Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei confirmed that the U.S. government declared his company a supply chain risk on Thursday and said it has “no choice” but to challenge the designation in court.

The startup has been at odds with the Department of Defense over how its artificial intelligence models, known as Claude, can be used, and was told late last week, via social media posts, that it was being blacklisted from government contracts.

Anthropic sought assurance that its technology would not be tapped for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance, but the DOD wanted Anthropic to grant the agency unfettered access to Claude across all lawful purposes.

“As we stated last Friday, we do not believe, and have never believed, that it is the role of Anthropic or any private company to be involved in operational decision-making—that is the role of the military,” Amodei wrote. “Our only concerns have been our exceptions on fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance, which relate to high-level usage areas, and not operational decision-making.”

Anthropic is the only American company ever to be publicly named a supply chain risk, and the designation, which is now official, will require defense vendors and contractors to certify that they don’t use the company’s models in their work with the Pentagon. The label has typically been reserved for organizations that operate within foreign adversaries, like Chinese tech company Huawei. 

Uncertainty remains as to whether defense contractors can use Anthropic’s technology for projects outside of their work with the military. Amodei said in his post that the designation “doesn’t (and can’t) limit uses of Claude or business relationships with Anthropic if those are unrelated to their specific Department of War contracts.”

Microsoft, which announced plans to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic in November, said in a statement that its lawyers “studied the designation” and determined that Anthropic products can remain available to its customers other than the DOD.

Anthropic signed a $200 million contract with the DOD in July, and it was the first AI lab to integrate its models into mission workflows on classified networks. But as negotiations between the two sides stalled, rivals OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI also agreed to deploy their models in classified capacities.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced his company’s deal with the DOD hours after Anthropic was blacklisted on Friday. He said in a post on X that the agency displayed a “deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.”

Anthropic’s relationship with the Trump administration has grown increasingly tense in recent months, and Amodei apologized for a critical internal memo that was leaked to the press on Wednesday.

Amodei reportedly told staffers that the administration doesn’t like Anthropic because it hasn’t donated or offered “dictator-style praise to Trump,” according to a report from The Information.

He said the memo was written on Friday after a “difficult day for the company” and does not reflect his “careful or considered views.” Amodei added that it is an “out-of-date assessment of the current situation.”

“Anthropic did not leak this post nor direct anyone else to do so—it is not in our interest to escalate this situation,” Amodei wrote.

WATCH: Sec. Pete Hegseth directs Pentagon to designate Anthropic supply-chain risk to national security

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed an amicus brief in federal court on Tuesday to assert the agency’s right to enforce prediction markets instead of individual states, according to its new chairman, Michael Selig.

Selig argued in a Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed that the CFTC has always had authority over prediction markets and determining whether the event contracts constitute gambling, as critics allege. Selig noted nearly 50 active legal cases against prediction markets and said the CFTC would be stepping in to prevent state encroachment.

“The CFTC will no longer sit idly by while overzealous state governments undermine the agency’s exclusive jurisdiction over these markets by seeking to establish statewide prohibitions on these exciting products,” he wrote.

The move comes as prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket face legal challenges in multiple states over event contracts. The platforms allow users to bet on the outcomes of events in pop culture, sports, entertainment and more.

Critics of prediction markets have argued that the offerings amount to little more than gambling, though Kalshi has defended its platform and argued that it abides by federal regulations. Sports betting on the prediction platforms has drawn comparisons to legalized sports betting in the U.S.

In his first public comments as CFTC chairman at the end of January, Selig said he was prepared to draft new, clear rules to govern prediction markets and revisit the agency’s rules on involvement in federal and circuit court cases.

“Where jurisdictional questions are at issue, the Commission has the expertise and responsibility to defend its exclusive jurisdiction over commodity derivatives,” he said at the time.

In his Monday op-ed, Selig said event contracts “serve legitimate economic functions” and operate under CFTC rules as “swaps” rather than gambling. He also posited that trading on event contracts is beneficial for the market and for Americans at large.

“These exchanges aren’t the Wild West, as some critics claim, but self-regulatory organizations that are examined and supervised by experienced CFTC staff,” Selig wrote.

In a Tuesday video posted to X, Selig said his message to those who challenge the CFTC’s authority is clear: “We will see you in court.”

“Today, the CFTC is taking an important step to ensure that these markets have a place here in America and have the integrity and resilience and vibrancy that our derivative markets deserve,” he said.

Selig said the amicus brief would be filed in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Crypto.com in its dispute with the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

CNBC could not verify that the amicus brief had been filed.

Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes a CNBC minority investment.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a narrow technology trade. It is reshaping energy markets, infrastructure spending, and portfolio construction. Investors who focus only on chips and software risk missing where the next phase of value is occurring, according to investing experts on this week’s episode of CNBC’s “ETF Edge.”

Some of the trends and innovations driving the market, and the rapid scaling of companies, are tied to AI’s physical requirements. Power, cooling, grid stability, and data center efficiency have become binding constraints. Just look at the stock price of Bloom Energy, which for years after its 2018 IPO struggled to eke out a return above its IPO price. Since last year, when its onsite fuel cells began being ordered furiously for data centers, Bloom has seen its shares shoot up over 500% and the company reached a market cap above $30 billion.

