Sayari, we can see the founders and directors of the startup.

More interestingly, trade data shows that ARI imported "8529.90 - Parts for TVs & Radios" from India.

Hopefully, Zuck can end his cold streak of failures with humanoid robots.

 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 15:35

OPEC Just Signaled A Historic Gold Tailwind

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold,

The United Arab Emirates’ headline departure from OPEC this week has now made the case for precious metals almost too obvious. In fact, the critical USD-Petrodollar-Gold triangle just sent us one of the most important gold signals in over 50 years.

And for anyone paying attention, this should come as no surprise.

Warnings from 2022

From day one of the 2022 U.S. sanctions against Russia, we argued in “How the West was Lost” that this event marked the greatest macro-economic watershed to hit the world since Nixon decoupled the dollar from gold in 1971.

As of this week, the ripple effects of that warning just grew to wave height.

Back in 2022, we warned that trust in a now weaponized world reserve currency would fall, creating a scenario in which the BRICs+ nations would slowly de-dollarize, thereby weakening the hegemony of the USD in general and the USA in particular.

In the years that immediately followed, de-dollarization became an undeniable current, the momentum of which we have written and spoken with both consistency and conviction ever since. 

Petrodollar Significance

We further warned that there would be gradual, then inevitable, threats to the Petrodollar, an essential pillar of the USD’s hegemony. 

After all, forcing the world to buy oil in USDs (and oil producers to use their oil revenues to buy USTs) is indeed an “exorbitant privilege.” 

The 1974 Petrodollar effectively created a global sponge for otherwise over-produced/printed Greenbacks, which explains why the U.S. could so easily export its inflation to the rest of the world with impunity for decades.

But if that “sponge” ever weakened, so too would dollar supremacy. 

One simply cannot overstate enough how essential the Petrodollar is/was to the USD as a currency and to the USA as a financial hegemon. 

This is why we have been tracking the Petrodollar’s post-2022 cracks here, here, here, here, here and, well… here.

In short: The Petrodollar matters; it really matters.

Petrodollar Cracks

Once the USA weaponized its already over-indebted and increasingly debased Greenback in 2022, we argued that even its oil “allies” at OPEC would eventually rethink their 1974 agreement to sell oil only in dollars. 

As China openly sought a non-dollar oil solution, it was only a matter of time and circumstance before the OPEC nations would move away from the dollar and look east toward the yuan.

And as of this week, it is now apparent that each of these warnings is slowly coming to fruition. 

Petrodollar Uh-Oh Moment: What Happened?

The UAE, one of America’s biggest allies, just ended its OPEC membership while simultaneously announcing to the U.S. Treasury Department that it may begin to sell its oil in other currencies.

Why?

There are many answers, but they all boil down to an increasing distrust of the USD and a decreasing respect for U.S. global hegemony/policy.

When Kissinger made the 1974 Petrodollar deal with the Saudis, for example, it was effectively a handshake deal made at knifepoint—i.e., a coerced arrangement in which the U.S. promised military protection to the OPEC members in exchange for their forced sale of oil in Greenbacks.

Fast forward some 50 years later, however, and that overly-indebted USD and increasingly impotent UST are not nearly as attractive/strong as they were in the early 1970’s.

Furthermore, the “threat of the Soviet” in 1974 is not the same in 2026 as it was in 1974. 

Nations like the UAE and Saudi Arabia are no longer worried about a red star over Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, but they are certainly aware of the U.S. missiles crisscrossing their current skies in what, at least to many and for now, feels like an absolute military fiasco led by an increasingly desperate U.S.

The OPEC nations see a rich oil market in China and debt-soaked bully in an America who already has its own oil. 

The UAE (already tilting into the BRICs coalition since 2024 and selling oil to India in rupees rather than dollars) is now the first nation to openly reveal that it is tired of being the dog wagged by a Petrodollar tail. 

Meanwhile, even Saudi Arabia has been flirting with China for years, considering oil sales in yuan rather than dollars.

The Petrodollar: What Its Cracks Mean for the Greenback

All of this is a direct threat to an America which always assumed the world would follow its orders to buy oil in dollars and hoard USTs like dutiful serfs. 

But China is no longer a serf, and has sold 48% of its USTs while looking for non-dollar oil.

As I argued earlier this year from Vancouver, John Connally’s infamous (and arrogant) declaration to the world in the 1970’s that it was “our dollar but your problem” would turn out to be an historically embarrassing and short-sighted homage to hubris before the fall.

Today, Uncle Sam’s dollar is his dollar and his problem” for the simple reason that after 50+ years of deficit spending, inflation, exporting, and oil-driven wars of “freedom and democracy,” the world no longer trusts or wants that dollar.

The Petrodollar: What Its Cracks Mean for Gold

In fact, ever since 2014, when U.S. money printing became addictive rather than “temporary,” nations slowly lost faith in Uncle Sam’s “exorbitant privilege.” They began net-buying gold (blue line) and net dumping USTs (red line) that very same year:

By 2022, of course, the net-stacking of gold by global central banks went from incremental to exponential. 

Between then and now, central bank gold stacking has increased by 5X, acting as an open middle finger to the USD and UST.

Furthermore, ever since the USA weaponized the dollar in 2022, the BIS has made gold a tier-one asset, a nd even the TBTF commercial banks like UBS, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan (once intentionally complicit in downplaying gold) are now structurally bullish on the “pet rock.”

In short, the combined forces of 1) a debased and weaponized dollar, 2) a negative real-yielding UST, 3) undeniable de-dollarization trends, 4) unsustainable U.S. public debt levels, 5) a disastrous war in Iran, and 6) a now openly failing Petrodollar make it obvious (rather than debatable) that demand for, and trust in, the USD is tanking.

This slow, but oh-so predictable devolution from U.S. superpower and super-currency to a debt-desperate, debased fall is as old and familiar as history itself, a cycle I explained years ago.

Without a powerful Petrodollar to absorb its inflated and over-expanded Greenback, America’s economic and currency fall will only accelerate going forward.

As the world (and that includes a crumbling OPEC) increasingly turns its back on USDs and USTs, American bond yields and U.S. debt levels will rise as USD purchasing power falls, creating the perfect setup for more mouse-clicked trillions and a stagflation backdrop of historic proportions.

The inevitable monetary and fiscal “accommodation” (i.e., money printing) to “support” a tanking Main Street economy and entirely Fed-centralized S&P will only accelerate the debasement of an already openly debased USD.

This dollar expansion/debasement will act as a massive tailwind to gold in the years to come.

As we’ve argued for years, the inevitable decline in paper currencies fully explains the rise in physical gold, which, not so coincidentally, saw more than 50 all-time highs in 2025, for the simple reason that paper currencies were falling with equal panache.

Toward this end, the bull market in gold has only just begun. 

Gold’s staying power and secular direction North (despite recent forced sell-offs) is effectively guaranteed for the simple reason that the fate of a paper currency system, debased in a backdrop of a decaying credit cycle, is now equally (and historically) unavoidable. 

What we are seeing in the crumbling OPEC membership is a slow shift from dollar-backed oil to nations who will be net-settling more of their regional currency oil trades in gold, whose market cap is only a tiny fraction of the global oil market.

Slowly, gold will not only store value better than a distrusted and debased USD, but t will rise in prominence (and price) in the global oil trade.

After all, oil net-settled in gold is far less volatile than dollar-settled oil. 

If we can see this, so can the oil nations of the OPEC cartel. Their move away from the dollar will be slow but brutal to a USD whose supremacy has been slowly declining for years.

After decades of hegemony, the USD is losing trust not only among American Main Streets, central banks, commercial banks, and oil nations, but also among all of us who understand the history of currency debasement, the math of gold, the theft of inflation, and the dishonesty of policymakers

In short: What we saw this week with the UAE’s infamous OPEC exit is just further confirmation of the dollar’s gradual end-game and the first innings of gold (and silver’s) winning game.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 14:45

As Anthropic Entertains Offers At $900 Billion Valuation, OpenAI CFO Swears There's A 'Vertical Wall Of Demand'

Anyone that's ever spent serious time with Anthropic's Claude - particularly after being a GPT user - can understand why the Trump administration just did a major about-face after a Pentagon spat led to the company's blacklisting as a "supply chain risk." 

Two months after the Pentagon moved to several all ties with the AI wunderkind, the National Security Agency (NSA), which falls under DoW, had to have access to Anthropic's 'Mythos' model - the company's most powerful model to date - which according to internal warnings could “hack every major system." And of course, Treasury has to have it too. 

So they've got a public-facing Claude that kicks GPT ass at workflow tasks and provides valuable insights (try spinning up multiple Claudes at once, assigning them jobs, and having them talk...), and a scary private ZeroCool level hacker Claude (Mythos) that the government is scrambling to get their hands on - while the Pentagon is standing around holding their dick after that "supply chain" tantrum. No wonder Anthropic was willing to call their bluff. 

Don't sleep on them though...

Same guy who allegedly laundered payments to Stefan Halper as part of the illegal operation to spy on and take down President Trump? Interesting choice. https://t.co/Yiou3VruYm

— Ezra A. Cohen (@EzraACohen) May 1, 2026

Anyhow - roughly a week after Bloomberg reported that Google committed to invest $10 billion - and Amazon $5 billion - at a $350 billion valuation, the outlet now reports that Anthropic is entertaining offers from investors at more than $900 billion. 

Anthropic had previously resisted several inbound proposals from investors for a new round at a valuation of $800 billion or more, Bloomberg News has reported.

The new discussions, which have not been reported, coincide with a push by Anthropic to ramp up fundraising amid the breakout success of its AI software. Anthropic, which Bloomberg has reported is considering an initial public offering as soon as October, has been on the hunt for more infrastructure to meet growing demand for its products. -Bloomberg

So things are going well for CEO Dario Amodei and crew. 

Meanwhile Live look a Sam Altman

On the other side of the AI race, OpenAI is pushing back on concerns about missing internal targets. 

In a Thursday interview with Bloomberg, CFO Sarah Friar insisted that was a nothingburger, and that there's a "vertical wall of demand" for their products.

"We feel like we’re beating our plan at the highest level," she said. "How we get there often moves around period to period, because this is still a young business that is not perfectly forecastable across every single metric."

Friar acknowledged that the company has ambitious internal “stretch goals” that can be different than the ones it shares publicly. But the popularity of OpenAI’s products continues to grow, she said. This month, OpenAI said its coding agent Codex hit 4 million weekly users — up from 3 million two weeks earlier.

“Every company I’ve ever been inside of in my entire CFO life, and as an analyst, always has stretch goals — always,” she said. “And if you don’t have those stretch goals, I feel like, actually, you’re not doing your job as a CFO.”

Friar has held various positions at companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Salesforce Inc., Nextdoor Holdings Inc. and Square Inc., now known as Block Inc. -Bloomberg

On Tuesday, the WSJ reported that OpenAI missed its own targets for both new users and revenue, - after which Sarah Friar reportedly told other company leaders that she is worried the company might not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue doesn’t grow fast enough. In other words, that $1.5 trillion OpenAI had pledged to spend on various data centers, GPUs and memory chips... you can kiss all that goodbye.

So, Thursday was damage control for Tuesday, and Anthropic is the homecoming queen.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 14:20

Top US General Signals Russia Is Helping Iran In War

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The highest-ranking U.S. general on Thursday signaled that the Russian government is assisting the Iranian regime in its war with the United States.

In comments before Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Dan Caine, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded in an affirmative manner to a question from the panel’s chairman, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Ala.), about whether there is Russian involvement.

“General Caine, there’s no question that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is taking serious action to undermine our efforts for success in Iran. Is there any question about that?” Wicker asked the general.

Without going into detail, Caine said, “I think there’s actions and activities. [I’m] mindful of the hearing room we’re in, but there’s, there’s, there’s definitely some action there."

Meanwhile, Iran’s regime said on Thursday it would respond with attacks on U.S. military positions if Washington renewed attacks on the country in the midst of a ceasefire and a U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports. The country’s leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said in a statement through state-run media that it would assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, which could complicate plans to reopen the key waterway.

Any U.S. attack on Iran, even if limited, will usher in “long and painful strikes” on America’s regional positions, a senior Revolutionary Guards ​official said. “We’ve seen what happened to your regional bases, we will see the same thing happen to your warships,” Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force Commander Majid Mousavi was quoted by Iranian media as saying.

