CNBC confirmed yesterday that Microsoft is in discussions to provide custom artificial intelligence chips to Anthropic. The potential agreement — which would follow Microsoft’s $5 billion investment in the AI startup announced in November — would mark a major win for Microsoft as it competes with cloud rivals Amazon and Google.

Here’s what else is going on in the AI race:

Stellantis unveiled a new five-year plan yesterday that involves nearly $70 billion in investment. The carmaker is aiming to have positive free cash flow by next year.

As CNBC’s Michael Wayland reports, the Jeep parent expects to introduce more than 60 new vehicles and update 50 models under the plan, which it dubbed “FaSTLAne 2030.” That list of new releases includes crossovers under the Chrysler brand, which currently only produces minivans.

Stellantis is targeting 35% sales growth in North America by 2030, driven by 60% growth in Chrysler and Ram Trucks. Speaking at a press conference following the company’s investor day, CEO Antonio Filosa also said he sees potential to bring Chinese-branded cars to Mexico and Canada — but not the U.S.

Republican blowback to Trump’s $1.8 billion “lawfare” fund held up the Senate’s plans to consider a Department of Homeland Security funding package yesterday. Lawmakers will now leave Washington and miss the president’s arbitrary June 1 deadline for passing the legislation.

The change in plans came after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Republican senators yesterday over the controversial “anti-weaponization” fund, apparently failing to soothe concerns within the president’s party.

In a statement obtained by MS NOW, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called the fund “utterly stupid” and “morally wrong.”

State and federal governments are at odds over who can regulate prediction markets. As CNBC’s Davis Giangiulio reports, that’s led to a high-stakes battle playing out in courtrooms.

Regulators in 16 states have entered into legal proceedings involving prediction markets. But the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sued some states to defend what it sees as its “exclusive jurisdiction” to oversee the platforms

Lawmakers are also trying to rein in prediction markets. House Oversight Chair James Comer told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” this morning that he is launching an investigation into insider trading on Kalshi and Polymarket.

Make room, SpaceX and OpenAI: Oura is also looking to ride the IPO wave. The smart ring maker said yesterday that it confidentially filed a draft of its prospectus with regulators.

The company did not specific a timeline for going public, saying its debut would follow the Securities and Exchange Commission review and could be impacted by market conditions.

Oura is on pace to break the five-million paid member mark this quarter, which would reflect a fourfold increase over the last two years. The company, whose smart ring tracks wearers’ health and sleep, was valued at $11 billion in October.

Here are some stories to bookmark for the long weekend:

— CNBC’s Jordan Novet, Samantha Subin, CJ Haddad, Kevin Breuninger, Tobias Burns, Michael Wayland, Justin Papp, Dan Mangan, Davis Giangiulio and Ian Thomas contributed to this report.

Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.

Chrysler is often credited with inventing the minivan, or at least mainstreaming it in the United States in the early 1980s. Rivals followed, but many have since abandoned it.

Since the 1990s, minivans have steadily lost ground to SUVs, which are considered sportier and more adventurous. Minivan sales were a mere 1.7% of the market in 2017, according to Edmunds. In 2025, they were up to 2.4%.

Sales numbers from Chrysler and its few competitors in this segment indicate growing interest in the adaptive and often affordable “multipurpose vehicle,” as the minivan is sometimes called. The average transaction price for a large SUV is $77,215, according to Edmunds. The average minivan price, meanwhile, is  $48,269 — just above the overall industry average cost for a new vehicle of $48,402.

There is enough demand that Chrysler saw fit to unveil a new highest-end version of its minivan at the Auto Show, called the Pinnacle. The vehicle is full of features common in higher-end family vehicles, like screens on the backs of seats so passengers in a rear row can watch movies on a road trip. But there are also some perks that are tough to find outside the segment: both second and third row seats on some versions can be completely stowed in the floor, for example. 

