Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here's your midday brief for Friday, February 27th. I'm Pierre Bien-Aimé for The Wall Street Journal. We exclusively report that OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman is working on a deal with the Pentagon.
Altman said that could mean its tools would be used in classified settings and in a way that kept the same safety guardrails that have caused a standoff between the government and Anthropic, OpenAI's rival. Anthropic doesn't want its AI used for autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. And in other news about OpenAI, it's secured $110 billion in new funding.
The deal values the company at $730 billion before the investment. Amazon, SoftBank, and NVIDIA all committed billions of dollars to OpenAI. The ChatGPT developer is expected to go public later this year. News Corp., owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI.
Chapter 2: What deal is OpenAI's CEO negotiating with the Pentagon?
Trump Media, President Trump's media company, says it's in talks to spin-off businesses including the social media platform Truth Social. Trump Media recently merged with the fusion energy company TAE Technologies. TAE is one of the most prominent companies in the commercial nuclear fusion field. And U.S.
intelligence estimates and experts outside the government say that Iran faces major technical hurdles to building missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland. The assessment raises questions about the Trump administration's rationale for urgent military action against Iran.
Trump administration officials haven't said if they'll declassify intelligence, suggesting that Iran is accelerating the development of an effective intercontinental ballistic missile. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Iran doesn't acknowledge pursuing an ICBM and has shown no flexibility about giving up its short-range and medium-range missile arsenal.
Heads up, an artificial intelligence tool helped us make this episode by creating summaries that were based on WSJ reporting and then reviewed and adapted by an editor. We'll have more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast. You can add it to your playlist on your smart speaker or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.