Earlier this week, Iran’s foreign minister traveled to Russia to meet with Putin. “As you can see, we have always had close consultations with Russia and have had continuous and bilateral consultations on a wide range of issues, especially regional issues,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a Telegram post on April 27.

As for Beijing’s support of Tehran, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he believes the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence is limited. The CCP has long done business with the clerical regime that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution.

“I think maybe helping, but I don’t think much,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on April 26 when he was asked about any Chinese aid to Iran. “I think China could have been much worse than they’ve been, so I don’t consider them having been very bad.”

Oil prices have sharply increased since the war began on Feb. 28, driving inflation and sending pump prices to painful levels ​worldwide. Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that if the disruption caused by the closure dragged on through mid-year, global growth would fall, inflation would rise, and tens of millions more people would be pushed into ​poverty and extreme hunger.

“The longer this vital artery is choked, the harder it will be to reverse the damage,” he told reporters in New York on Thursday.

Inside the United States, the price for a gallon of regular gasoline nationwide reached $4.30, according to the American Automotive Association (AAA). Data from the organization show that a gallon of diesel reached $5.49.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 14:00

Robot Dives 1.5 Miles, Maps French Shipwreck With 86,000 Images And Recovers Artifacts

Authored by Neetika Walter via Interesting Engineering,

A remotely operated robot has retrieved artifacts from a 16th-century shipwreck more than 1.5 miles beneath the Mediterranean, offering a glimpse into how precision deep-sea robotics is transforming underwater exploration. Guided from a support vessel above, the system used camera-fed navigation and robotic pincers to maneuver across fragile debris fields, capture high-resolution imagery, and recover centuries-old objects without disturbing the surrounding site.

ROV C 4000 remotely operated vehicle designed for deep-sea missions up to 2.5 miles.Thibaud MORITZ / AFP via Getty Images

The mission, led by the French Navy and underwater archaeologists, centers on a wreck known as Camarat 4, discovered during a routine seabed survey. The site lies at extreme depth, where pressure, darkness, and limited access make human intervention impossible.

Operators control the robot through a tethered system, watching live video feeds as it descends for nearly an hour before reaching the seafloor. Once in position, the robot scans the wreck, hovering carefully over scattered cargo and structural remains.

Archaeologists say they discovered by chance what they say are the remains of a 16th-century merchant ship more than 1.5 miles underwater off southern France. National Navy via France's Department of Underwater and Submarine Archaeological Research

According to the CBS News, the vehicle captures thousands of images while navigating tight spaces, helping researchers document the site without physically disturbing it.

At depths exceeding 1.5 miles, the robot operates under extreme pressure of nearly 150 atmospheres, where conventional equipment would fail. Its reinforced structure, stable tether system, and precision controls allow it to function reliably in near-freezing, low-light conditions.

Precision at extreme depth

“You have to be extremely precise so as not to damage the site, so as not to stir up sediment,” a French navy officer said.

That precision is critical. At such depths, even minor disturbances can obscure visibility and damage artifacts that have remained intact for centuries. The robot’s manipulators are designed to operate with minimal force, allowing it to lift fragile objects like ceramic jugs without breakage.

This photograph shows a view of a ceramic jug, recovered from the wreck of the CAMARAT 4, during its analysis at the DRASSM laboratory in Marseille on April 16, 2026. 

The system also records up to eight images per second, generating tens of thousands of visuals during a single mission. These images are later used to construct detailed 3D models of the wreck, enabling researchers to study it remotely.

“The visibility is excellent. You almost can’t tell it’s so deep,” archaeologist Franca Cibecchini said, highlighting the clarity achieved during the operation.

Mapping the unseen world

The wreck is believed to be a merchant vessel that once carried ceramics and metal cargo across Mediterranean trade routes. Archaeologists say such discoveries are rare, particularly at this depth.

“We don’t have very detailed texts about merchant ships in the 16th century, so this is a valuable source of information on maritime history,” lead archaeologist Marine Sadania said.

In addition to historical insights, the mission showcases how robotics is expanding the boundaries of exploration. The robot’s ability to revisit the site, capture data, and retrieve objects with minimal disruption marks a shift toward non-invasive underwater archaeology.

“It’s one of the deepest objects ever recovered from a wreck in France,” Sadania told AFP, referring to one of the ceramic finds brought to the surface.

As deep-sea robotics continues to evolve, such systems are expected to play a larger role not only in archaeology but also in subsea inspection, resource mapping, and environmental monitoring.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 13:20

Tune In To Tonight's Fertilizer Debate: How Bad Will It Get?

LIVE NOW:

https://t.co/YVe5id12RL

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 1, 2026

***********************

As we covered earlier this week, Goldman Sachs analysts now say the fertilizer disruption is larger than expected, with nitrogen markets taking the brunt. Urea prices have risen 50% to 70% since the conflict began. Goldman’s Duffy Fischer wrote that “nitrogen fertilizer is the most impacted chemical chain,” adding that the scale of disruption is “greater than we originally expected.”

And signs of improvement have yet to reveal themselves…

As the U.S.–Iran conflict enters its seventh week, ZeroHedge, in partnership with the Macro Dirt Podcast, will host a debate tonight focused on the implications for agriculture, inflation, and global supply chains.

The discussion features former Bridgewater head of commodities Alex Campbell, Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital, and is hosted by Tony Greer and Jared Dillian.

Johnson appeared with Marc Faber and Adam Taggart on an Iran-focused ZeroHedge debate earlier this month and announced that his fund was loading up on fertilizer producers, arguing that even if Hormuz were to open today, he believes the supply shock has yet to be felt and will be severe.

And, of course… Hormuz remains closed.

The hike in prices is already flowing through to earnings. U.S. producers CF Industries and Nutrien are positioned to benefit, supported by relatively stable domestic natural gas costs. Goldman estimates that every $50-per-ton increase in urea prices adds roughly $800 million in annualized EBITDA for CF. Since late February, U.S. Gulf urea prices have climbed about $234 per ton.

Pressure is also building in phosphate markets. U.S. prices, which initially lagged, are now up roughly 23% since the start of the conflict. At the same time, sulfur prices have reached record highs, forcing production curtailments and tightening supply further as input costs rise.

Potash remains less affected for now. Supply routes through the Red Sea have stayed open, and North American supply remains ample, limiting near-term upside.

Join us tonight to see how you should be positioning your portfolio to be better prepared for the coming inflationary shock.

7pm ET here on the ZeroHedge homepage, X feed, and YouTube channel.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 13:00

Trump Escalates Tariffs On EU Vehicles To 25%, Accusing Bloc Of Trade Deal Violations

President Donald Trump announced Friday that the United States will raise tariffs on cars and trucks imported from the European Union to 25% starting next week, citing the EU’s failure to comply with a 2025 bilateral trade framework.

"I am pleased to announce that, based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States. The Tariff will be increased to 25%. It is fully understood and agreed that, if they produce Cars and Trucks in U.S.A. Plants, there will be NO TARIFF.”

Trump highlighted over $100 billion in ongoing U.S. auto manufacturing investments - a record, he said - and praised American workers staffing new plants set to open soon.

This sent Emini S&P futures cascading lower:

The move reverses a temporary reduction under the July 2025 U.S.-EU Framework Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced Trade. That deal, reached after Trump initially imposed broad 25% Section 232 national-security tariffs on automobiles and parts in March 2025, lowered the rate on most EU vehicles and parts to 15% (retroactive to August 1, 2025) in exchange for EU commitments. These included cutting tariffs on U.S. industrial and agricultural goods, purchasing hundreds of billions in American energy, and increasing investment in the U.S.

EU implementation has lagged. The European Parliament conditionally approved enabling legislation in late March 2026 with multiple “safeguard” clauses - including a “sunrise” provision tying EU concessions to verified U.S. compliance, a suspension mechanism for new U.S. tariffs, and a sunset date in 2028. Tensions have simmered over non-tariff issues as well. In April 2026, U.S. automakers (GM, Ford, and Stellantis) warned that proposed EU safety and emissions standards could effectively block large U.S.-built pickup trucks and vans from the European market, a step they called inconsistent with the deal’s spirit of mutual recognition.

Ferrari also RACE'd lower on the news, one day after Vanguard added to their position.

The original 2025 auto tariffs were justified on national-security grounds and aimed at spurring domestic production; the administration has repeatedly offered exemptions or lower rates to allies that negotiate deals or shift manufacturing stateside. Trump’s post explicitly ties the new 25% levy to onshoring: EU brands that build in the United States face zero additional tariff.

The announcement comes amid broader Trump administration tariff actions that have reshaped global auto supply chains since January of last year. European manufacturers such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, and Stellantis have already faced pressure from the earlier duties, prompting some to accelerate U.S. investment plans or adjust pricing. Industry analysts warn that a return to 25% could raise costs for consumers, disrupt transatlantic supply chains, and invite EU retaliation.

Developing...

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 12:45

Google DeepMind Veteran Raises $1.1 Billion For AI That Doesn't Train On Human Data

Authored by Jason Nelson via decrypt.io,

In brief

• DeepMind veteran David Silver raised $1.1 billion for his new startup Ineffable Intelligence at a $5.1 billion valuation.
• Silver says reinforcement learning, not large language models, is the best path to superintelligence.
• The startup aims to build AI “superlearners” that learn through simulations and self-play.

David Silver, the DeepMind scientist behind AlphaGo’s historic 2016 win over world Go champion Lee Sedol, has raised $1.1 billion to launch a startup betting that the next era of AI won’t come from today’s dominant technology.

Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt

Silver’s company, Ineffable Intelligence, launched in January at a $5.1 billion valuation and is betting on reinforcement learning, a method where AI systems improve through trial and error. Silver argues that approach, rather than the large language models now dominating the field, offers a more credible route to superintelligence.

“I think of our mission as making first contact with superintelligence,” Silver told Wired. “By superintelligence, I really mean something incredible. It should discover new forms of science or technology or government or economics for itself.”

Popularized by philosopher Nick Bostrom in his 2014 book “Superintelligence,” the term refers to AI that surpasses human intelligence across nearly all domains, while artificial general intelligence, or AGI, describes systems capable of matching human-level reasoning across a wide range of tasks.

Silver argues that large language models are fundamentally limited because they learn from human-generated data, instead of building their own understanding through experience.

“Human data is like a kind of fossil fuel that has provided an amazing shortcut,” he said. “You can think of systems that learn for themselves as a renewable fuel—something that can just learn and learn and learn forever, without limit.”

Silver has spent much of his career advancing that argument. AlphaGo, which combined human training data with reinforcement learning and self-play, developed strategies that surprised even top human players and demonstrated how AI can exceed human precedent in narrow domains.

“I feel it's really important that there is an elite AI lab that actually focuses a hundred percent on this approach,” he told Wired. “That it’s not just a corner of another place dedicated to LLMs.”

Ineffable Intelligence plans to build what Silver calls “superlearners”—AI agents placed inside simulations where they can pursue goals, fail, adapt, and improve without the limits of a static human dataset. Silver declined to describe what those simulations would look like, but said the approach would allow agents to collaborate and develop capabilities autonomously.

Silver argued that large language models are limited by the data they are trained on, adding that a model trained in a world where everyone believed the Earth was flat would likely keep that belief unless it could test reality for itself. A system that learns through experience, he said, could discover otherwise.

Ineffable Intelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Decrypt.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 12:40

Trump Says Spirit Airlines Rescue Still In Review, Final Proposal Coming

Summary: 

• Trump says Spirit received the final proposal for the lifeline deal 

• WSJ reported that bankrupt Spirit Airlines was preparing to shutter operations 

📰Spirit Airlines is reportedly preparing to cease operations soon, unless a last-minute intervention changes the course, according to CBS News.

We’re currently tracking 50 Spirit flights in real time — follow every movement as it happens: https://t.co/5xZPwStOUa#AviationNews… https://t.co/7beUTzz6CD pic.twitter.com/pYPqjO8qFY

— AirNav Radar (@AirNavRadar) May 1, 2026 President Trump comments on Spirit Airlines:

• TRUMP: GAVE SPIRIT FINAL PROPOSAL

• TRUMP SAYS US STILL LOOKING AT SPIRIT, WILL GIVE FINAL PROPOSAL

• TRUMP SAYS TRYING TO HELP SPIRIT, CITING JOBS 

• TRUMP SAYS WILL HAVE SOMETHING ON SPIRIT TODAY OR TOMORROW 

WSJ Reports Spirit Airlines Prepares To Shutter Operations 

The Wall Street Journal reports that bankrupt Spirit Airlines is preparing to wind down operations after failing to secure a $500 million lifeline from the Trump administration.

