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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, May 5th, and this is your FT News Briefing. The U.S.-Iran ceasefire is more fragile than ever, and Anthropic is boasting a new partnership with Wall Street. Plus, Josh DeMauro is less than two months into his new gig as Disney CEO, and boy, has it been eventful.
A lot of people say he's actually quite similar to Bob Iger. That being said, even Bob Iger, he struggled quite a bit with how to handle Trump, with how to handle these political issues.
I'm Mark Filippino, and here's the news you need to start your day. The U.S. military says it traded fire with Tehran near the critical Strait of Hormuz yesterday.
Chapter 2: What recent events have escalated tensions in the Strait of Hormuz?
A fifth of the world's oil used to flow through the strait. But since the war started at the end of February, it's effectively been shut and oil tankers have been stuck. U.S. President Donald Trump started a plan on Monday to help guide tankers out of the strait. Iran, however, said it would attack any naval vessels that tried. It says it launched missiles and drones yesterday at the U.S.
Navy in order to defend its own ships. The Strait isn't the only place in the field of fire either. The UAE said it intercepted several missiles and drones launched from Iran yesterday, one sparked a fire at a major petrochemical site. The escalation sent Brent crude to as much as $115 a barrel. AI giant Anthropic is teaming up with some of Wall Street's biggest companies.
On Monday, Anthropic announced a new joint venture with the likes of Blackstone and Goldman Sachs. The new consulting business will deploy Anthropic's tools across their investment portfolios, and some are saying this could speed up the adoption of AI all around. Ryan McMurrow is our West Coast finance correspondent. He's been covering this story for us in San Francisco. Hi, Ryan. Hi there.
Thanks for having me on. Good to have you. So tell me more about this joint venture that Anthropic has announced.
Yeah, so Anthropic, the AI startup, has really paired up with all the big names in private equity, or many of them, to form a new company that's essentially going to be trying to infuse AI into all of their portfolio companies and maybe some other mid-sized businesses in the US. So they've all put in a good chunk of money, $1.5 billion altogether,
And they're basically going to be sending anthropic engineers into mid-sized businesses to try to help them get started with the AI transformation.
Right. So you got Blackstone and Goldman Sachs basically going in and sending engineers to spread the gospel of AI to software companies that they have a huge stake in. What's the big idea here for both private equity and Anthropic?
Well, for the P companies, there's this fear that all their portfolio companies are going to lose out as AI kind of disrupts the industry. It's definitely disrupting software companies. And there's a fear that it's going to disrupt even more industries. So PE companies want to make sure that all the companies they've invested in and own are not going to be left behind.
And then for Anthropic, they get to pair up with these big names and make sure that their AI technology is the one that's being used and not that of its rival, OpenAI.
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Chapter 3: What is Anthropic's new joint venture with Wall Street firms?
But as we've seen, there have been cases, quite a few, where media companies have just chosen to settle or back down, given that you generally don't want to be in a big public fight with the federal government.
What does this all mean, though, for CEO Josh DeMauro, who has spent years at Disney but only took over as CEO less than two months ago? Do people feel like he can handle all this?
People are very confident in Josh Tomorrow as a leader, as an executive. A lot of people say he's actually quite similar to Bob Iger in that he seems to really know what he's doing. That being said, even Bob Iger, he struggled quite a bit with how to handle Trump, with how to handle these political issues. So, you know, it's a very tricky situation, especially for someone six weeks in.
Right. And we know we're talking about Iger here, who is the two-time former CEO of Disney. Ana, is there any chance that DeMauro would pull Kimmel off the air again? Or is the company preparing to fight back on the FCC probe?
For Disney, this is all about the brand, and it's about their different stakeholders here. So what happened a year ago with this is they did take Jimmy Kimmel off the air initially, but it only lasted for five days. And I think it was pretty clear why. There was really an enormous pushback to that. They're in the talent business, right?
So they need to maintain a lot of those relationships, right? It was a situation where basically half of the U.S. was very angry with them about this. And for Disney, that's a big problem. I think it was pretty clear that that was the wrong move for them at that time. I think they definitely learned from that. And what you're seeing now, I mean, they put out a statement.
It was restrained, but it was pretty clear that they are going to push back on this legally. It does seem like this time they are not going to just kind of back down.
That's the FT's Ana Nicolaou in New York. Thanks, Ana.
Thanks, Mark.
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Chapter 4: How does Anthropic plan to integrate AI into private equity firms?
It's essential for making plastic, and its price has doubled since the start of the war. That means plastic bags, cups, utensils, and containers are all way more expensive. Indonesia is one of the world's largest plastic consumers. Suppliers there are warning they could be forced to cease production entirely.
You can read more on all these stories for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News briefing. Check back tomorrow for the latest business news.