Many opportunities are being created in small- and mid-cap companies for investors. Firms that once sat outside the market’s focus are now “very quickly moving up the cap table,” TCW Group global head of distribution Jennifer Grancio said on “ETF Edge” on Monday. In many cases, these companies operate in narrow segments with limited competition, allowing fundamentals to improve faster than investor awareness.

Energy reliability is the central issue. In recent years, as the cost of renewable energy sources came down and became competitive with fossil fuel sources, the market debated “How much regularity could we get out of wind, or could we get out of solar?” Grancio said. But AI has shifted the conversation since data centers cannot tolerate intermittency, requiring a constant supply of power to avoid unintended downtime.

That reality has driven “a huge shift towards nuclear,” according to Grancio, including renewed investment in servicing existing plants and developing small modular reactors. These projects are spawning new suppliers and accelerating growth for specialized players that sit upstream of utilities and hyperscalers.

Nuclear power ETFs

1. First Trust Bloomberg Nuclear Power ETF (RCTR)
2. VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR)
3. Themes Uranium & Nuclear ETF (URAN)
4. Range Nuclear Renaissance Index ETF (NUKZ)
5. Global X Uranium ETF (URA)

Efficiency inside the data center is equally critical. As AI workloads expand, cooling and power management have become the chokepoints. Investors are increasingly drawn to companies that are “one or two in their field” and “the best at a certain technology” particularly where alternatives are limited, Grancio said.

The structure of these markets matters. In some cases, there are “only a few providers” bordering on oligopolies, Grancio said. That concentration creates operating leverage, but it also means missteps can be costly.

Actively managed ETFs are gaining traction as a result. While passive indices can capture broad market returns and the indexes do add new companies as components as they scale, active strategies aim to identify them earlier and hold them through multiple phases of growth.

But the risks can be significant. Some parts of the AI-powered ecosystems include “small, financially weak companies” that are leveraged to electricity demand, VanEck CEO Jan van Eck. “That also means you get a lot of volatility along the way,” he said on “ETF Edge.”

As a result, he said no single AI theme should dominate an investor’s asset allocation. “You don’t want to overweight them in your portfolio,” Van Eck said.

He described Van Eck’s nuclear ETF as having traded at “nosebleed levels” last year before it came down to a more reasonable entry point for new investors.

The ETF experts said that as investors bring the AI theme into their portfolio construction in a more targeted way in 2026, active rebalancing and clear risk expectations will allow investors to stay invested without chasing peaks or panicking at drawdowns.

A wave of defense tech startups in Silicon Valley is drawing billions in funding and reshaping America’s national security.

Anduril Industries, recently valued at $30.5 billion following its latest funding round, is among the so-called “neoprimes” — companies challenging the dominance of legacy contractors, dubbed “primes,” such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, and RTX (formerly Raytheon).

“There’s more money than ever going to what we call the ‘neoprimes'” Jameson Darby, co-founder and director of autonomy at investment syndicate MilVet Angels, or MVA, told CNBC. “It’s still a fraction of the overall budget, but the trend is all positive.”

Other examples of defense tech startups challenging the incumbents include SpaceX and Palantir Technologies, said Darby, who is also a founding member of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit.

Unlike the primes, these startups are faster, leaner and software-first — with many of them building things that can help close “critical technology gaps that are really important to national security,” said Ernestine Fu Mak, co-founder of MVA and founder of Brave Capital, a venture capital firm.

Venture funding for U.S.-based defense tech startups totaled about $38 billion through the first half of 2025, and could exceed its 2021 peak if the pace remains constant for the rest of the year, according to JPMorgan.

As the global war landscape changed over the past decades, the U.S. Department of Defense has identified several technologies that are critical to national security, including hypersonics, energy resilience, space technology, integrated sensing and cyber.

“In a post-9/11 world, the entire Department of Defense effectively focused on … the global war on terrorism. It was our military versus insurgents, guerrillas, asymmetric warfare, relatively low-tech fighters in most cases,” said Darby.

But war today is more focused on “great power competition,” said Mak.

“The focus is more on deterring and competing with [adversaries] in these very high-tech, multi-domain conflicts,” Mak added. “The battlefield is changing and new technologies are needed… warfare no longer being limited to land, sea, air. There’s also cyber and space domains that have become contested.”

Today, some of these Silicon Valley “neoprimes” are developing not just weapons, but also dual-use technologies that can be applied both commercially and by militaries.

“So things like artificial intelligence and autonomy have broad, sweeping commercial applications, but they’re also clearly a force multiplier in a military context,” said Darby. “[The] Department of War is rapidly assessing and adopting these dual-use technologies … they’re sending signals to the investment world, to the defense industrial base, that the U.S. government needs these things.”

That direction from the government has, in turn, provided a clear and strategic roadmap for both investors and entrepreneurs, said Mak.