WSJ reports:

The ailing budget airline had been hoping to finalize a $500 million lifeline from the government before running out of cash. The discount carrier hasn't been able to get sufficient support between certain bondholders and the government to secure the funding to keep it in business, people familiar with the matter said.

News last week raised hopes that Spirit would secure a rescue deal of up to $500 million from the Trump administration, which could have left the federal government with 90% control.

A reporter asked Trump last week: "Is the government going to buy a stake in Spirit Airlines?"

The president responded: "So we are looking at Spirit. It's in bankruptcy court. And we're looking, if we could get it for the right price..."

Polymarket odds:

US takes a stake in Spirit Airlines by May 31?

//--> //--> US takes a stake in Spirit Airlines by May 31?
Yes 19% · No 81%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

Spirit Airlines shutdown/liquidation by May 31?

//--> //-->

Spirit Airlines shutdown/liquidation by May 31?
Yes 79% · No 22%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 12:39

Beijing Bad: Chinese Nationals Charged Building Meth Super Factory

Two Chinese citizens were indicted on by the DOJ on charges of conspiring to flood the United States with methamphetamine through a sophisticated, factory-style production operation, federal prosecutors announced this week.

Wenfeng Cui, 41, also known as “Vincen,” (no "t') and Fan Pang, 26, also known as “Jerry,” both nationals of the People’s Republic of China, were arrested in New York City on February 2, 2026, after allegedly meeting with undercover sources and providing detailed instructions on the chemical synthesis of methamphetamine and the operation of custom-built industrial machinery designed to mass-produce the drug.

The unsealed indictment, announced by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton and DEA Special Agent in Charge Cindy Marx of the Special Operations Division, charges the pair with one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine (maximum penalty: life in prison), one count of conspiracy to import methamphetamine precursor chemicals with intent to manufacture narcotics (maximum 20 years), and one count of importation of methamphetamine precursor chemicals (maximum 20 years).

"Terrifying in its ambition"

According to the indictment and related court filings, over roughly eight months the defendants worked with chemists and engineers to research, design, and fabricate a technologically advanced methamphetamine production facility. Prosecutors allege the operation was capable of producing 400 kilograms of methamphetamine per day - or as much as 800 kilograms per production cycle - using automated industrial equipment.

“As alleged, the defendants worked with chemists and engineers to develop and deploy a sophisticated technology for the industrial production of methamphetamine capable of producing 400 kilograms of ‘meth’ every day,” Clayton said. “Their goal was terrifying in its ambition. The potential harm of this scale of methamphetamine on our streets should give all New Yorkers and all Americans pause. This Office will find and prosecute not only the dealers distributing poison to New Yorkers, but also the people behind those operations. Working with our international law enforcement partners, we will bring narcotics traffickers to justice — no matter where they are in the world, and no matter whether they commit their crimes in laboratories or on street corners.”

DEA Special Agent in Charge Cindy Marx added: “This indictment underscores the evolving threat posed by the synthetic drug market, in particular the increase we are seeing in methamphetamine. The level of technical expertise, industrial-scale machinery, and international reach revealed in this case is a stark reminder that today’s illicit drug trade is driven by innovation and relentless adaptation. The cartels are adapting, and so are we.”

Detailed blueprints and a “complete set of automated equipment”

Court documents describe an elaborate scheme in which confidential sources, acting at the direction of the DEA and posing as narcotics traffickers, communicated regularly with Cui and Pang to broker chemical and equipment deals.

In recorded conversations and meetings in June 2025, Cui claimed he could manufacture customized machinery within several months and produce refined versions in as little as 30 days. He offered training in assembly, installation, and operation, plus ongoing technical support on-site in Central America. Pang stated that a completed machine could be ready by July 2025 and would yield up to 800 kilograms of methamphetamine per cycle. The defendants also offered to sell approximately 40 kilograms of methylamine hydrochloride — a key List I precursor chemical — for $4,000, to be shipped from China to New York.

Cui later provided the sources with extensive technical materials, including:

• A spreadsheet listing dozens of industrial components (stainless-steel reactors, condensers, storage tanks, explosion-proof pumps, refrigeration and hydrogenation systems, centrifuges, and compressors);
• A nearly 5,000-word instruction manual specifying chemical proportions, pressure levels, and temperature controls;
• Production flowcharts and laboratory renderings.

By December 2025 the full-scale factory had been fabricated in China. Freight records show the equipment - weighing more than 21,120 kilograms and occupying nearly 200 cubic meters - was packed into multiple shipping containers and dispatched from a port in Shanghai. Cui sent sources photographs of workers loading the machinery, with one worker boasting that the “complete set of automated equipment” represented “the future of the global chemical industry.”

In January 2026, Cui forwarded additional photos and videos of the machinery nearing completion. The containers were later seized by law enforcement in a European country. The seizure was conducted with the assistance of the Polish Provincial Police of Wrocław, the Lower Silesian Branch of the National Prosecutors Office, and the German Zentrale Kriminalinspektion (ZKI) Osnabrück.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 12:20

Chevron, ConocoPhillips Warn About "Critical Shortages" Of Oil, Soaring Prices And Demand Destruction

This morning, most of the world's energy giants including Exxon and Chevron, reported stellar earnings as surging oil prices more than offset curtailed output. They also issued several loud warnings about the ongoing Hormuz blockage which is no closer to resolution. 

ConocoPhillips was first, warning of imminent “critical shortages” of oil for some nations as the Iran war that has crippled global energy flows enters its third month. 

The supply crunch that already pushed Brent prices up more than 50% in just nine weeks and just 2 days ago hit a multi-year high, appears likely to significantly worsen as soon as June, Chief Financial Officer Andy O’Brien told analysts during a conference call Thursday.

“The biggest challenge we’re about to face is that the markets sort of had a bit of a grace period initially when the tankers that left the Persian Gulf in late February were still on the water; now all of those have reached their destination,” O’Brien said, touching on a topic we discussed at the start of April.

“We are going to start to see some import-dependent countries potentially start to face critical shortages as we get into the June-July time frame” at which point the dreaded "demand destruction" kicks in. 

Oil refiners around the world have responded to the Iran war-driven drop Gulf oil shipments by curbing daily processing rates by roughly 8 million barrels, roughly the amount that has been blockaded by Iran, O’Brien noted. The knock-on effects of those cuts and the wider market disruption have included skyrocketing prices for everything from jet fuel and gasoline to fertilizer. 

