Opinion

• SpaceX-Anthropic-OpenAI Is a Cocktail With a Hangover
  That’s SpaceX out of the way. Next, investors will have to absorb the artificial-intelligence titans behind the Claude and ChatGPT chatbots, Anthropic PBC and OpenAI. It’s a heady cocktail for a market that isn’t used to swallowing initial public offerings of this size individually let alone in quick succession. How long will the aftereffects take to appear?
• AI Will Steal Your Motivation If You Let It
  The New York Times on Monday told the story of Sidharth Hariharan, a mathematics graduate student at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University who spent more than two years helping translate one of the past decade’s most celebrated proofs into a form a computer could check, a painstaking task called formalization. Earlier this year an artificial intelligence system called Gauss, built by the startup Math Inc., finished the job in five days. Hariharan rushed into his adviser’s office in tears. He a
• Trump’s War on Science Is Being Waged in the Fine Print
  A fresh attack on the US scientific infrastructure could be the most damaging yet.
• UFC at the White House Is Cringe. The Sport Isn’t
  Strange things frequently happen in the sport of mixed martial arts. But when the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s cage door closes this weekend, it will be stranger than most.
• Jim Clyburn Survived Redistricting, but the CBC May Be Decimated
  You can’t really think about South Carolina or national politics without thinking about Representative Jim Clyburn. First elected to Congress in 1992, Clyburn twice served as majority whip and had a big hand in rescuing Joe Biden’s flailing 2020 presidential campaign. His annual fish fry is a folksy, can’t-miss test for presidential hopefuls, like Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Representative Ro Khanna, who attended this year.
• SpaceX’s Critical Minerals Plan Runs Through China
  SpaceX’s ambition, to quote the ludicrously woo-woo language of its listing prospectus, is “to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.” To get to that ethereal end-state, however, it’s going to need to consume colossal quantities of hard physical stuff.
• It’s a Mistake for the US to Sanction China’s Biotech Giant
  The US should be doing all it can to preserve its lead in pharmaceutical innovation against a resurgent China. Instead, it’s punishing a company whose main business is helping American firms discover, test and commercialize their medical research.
• The US Needs Its Neighbors When Vehicles Cost $51,000
  The seemingly shallow rebranding of NAFTA as USMCA revealed, in retrospect, a deeper problem — one that now risks the industry at the heart of the trade deal: automobile manufacturing.
• This Isn’t the Soccer America Imagined
  It was easy to imagine a bright future for soccer in America in 1994. The US had just hosted a wildly successful World Cup, its first, and a professional league was on the way to carry the momentum forward. America’s biggest sports, from football to hockey, had all consolidated around a dominant league and a national audience. Why not soccer, too?
• America’s Politics Are Reaching Peak Paranoia
  One of the most striking things about contemporary America is the popularity of conspiracy theories. The list of absurd things that “everybody knows” gets ever longer. If you’re on the right, you “know” that the Deep State is subverting the administration of President Donald Trump; that the global elite is set on undermining American sovereignty; and that lockdown during Covid was a dry run for totalitarian rule. If you’re on the left, you “know” that Putin has “kompromat” on Trump, probably inv
• Keir Starmer Is Headed for a NATO Humiliation
  Three months ago Iran launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles toward the UK-controlled island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Neither reached its target: A US destroyer shot down one and the other broke up in flight. Yet the strike blew an enormous hole in the credibility of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s grandiose foreign and security policy.
• Ukraine Is Winning — for Now at Least
  In a moment of gloomy geopolitical news, Ukraine has become a bright spot. Kyiv is faring better on the battlefield than at any time in years. Russia’s costs are surging even as its military gains shrink. If Ukraine can sustain this trajectory, perhaps it can finally force Moscow to make a decent peace.
• LA Is Becoming the New Home of West Coast Progressivism
  President Donald Trump is nothing if not consistent when it comes to election results he doesn’t like. And so it has been with California: When the Republican running for Los Angeles mayor failed to advance in last week’s primary, Trump doubled down on baseless conspiracy theories about mail-in ballots.
• The Hottest Gen-Z Tech Trend? Anti-AI
  My favorite tech trend so far this year has nothing to do with artificial intelligence.
• An Anthropic-OpenAI Price War Would Be Brutal
  Things change fast in artificial intelligence. One minute corporate desk jockeys are competing to use AI coding and reasoning tools as much as possible, the next their bosses are complaining about budgets being pulverized and start rationing usage. Now OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman concedes that costs have become a “huge issue” for customers and he’s reportedly considering “drastically” cutting prices to rein in rival Anthropic PBC’s lead in the corporate market.
• The ECB Is Jumping at Old Inflation Shadows
  Policymakers at the European Central Bank have just increased their benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point to 2.25%, the first change in policy in a year. While widely anticipated, the decision threatens to tip a faltering economy into recession — especially if the current bout of price increases proves unsustainable and the European energy market remains as well behaved as it has since the war in Iran began.
• Jim Chanos Is Worth Hearing on SpaceX, Too
  SpaceX is finally joining the stock market on Friday and the hype machine has been in overdrive. Banks and brokers around the world have been plastering spaceships on their websites. More than $100 billion in orders have come in from retail investors. There are naysayers and critics balking at the valuation and governance risks, but index providers allowing early inclusion (with the exception of S&P) means about 30% of the free float is set to be owned by passive investors, regardless of the
• Hope for Britain and Europe, If Not Glory