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May 04, 2026
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Supported by
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Welcome back! The Pentagon signs classified AI deals with seven companies. GameStop makes a bid to buy eBay for $56 billion. The operator of the S&P 500 weighs new rules that could let SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI into the index more quickly after their potential IPOs.
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The U.S. Department of Defense has signed deals with seven AI companies to use their technology on classified networks, the agency said Friday. The AI providers include SpaceX’s xAI, OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and the AI startup Reflection, the Pentagon said. Those firms all agreed to let the Pentagon use their AI software for any “lawful operational use,” the Pentagon said. The deals with xAI, OpenAI, AWS, and Google were signed in recent months, The Information previously reported. The announcement comes after Anthropic declined to grant the Pentagon broad license to use its AI for “any lawful use” in classified settings. Anthropic asked for contractual carveouts that would prevent its AI from being used for domestic surveillance or to pilot autonomous drones, but the Pentagon balked, labeling Anthropic as a supply chain threat and banning its models from being used in Defense Department work. Anthropic has since sued to reverse the designation, arguing that it amounted to political retaliation.
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Video game retailer GameStop said Sunday that it had offered to buy e-commerce site eBay for $125 a share in cash and stock, a 20% increase from eBay’s share price Friday. The games retailer said it’s now built a 5% position in eBay, which it started to accumulate on February 4. GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen said in a letter to eBay’s chairman that he planned reduce eBay’s annualized costs by $2 billion in the first year, a move that would increase its earnings per share by 83%. The company said it had a $20 billion commitment from TD Securities to secure the debt
financing. Cohen told The Wall Street Journal that it eBay didn’t accept the proposal, he was willing to wage a proxy fight. Cohen, who took the helm of GameStop in late 2023, said in January that he was searching for potential acquisition targets in the retail sector to expand its own business beyond selling games in stores—an idea some of its prominent shareholders, including Michael Burry, have encouraged. After the Wall Street Journal first reported on Cohen’s plans Friday, GameStop’s shares rose 6% and eBay’s shares jumped 13%. GameStop is trying to swallow a much larger company, however. EBay’s enterprise value was just under $50 billion at the end of the trading day on Friday, a figure that incorporates the company’s $4 billion or so in cash on hand and subtracts its outstanding debt of $7 billion. GameStop, in comparison, is worth just $7
billion, even after factoring in its $9 billion cash pile. EBay’s revenue rose 8% to $11 billion in 2025. GameStop, which made $3.6 billion in revenue in the year to January, has been struggling with declining sales growth for the last several years.
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S&P Dow Jones Indices, the index provider behind the S&P 500, said Friday it would consult with market participants to determine whether it should eventually let large stocks into indexes more quickly after their initial public offerings than current rules allow. The rule change could provide a big boost to demand for shares in the eventual IPOs of SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI. Under the proposed rule change, a company only needs to be public for six months, rather than 12 months, before being eligible to enter its indexes. Index and exchange-traded funds tracking these indexes represent trillions of dollars in investments. Mega-cap companies would also be exempt from financial viability criteria requiring them to be profitable before being included in S&P indexes. That’s significant since neither of the
three companies expected to hold large IPOs in the next year are profitable. The index provider defines mega-cap companies as the top 100 companies by market capitalization and they typically have at least $100 billion in market capitalization. The consultation period is open until May 28 and any changes would be adopted prior to the market open on June 8. SpaceX is expected to go public in mid-June and targets raising $75 billion at a valuation above $1 trillion. Nasdaq said last month it was changing its rules to allow large companies to join the Nasdaq 100 just 15 days after their IPO. The change is set to go into effect Friday.
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Anthropic is close to sealing the creation of a joint venture with private equity firms to sell its AI to the PE firms’ customers, the Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday, confirming earlier reporting by The Information. Anthropic, Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman are each expected to invest about $300 million, while Goldman Sachs will put in $150 million, the newspaper said. General Atlantic and other firms are also expected to participate. The funds, totalling $1.5 billion, will set up a new venture to use technical consultants to help companies
integrate AI, the report said. Tech companies including OpenAI and Salesforce are also using such consultants to help customers use AI, in an effort to accelerate adoption of their agents and other services.
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Elon Musk messaged OpenAI president Greg Brockman to gauge his interest in a possible settlement of Musk’s lawsuit against him a couple days before the trial began, according to a document that OpenAI’s lawyers filed with the court on Sunday night. Musk sent his message on or about April 25, two days before the trial began. Brockman responded that both sides could drop their legal claims against each other. Musk replied: “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be.” Musk is suing OpenAI, as well as Brockman and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, claiming they breached a charitable trust and unjustly enriched themselves. Brockman is set to begin testifying on Monday, and OpenAI’s lawyers filed their document arguing that the court should allow them to question
Brockman about the exchange. Musk’s message is the first known instance of talks related to a settlement in the case. The details of Musk’s proposal are not known, including whether the potential settlement would relate only to Brockman or all the defendants. The Information previously reported that people close to both Musk and OpenAI executives have been trying to convince the parties to settle by agreeing to give Musk a piece of the OpenAI foundation.
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