The ConocoPhillips executive’s comments represented some of the starkest yet from a US oil producer with a global footprint that stretches from Alaska to Australia.  As for ConocoPhillips, the conflict that began with US-Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic in late February prompted the company to reduce its full-year output forecast to the equivalent of 2.3 million barrels a day of oil, according to a statement. That figure, the midpoint of a forecast that includes a cut in supplies from Qatar, would be the lowest since the company’s 2024 takeover of Marathon Oil Corp. The energy giant on Thursday also raised spending guidance for the year by about 2% to $12.3 billion, based on the midpoint of the range, reflecting increased activity in the US Permian Basin, the most prolific oilfield in North America.

A second oil major to voice a warning this morning was Chevron, which echoed Conoco's concerns and said it is worried that global oil supplies are running dry as the US-Israel war with Iran enters its third month.

“That’s certainly the scenario we’re concerned about,” Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said Friday in an interview on CNBC. “If we don’t get supply reestablished, demand will have to come down across different sectors of the economy. That’s the big concern that everybody has as we try to avoid a scenario where that becomes extreme.” And by demand destruction he, of course, means soaring prices, something which JPM also warned about - again - last night. 

The conflict has already eroded oil demand, and crude traders have warned of a bigger hit to come. There’s no get-around with the effective closure of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically flows, Wirth added.

“The global energy system continues to be under extreme stress,” he said, and it will only get worse as the ongoing drain of global inventories pushes them to operational stress levels, and then, hit the operational floor.

Source: JPMorgan

Wirth, who added that his company is speaking with the Trump administration on an “almost constant basis,” most recently this week when the White House spoke to the largest US companies about a prolonged blockade of Hormuz, was the latest US oil executive to share concerns that the world’s extra supply of oil stored on land and at sea could be running out if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 11:40

Oracle Joins Growing List Of AI Firms Supporting Pentagon National Security Work

Summary:

• Oracle Joins the growing list 

• OpenAI, Google, SpaceX/xAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Reflection AI to deploy AI tools in "classified settings" at the Department of War

Oracle Added 

Department of War CTO posted on X that Oracle has officially joined the list of AI companies deploying AI tools to America's warfighters. 

BREAKING:

Following this morning’s announcement, the @DeptofWar is announcing that Oracle has officially agreed to join the list of AI companies deploying frontier capabilities on the Department’s classified networks. https://t.co/99nfrwXCzg pic.twitter.com/WwoA2aLJui

— Department of War CTO (@DoWCTO) May 1, 2026

The list now includes: Oracle, OpenAI, Google, SpaceX/xAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Reflection AI.

Shares of Oracle are up 6.5% and are at new highs on the DoW announcement.

List Revealed 

The Department of War has finalized agreements with OpenAI, Google, SpaceX/xAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Reflection AI to deploy AI tools in "classified settings." This means these tools will operate within secure government networks where sensitive or secret national security information is handled, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Anthropic's Claude had previously been one of the few AI tools available on Palantir's Maven platform. However, after the DoW labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk, the department pushed to broaden access to AI tools for top-secret work.

The deal with the seven AI companies to unleash these models for secret national-security work, such as intelligence reports, satellite imagery, drone feeds, signals data, battlefield updates, logistics data, or classified planning documents, merely reflects that Silicon Valley is coming around in supporting the DoD after years of rejecting work with the department.

Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, told the outlet, "We are equipping the warfighter with a suite of AI tools to maintain an unfair advantage and achieve absolute decision superiority."

A Reflection spokeswoman told the outlet, "This shared understanding with the Pentagon is a first step in supporting U.S. national security, and sets a precedent for how AI labs could work across the U.S. government, from supporting our servicemembers to our scientists."

The first indication that at least one Big Tech company had reached a deal with the DoW came on Thursday afternoon, when NBC News reported that Google had agreed to deploy its powerful Gemini AI systems on classified networks.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has made AI a top priority for the armed forces, vowing to transform the military into "an AI-first warfighting force."

"We are proud to be part of a broad consortium of leading AI labs and technology and cloud companies providing AI services and infrastructure in support of national security," Google spokesperson Kate Dreyer said in an email to NBC News.

Hegseth on Thursday defended the DoW's use of AI tools in classified military operations, telling Congress that "humans make decisions" and that "AI is not making lethal decisions."

Hegseth called Anthropic's CEO an "ideological lunatic," which only shows the rift between the left-leaning AI startup and the military is widening. 

*HEGSETH SAYS ANTHROPIC IS RUN BY `AN IDEOLOGICAL LUNATIC'

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 30, 2026

According to Tech Crunch, Anthropic is in the process of closing another fundraising round, asking investors to submit applications over the next two days as the startup seeks $50 billion at a $900 billion valuation. The previous valuation of $380 billion was in February. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 11:28

US Mortgage Debt Hits $13.2 Trillion, Average Household Owes Nearly $109,000

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times,

America’s mortgage debt continues to escalate, hitting the $13.2 trillion mark, according to an April 30 WalletHub report.

The personal finance website and app indicated that the average U.S. household owes nearly $109,000 in outstanding mortgage balances and that mortgage debt has remained on an upward trend over the past few years.

“Mortgage rates are the highest they’ve been in around a decade, and home prices have seen a meteoric rise in recent years as well,” WalletHub analyst John Kiernan said in the report.

“Even small increases in home prices can lead to thousands of dollars in extra mortgage interest costs for homeowners, so it’s important to choose wisely when deciding where and when to buy a house.”

Comparing the 50 states based on proprietary data from the third quarter of 2025 to the fourth quarter, WalletHub found that the northernmost state, Alaska, added the most mortgage debt during that time frame, in percentage terms. The average balance there rose by 2.52 percent to $248,013.

Meanwhile, Alaska residents still carry significant mortgage balances in general, with average monthly payments of $2,078. Homeowners in Alaska are also saddled with relatively high property taxes. According to Redfin, the current median list price in Alaska is $465,000.

Delaware ranked second for the most added mortgage debt during the same period, showing a 2.51 percent increase to $210,542 for the average balance. A typical homeowner in Delaware spends nearly $1,689 per month in mortgage costs. Redfin lists the median home price in the state at $460,000.

