Tanaya Macheel / CNBC:
Crypto stocks jump after lawmakers struck a compromise on the CLARITY Act to preserve stablecoin rewards under certain conditions; Circle's stock closed up ~20%  —  Shares of Circle surged after lawmakers over the weekend struck a compromise on the market structure bill known as the CLARITY Act …

Last year, the SEC sued Elon Musk over the way his acquisition of Twitter (now X, and a part of SpaceX) started, and today it announced a settlement that looks like a massive bargain, while Musk's own lawsuit against Sam Altman continues to play out. A week before the Trump administration took over, the department […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is eyeing a new target in his effort to remodel DC. What’s happening? Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that Trump is […]

When Nvidia revealed its DLSS 5 AI tech, players criticized it for how it changed Resident Evil 9's Grace, which a dev viewed as a "positive."

The New York Times, back in March last year (gift link):

To win the artificial intelligence race, Google not only has developed its own technologies, but has also pumped money into prominent A.I. start-ups. And to preserve its competitive edge, Google has kept its ownership stakes in those start-ups a secret.

Court documents recently obtained by The New York Times reveal Google’s stake in one of those start-ups, Anthropic, as well as how its investment in the young company is set to change. Google owns 14 percent of Anthropic, according to legal filings that the A.I. start-up submitted as part of a Google antitrust case. But that investment gives Google little control over the company. The internet giant can own only up to 15 percent of Anthropic, according to the filings, and Google holds no voting rights, no board seats and no board observer rights at the start-up.

Still, Google is set to invest an additional $750 million in Anthropic in September through a type of loan known as convertible debt, according to the filings. The companies agreed to the convertible note in 2023. In total, Google has invested more than $3 billion in the A.I. company.

Anthropic’s latest funding round — a rare Series G — valued the company at $380 billion. So let’s say Google has invested $4 billion to date, and Anthropic really is worth $380 billion. Google’s slice of that would be worth a little north of $50 billion, quite the return on investment. And competitively, there’s a heads-they-win (with Gemini), tails-they-don’t-lose (with Claude) aspect. Maybe that’s not the best metaphor, since OpenAI would make it a three-sided coin, but still.

(Via today’s subscriber-only Stratechery update, where Ben Thompson noted this in the context of Google last week reporting a 30% increase in operating profit year-over-year, but an eye-popping 81% increase in overall profit. The difference was the growth in their investments, almost certainly Anthropic in particular.)