Companies like Chrysler are also trying to look beyond the “family hauler” identity the minivan has had for much of its history. Its Grizzly Peak concept has knobby tires and a roof rack, for a more rugged option and McAlear said the company was thinking about how to do more of that. 

“We’re looking at it,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out if there’s a way to do it because people love it. And it is unlike anything you’ve ever seen from a minivan brand before.”

McAlear also touted the van’s storage capacity compared with similar vehicles.

“I’ve got a friend that’s a racecar driver,” he said. “One of his favorite things about this is he puts a shifter kart in the backseat with the third row down, with his kids so he can keep it safe and doesn’t have to have a trailer. Another buddy of mine loves kiteboarding, and he doesn’t want to put it on the top because it’s hard to get it up and down. It’s hard to keep it secure and safe. He keeps it inside.”

Pacifica sales were only up slightly in 2025. The affordable Voyager model, which the brand has since renamed the Pacifica LX, sells in lower quantities but saw a bigger jump. Pacifica sales were down for the first quarter of 2026, but Chrysler said they were up nearly 84% in March year over year. 

There are only a handful of vehicles in this segment in the U.S., or five basic model lines including the electric Volkswagen ID Buzz, which VW prefers not to call a minivan. 

Toyota Sienna sales jumped 35% in 2025, and were up again in the first quarter of 2026. It’s nowhere near Toyota’s best-selling vehicle, and many models — some of which were new ones or refreshes — saw greater increase. Toyota’s Japanese rival Honda saw sales of its Odyssey jump 10% last year. But they dipped in the first quarter of 2026. 

One especially successful model has been the Kia Carnival. Volumes rose in 2025 and in the first quarter of 2026. It still doesn’t match Kia’s comparable SUVs, as minivan sales are just a few thousand shy of the three-row Sorento, but far below the popular, more rugged Telluride. 

“Carnival is just a great family, practical vehicle,” said Eric Watson, vice president of sales operations for Kia America. “I think in the stage of life when people have kids and want those power sliding doors and the configuration of what that vehicle provides, it’s perfect in that life stage.”

Kia was one of the later entrants into the segment, and though it has the sliding rear door that defines the minivan segment, the body panel on it is punched into give the illusion the vehicle is an SUV. 

“I think that attracts a lot of people and lowers that stigma of being a minivan family,” Watson said.

But some are attracted to the segment itself. While the Chrysler Pinnacle starts above $56,000, the lowest priced LX, starts just above $41,000.

“We’re actually seeing a resurgence,” McAlear said. “At the end of the day, these things make life easier and you don’t always have to impress everybody.”

Iranian attacks on infrastructure, including airports in the Middle East, have seen global air freight capacity take a hit. Many cargo planes flying from Asia to Europe would previously travel through airspace in the Middle East or stop to refuel at hubs in the region. 

That means that more carriers are flying direct and having to cut the amount of cargo they’re holding to make room for extra fuel, which can mean a cut to payload, Krikken said. Jet fuel makes up 50% of airline operating costs, Krikken said, and that is surging in price as the cost of oil spikes.

As a result, buyers looking to import goods from Asia to Europe are having to pay premium costs for delivery. 

While air freight shipments for semiconductors have continued for German automotive supplier ZF, it’s paying more to maintain supply chains, a spokesperson told CNBC.

While those importing higher value products, including the most advanced chips and other tech products, are absorbing those costs, companies buying lower value commodities are more likely to dip into inventory stores in the hopes that the cost of shipping by air will fall in the near future, said Krikken.

“Within tech, there’s a very broad spectrum, right from chips that are worth pennies compared to high-end chips and data racks that are worth millions of dollars,” he told CNBC. “So the lower the value, the higher the impact.”

Some European chip foundry companies, automotive original manufacturers and contract manufacturers have experienced delays in deliveries of semiconductors, Razat Gaurav, CEO at supply chain software platform Kinaxis, told CNBC.