The third-highest state for added mortgage debt goes to Maine, with average balances rising by 1.98 percent to an outstanding balance of $209,936. Average homeowners there pay about $1,723 each month toward their mortgage. Maine’s median home price stands at $390,300, as per Redfin.

Nevada and California complete the top five states with the highest mortgage debt increases. South Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Texas round out the top 10.

On the opposite side, the report indicates that  mortgage debt decreased in 19 states during the fourth quarter of 2025. Vermont ranked the lowest in the nation for mortgage debt, followed by North Dakota, West Virginia, New Mexico, and Kansas.

Earlier this year, WalletHub reported America’s total household debt, including mortgage payments, car loans, credit card debt, and other expenses, at $18.78 trillion, with an average debt per household at $155,594.

Kiernan noted that since mortgage rates have recently become a bit more favorable, those currently paying higher rates could consider refinancing as a way of lowering monthly costs. As of April 23, Freddie Mac reported the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 6.23 percent.

Other money-saving tips include making extra mortgage payments when possible to reduce total interest costs or switching to biweekly payments.

“This results in 26 half-payments per year instead of the usual 12,” Kiernan noted. “Over time, this can shave years off your mortgage term and save you money on interest.”

Finally, homeowners could consider putting unexpected windfalls such as tax refunds or work bonuses toward the mortgage payment, shortening the overall repayment period.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 11:20

Memory Stick Prices Refuse To Come Back To Earth

Apple CEO Tim Cook's warning during Thursday evening's earnings call about the deepening global memory shortage sent us back to review memory stick prices.

Let's review what Cook said…

"We believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business," Cook told analysts, while also warning about "supply constraints." He added, "We'll continue to evaluate this."

It wasn't just Cook warning about memory prices this week. Meta and Microsoft also noted in their earnings results that higher prices contributed to their elevated capital expenditures.

Memory makers Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix have all been racing to add new capacity as AI data centers absorb an ever-larger share of memory sticks, which are typically used in PCs and smartphones.

Comments from Cook and other Big Tech firms this week about the dire situation prompted us to check the latest prices amid the memory crunch.

Goldman analyst Kenta Kinuhata provided the most recent cost breakdown of memory prices.

Biggest changes:

• DRAM: 2026 price increase estimate jumped from about 150% to 250% to 280%. Supply tightness now extends into late 2026 and early 2027.

• NAND: 2026 price increase estimate jumped from about 100% to 200% to 250%. Like DRAM, supply is now expected to stay tighter for longer.

Pricing

Amazon price-tracking website CamelCamelCamel shows that pricing for the "G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series DDR5 RAM" was around $869 at the end of April. This is up from $149 in early September.

The big question is when does all this new memory capacity finally hit the market and relieve the supply crunch enough to make building trading desktops affordable again?

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 11:00

Three Fed Officials Explain Why They Dissented, Blasting Fed's "Easing Bias"

This morning, three Fed officials said they dissented over this week’s policy statement because it was no longer appropriate to signal the Fed’s next move was still likely to be an interest-rate cut.

“I believe the FOMC should offer a policy outlook that signals that the next rate change could be either a cut or a hike, depending on how the economy evolves,” Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari said in an essay released on Friday morning. “This could tighten financial conditions somewhat today, pushing back against a high-inflation scenario that could require an even stronger monetary policy response in the future.”

This week’s move marked the fifth dissent for Kashkari, formerly a vocal dove, who is currently one of the longest serving reserve bank president among the 12 regional leaders. His last vote against the majority of the committee was in 2020, when he opposed statement language that he saw as leaning too much toward rate hikes. In 2017, he dissented against each of the three interest rate increases that year.

In his essay, Kashkari laid out two scenarios in which the Middle East conflict could play out. If the Straight of Hormuz were to reopen fairly quickly, underlying inflation would likely be around 3% for a third straight year, pressuring consumers and perhaps the labor market as well. That would likely require the Fed to stay on hold for an extended period before lowering rates gradually, he said. If the conflict were to drag on, though, it would drive up both inflation and unemployment in the US. Given that inflation has been above the Fed’s target for five years, that could unmoor long-term inflation expectations and lead the Fed to raise interest rates in a bid to reverse that, he said. “Rate increases, potentially a series of them, could be warranted, even at the risk of further weakness to the labor market,” Kashkari said of that scenario.

Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack also released a statement in which she said the economy has been resilient so far this year and rising oil prices add to broad-based inflationary pressures.

“Uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased in 2026 and makes the future path for monetary policy more uncertain, as well,” she said adding that "inflation pressures continue to be broad based, and rising oil prices present an additional source of inflationary pressure. Uncertainty around the economic outlook is elevated, with upside risks to inflation and downside risks to growth and employment."

As a result she sees "did not believe it was appropriate to include an easing bias around the future path for monetary policy. The current FOMC statement references language around “additional adjustments.” This forward guidance was put into the statement to signal a pause rather than an end to the easing cycle. I see this clear easing bias as no longer appropriate given the outlook."

Hammack, who has been vocal about inflationary risks, dissented in December 2024 to oppose a quarter-point rate reduction.

Completing the trio of dissenters, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, former head of the NY Fed's markets team (also known as the PPT) said in her statement she’s increasingly concerned over how long it will take to return inflation to the Fed’s 2% target. She also said the Federal Open Market Committee’s policy guidance should reflect that the risks of the next move being a rate cut or a hike are evenly balanced. 

“The conflict in the Middle East raises the prospect of prolonged or repeated supply disruptions that could create further inflationary pressures,” Logan said in a statement released Friday. “It could plausibly be appropriate for the FOMC’s next rate change to be either an increase or a cut.”

It was the first dissent for Logan, who became the Dallas Fed president in 2022. Like Kashkari, she also pointed to the role of the Fed’s forward guidance in financial conditions and the economy, noting that the guidance itself is an important policy tool.

On Wednesday, Hammack, Kashkari and Logan - who have in the past expressed reservations about White House policy - supported the decision to hold interest rates steady, but opposed language in the statement that signaled the Fed was leaning toward resuming interest rate cuts.

The disagreement centered around a phrase in the statement referring to “the extent and timing of additional adjustments” to rates. Officials have kept their benchmark rate unchanged this year at a target range of 3.5% to 3.75% after three quarter-point rate reductions at the end of 2025. The language, which was left unchanged Wednesday, suggests the central bank's "bias" is to eventually resume cutting rates.

