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1.	Anthropic CEO Apologizes for Internal Memo Lashing Out at Trump By Erin Woo Source: The Information

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Thursday apologized for writing a memo to staff in which he said the Trump administration didn’t like Anthropic in part because the company hadn’t “given dictator-style praise to Trump.” Amodei said he apologized for “the tone of the post,” adding: “It does not reflect my careful or considered views.”

The comments were Amodei’s first public remarks since The Information reported Wednesday on the 1,600 word memo, which Amodei shared with the startup’s staff last Friday when the company was in the middle of heated negotiations with the Pentagon over the military use of AI. Earlier that day, after talks had broken down, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he would direct the agency to declare Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” a designation usually reserved for foreign adversaries.

Amodei on Thursday said the Defense Department had indeed made that designation, and he wrote that Anthropic had “no choice but to challenge [the supply chain risk designation] in court.”

But, