Washington Moves Against Anthropic
The day's dominant story is an escalating clash between the Trump administration and AI safety firm Anthropic. The US government has moved to restrict access to Anthropic's newest models — Fable 5 and Claude — reportedly giving the company just 90 minutes' warning before the cutoff, according to The New York Times. The abruptness threw the high-profile company into confusion.
The dispute has since spilled fully into public view. WIRED reports that administration officials are demanding 'unbreakable guardrails' as a condition before Anthropic can rerelease Fable 5. Meanwhile, PYMNTS.com describes a high-stakes standoff involving the Commerce Department, export restrictions, and even criminal threats — paired, paradoxically, with a surge in sales for the embattled model. It's a striking collision between regulatory pressure and commercial demand.
Separately, Anthropic abruptly halted a planned shift to token-based billing for its Claude Agent SDK, reversing the pricier pricing model just as it was set to take effect on June 1. The walk-back suggests a company managing turbulence on multiple fronts at once.
AI's Power Brokers Sit at the G7 Table
While Washington squeezed, the industry's leaders were rubbing shoulders with heads of state. OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei both turned up at President Trump's G7 summit, a rare gathering that put America's AI chiefs in the same room as world leaders to debate how the technology should be governed — and who should control it, per Bloomberg and others.
Nvidia's Jensen Huang struck a philosophical note, arguing that society 'has no choice' but to adapt to AI and must develop 'new social norms' to cope. He also pushed back on automation fears, betting that AI will create jobs rather than destroy them — pointing to a new chip factory in Texas as living proof.
A $60 Billion Bet on AI Coding
In the day's biggest deal, SpaceX agreed to acquire Anysphere — maker of the popular AI coding assistant Cursor — in an all-stock transaction valuing the startup at $60 billion, according to MSN, The Verge, and others. The eye-watering price tag underscores how central AI coding tools have become to the industry's ambitions.
The Money and the Mood
Not all the financial news was rosy. Leaked documents reviewed by Benzinga reveal OpenAI is burning through billions far faster than it earns, losing money at a staggering pace even as revenue surges — a reminder that soaring valuations rest on shaky economics.
The public, for its part, isn't sold. A new Pew Research study cited by TechCrunch found just 16 percent of Americans believe AI will make society better, a stark gap between Wall Street's enthusiasm and Main Street's skepticism.
Lighter Fare
Finally, Nvidia's long-promised AI teammate has gone live: the ACE-powered 'PUBG Ally' is now playable in the battle royale shooter PUBG, per Wccftech — a small but tangible glimpse of AI showing up in everyday entertainment, even as the bigger fights play out in Washington and at the G7.