As Bloomberg notes, since January a growing number of officials have been urging their colleagues to tweak the statement to make it clear the Fed’s next policy move could possibly be a rate hike. Elevated fuel costs spurred higher by the war with Iran have raised worries that price pressures could spread and worsen already elevated inflation. 

Wednesday's FOMC 8-4 vote marked the first time since 1992 that four officials dissented against a Federal Open Market Committee action. Fed Governor Stephen Miran dissented in the opposite direction, preferring to lower rates by a quarter point. 

Kashkari, Logan and Hammack have all said since March that the conflict in the Middle East has added uncertainty to the economic outlook.   

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 10:40

Manufacturing ISM Misses As Prices Surge Most Since April 2022, Employment Slides To Worst Print Of 2026

Amid the fog of war and fading 'hard' data, the final April S&P Global Manufacturing PMI printed 54.5, a small gain from the flash 54.0 print, and higher than the 52.3 February final print, although it came with a warning from Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence:

“The surge in manufacturing activity in April is not the cause for cheer that at first glance it suggests. A key driving force behind the upturn is the need for companies to get ahead of further feared price rises and supply shortages, providing a short-term boost that could fade in the coming months as headwinds to the economy continue to build... employment has fallen as firms grow increasingly worried over the need to reduce cost overheads amid an environment of rising raw material prices, while selling prices have jumped higher as producers seek to protect their margins.

There was some good news: “More encouragingly, business expectations for output in the year ahead have improved, partly reflecting hopes that the US will be less affected by the war than previously feared, and less than other economies, as well as reduced concerns over the impact of tariffs given the recent Supreme Court ruling. However, some of these improved expectations of future production gains reflected a reaction to better than anticipated order book inflows in April, which may prove to be a chimera as the stock building boost fades.”

Shortly after, the ISM Manufacturing PMI published its April number which remained unchanged at 52.7, matching the highest since August 2022, and missing estimates of an increase to 53.2

However, a look under the hood reveals that like last month, there was continued deterioration in the core components: Under the hood, Prices Paid continued to rise dramatically while New Orders and Employment dipped again - another indication that stagflation remains the biggest risk for the economy.

• New Orders 54.1, missing expectations of 54.5
• Prices Paid 84.6, higher than expectations of 80.3
• Employment 46.4, missing expectations of48.8

As shown below, the New Orders Index expanded for the fourth straight month after four straight readings in contraction, registering 54.1 percent, up 0.6 percentage point compared to March’s figure of 53.5 percent. The April reading of the Production Index (53.4 percent) is 1.7 percentage points lower than March’s reading of 55.1 percent. The Prices Index remained in expansion (or ‘increasing’ territory), registering 84.6 percent, a 6.3-percentage point jump from March’s reading of 78.3 percent. In the last three months, the Prices Index has increased 25.6 percentage points to reach its highest level since April 2022 (84.6 percent). The Backlog of Orders Index registered 51.4 percent, down 3 percentage points compared to the 54.4 percent recorded in March. The Employment Index registered 46.4 percent, down 2.3 percentage points from March’s figure of 48.7 percent.

Some more details:

“In April, U.S. manufacturing activity remained in expansion territory, growing at the same pace as the month before. Of the five subindexes that make up the PMI®, the New Orders and Supplier Deliveries indexes indicated faster growth compared to the previous month, the Production Index grew at a slower rate, and the Employment and Inventories indexes remained in contraction.

“Two of four demand indicators (the New Orders and Backlog of Orders indexes) remain in expansion, although the Backlog of Orders Index dropped 3 percentage points compared to March. The New Export Orders Index remained in contraction with a 2-percentage point decrease, and the Customers’ Inventories Index remains in ‘too low’ territory, contracting at a slightly faster rate. A ‘too low’ status for the Customers’ Inventories Index is usually considered positive for future production.

“Regarding output, the Production Index is in expansion for the sixth month in a row (although it lost ground compared to March), and the Employment Index decreased by 2.3 percentage points and remains in contraction. Among panelists, 60 percent indicated that managing head counts remains the norm at their companies as opposed to hiring, and of those managing head counts, 34 percent are using layoffs and 43 percent using attrition or not backfilling positions.

“Finally, inputs (defined as supplier deliveries, inventories, prices, and imports) had another month of mixed results. The Supplier Deliveries Index indicated increasingly slowing deliveries, the Inventories Index contracted at a slower rate, and the Prices Index vaulted again — up another 6.3 percentage points to 84.6 percent, from 78.3 percent in March, and the highest reading from April 2022, when it was also at 84.6 percent. The Imports Index lost 2.3 percentage points for a reading of 50.3 percent, compared to 52.6 percent in March.

“Looking at the manufacturing economy, 19 percent of the sector’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted in April, compared to 16 percent in March, and the percentage of manufacturing GDP in strong contraction (defined as a composite PMI® of 45 percent or lower) decreased to 2 percent, compared to 4 percent in March. The share of sector GDP with a PMI® at or below 45 percent is a good metric to gauge overall manufacturing weakness. Of the six largest manufacturing industries, four (Transportation Equipment; Machinery; Computer & Electronic Products; and Chemical Products) expanded in April,” says Spence.

According to the report, “In April, U.S. manufacturing activity remained in expansion territory, growing at the same pace as the month before. Of the five subindexes that make up the PMI, the New Orders and Supplier Deliveries indexes indicated faster growth compared to the previous month, the Production Index grew at a slower rate, and the Employment and Inventories indexes remained in contraction."

Yet for all the rhetoric, what matters is that  prices continued to rise, surging to 84.6, the highest since April 2022 and approaching their 2021 record high, while employment shrank further into contraction, down to 46.4, the lowest print of 2026.

Furthermore, as expected the Iran war remains: “In this second month of the Iran War (at the time of data collection), 31 percent of the comments were positive and 69 percent negative, with a positive to negative sentiment ratio of 1 to 2.2. Among comments, the war was mentioned in 47 percent and tariffs in 18 percent. As was the case last month, some panelists referenced both topics within a single comment or in mixed sentiment."

Obviously, if the war persists and price pressures and supply delays accelerate, demand, employment and production capabilities will inevitably start to be even more adversely affected until the broader economy finally cracks. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 10:22