Today, Mak says the syndicate’s roughly 250 members include tech founders, Wall Street financiers, company executives, intelligence officials, former military leaders and Navy SEALs. Together, they’ve invested in companies like Anduril Industries, Shield AI, Hermeus, Ursa Major and Aetherflux.

“Overall, we believe that ‘neoprimes’ cannot exist in the abstract. They require people — individuals who bring technical expertise, who carry a deep sense of mission, and who contribute complementary voices and talents. Together, this coalition forms what we are convening and calling the ‘new guard,'” said Mak.

She added that modern national security requires both the “warrior’s insight on the battlefield” and the “builder’s drive for innovation”.

“Working together with engaged, informed patriots whose participation strengthens our defense ecosystem and reinforces the very fabric of national security,” Mak said.

Mak and Darby both agree that as new technologies develop and make their way onto battlefields globally, it’s changing the way militaries fight, which can also pose new threats.

“You’re seeing these technologists, these builders … building defense tech, and the reason why they’re doing so, is not to initiate conflict, but rather to create a credible deterrent that discourages aggression,” said Mak.

“No one in defense tech is looking to wage war, rather, it’s looking to deter it and wanting adversaries to think twice before threatening peace and stability,” Mak added.

OpenAI has announced it is developing an AI-centered jobs platform as part of broader efforts to expand AI literacy, and as the company grows its consumer and business-facing AI applications.

The ChatGPT maker’s “OpenAI Jobs Platform” will utilize AI to help connect qualified job candidates to companies, which could put it in competition with Microsoft’s LinkedIn. 

OpenAI and Microsoft have an uneasy partnership, with Microsoft formally labeling the AI startup as a competitor in search and news advertising in its annual filing last year. Microsoft is OpenAI’s biggest investor, having reportedly poured $13 billion in the company.

The news was announced by Fidji Simo, chief executive officer of applications and the former head of Instacart, in a blog post on Thursday. 

“Importantly, the jobs platform won’t just be a way for big companies to attract more talent. It will have a track dedicated to helping local businesses compete, and local governments find the AI talent they need to better serve their constituents,” Simo said.

She didn’t elaborate further on details regarding the platform, but a company spokesperson told TechCrunch that it expects to launch the service by mid-2026. 

Additionally, OpenAI will introduce a new certification program in connection with its “OpenAI Academy,” an online learning platform that teaches workers how to use AI on the job better. This could also put it in competition with LinkedIn’s learning platform, which also offers video courses across business, technology and creative fields, with certifications.

“[W]e’re going to expand the Academy by offering certifications for different levels of AI fluency, from the basics of using AI at work all the way up to AI-custom jobs and prompt engineering,” Simo said, adding that the program will utilize ChatGPT’s Study mode. The study feature turns the chatbot into a teacher that questions, hints and provides feedback, instead of giving direct answers.

Organizations will be able to make the certificate part of their own learning and development programs, with OpenAI already working with Walmart, the largest private employer in the U.S. OpenAI said it plans to certify 10 million Americans by 2030.

The plans come amid fears about how AI is impacting the labor market. Business leaders like Salesforce’s Marc Benioff have recently announced layoffs due to AI, while new studies have linked the technology to mass job loss for certain workers.  

Simo acknowledged the “disruptive” force of AI in her post, saying jobs and companies will look different and need to adapt. 

“[W]hat we can do is help more people become fluent in AI and connect them with companies that need their skills, to give people more economic opportunities. 

Recent research from labor market data company Lightcast found that roles that require AI skills pay higher salaries on average than those that don’t. 

The new initiatives were also said to come as part of OpenAI’s “commitment to the White House’s efforts toward expanding AI literacy.” 

The company has been strengthening ties with Washington, launching a new offering called OpenAI for Government on June 16, the same day it was awarded a contract of up to $200 million by the U.S. Department of Defense. OpenAI is also part of the $500 billion Stargate project, which aims to invest in AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was part of a group of tech leaders that met with U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday to discuss topics including the development of artificial intelligence. 

Before the dinner, first lady Melania Trump made a speech highlighting the importance of AI in education and American progress, but that “we must manage AI’s growth responsibly.”

Honor on Wednesday touted the slimness and battery capacity of its newly launched thin foldable phone, as it lays down a fresh challenge to market leader Samsung.

The Honor Magic V5 goes will initially go on sale in China, but the Chinese tech firm will likely bring the device to international markets later this year.

The company, which spun off from Chinese tech giant Huawei in 2020, is looking to stand out from rivals with key features of the Magic V5, like artificial intelligence, battery and size.

Honor said the Magic V5 is 8.8 mm to 9mm when folded, depending on the color choice. The phone’s predecessor, the Magic V3 — Honor skipped the Magic V4 name — was 9.2 mm when folded. Honor said the Magic V5 weighs 217 grams to 222 grams, again, depending on the color model. The previous version was 226 grams.

In China, Honor will launch a special 1 terabyte storage size version of the Magic V5, which it says will have a battery capacity of more than 6000 milliampere-hour — among the highest for foldable phones.

Honor has tried hard to tout these features, as competition in foldables ramps up, even as these types of devices have a very small share of the overall smartphone market.