Many customers buying these chips have inventories that can be anywhere from a week to months-long, depending on the business, he added. 

Supply chains and inventory stocks have been bolstered since a Covid-induced chip shortage.

“A lot of the shippers adjusted their supply chains so they keep higher inventory levels” post-Covid, said Krikken, adding many companies moved to diversify the providers of these chips.

“We currently do not see any impact on our production,” a Volkswagen spokesperson told CNBC, adding that the company is “closely monitoring” its supply chain and at present sees no indication of bottlenecks.

Companies are “actively stress-testing semiconductor flows as disruptions to critical routes like the Strait of Hormuz and the airport in Dubai ripple through global supply chains,” Gaurav said. 

“What shows up [are] fare disruptions in flows from Asia to the Middle East and Europe, depleting levels of buffer inventory and increased logistics costs as organizations evaluate supplier exposure, reroute shipments and rebalance inventory in real time.”

Stellantis and other automakers invested billions of dollars in recent years to develop all-electric vehicles to meet federal regulations and unsubstantiated consumer demand, but most have pulled back on those investments and are eyeing hybrids to increase the fuel economy of vehicles and meet customers’ expectations.

Stellantis last month disclosed $26 billion in charges related to its EV plans, while its crosstown Detroit rivals also have announced write-downs. Ford Motor said it would record $19.5 billion in special charges as it pulls back on EV plans, while General Motors said its write-down would be $7.6 billion due to its EV changes.

Peter Tadros, president of Bosch’s North America power solutions, said the auto supplier has received an influx of inquiries into its hybrid systems as automakers look to pivot away from EVs and get to market quickly, with a reliable system and partner.

“There’s definitely a very big interest in these systems,” he told CNBC. “What’s been very apparent over the last few years is hybrid sales have increased regardless of what’s in the regulations, regardless of the political leaning. It’s been a consistent increase in the market.”

Led by Toyota, sales of hybrids in the U.S. have increased from 7.3% of the market in 2023 to 12.6% last year, according to S&P Global Mobility. That compares with sales of all-electric vehicles during that time rising from 7.5% to 8%. 

S&P Global Mobility expects hybrid electric vehicles to account for 18.4% of U.S. sales this year, while all-electric vehicles are forecast to be 7.1%.

Tadros declined to comment on any relationship with Stellantis, citing company policies, but said it’s common for Bosch to work closely and partner with automakers to launch new vehicles and products.

“There is no one silver bullet, and everybody’s coming at it from a different direction,” he said. “It depends on each [automaker], where their strength, where their capital equipment, is and how they best utilize it, and this is their starting point.”

Bosch offers what the industry refers to as “off the shelf” components, which the company then integrates with each automaker’s particular use case. Other than EREV, Bosch also offers components for more traditional hybrids as well as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that operate similar to EREVs but drive more like traditional gas-powered vehicles rather than EVs.

GM remains a wild card for this year’s game, as the only automaker to not prerelease its ad. The Detroit automaker is using the Super Bowl to launch its Cadillac F1 team, including revealing the look of its first livery car to a national audience.

The automaker last month showed a design prototype of the vehicle in Detroit, including at the city’s auto show, but it has not released any information about the commercial.

Toyota, the NFL’s official automotive partner, is expected to air two 30-second ads focused on family connections.

One called “Superhero Belt” shows a grandson and a grandfather switching roles over the years and telling each other to secure their seatbelts. The other has not been released.

Volkswagen’s ad resurrects the automaker’s well-known 1990s campaign for a new generation of customers, as part of a marketing drive called “The Great Invitation: Drivers Wanted.”

The new campaign, including a 30-second Super Bowl spot, features many of the automaker’s vehicles being driven around to House of Pain’s 1992 hit “Jump Around.”

— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report.

Disclosure: CNBC parent Versant is carrying NBC Sports-produced Olympic coverage on its networks, including USA Network and CNBC.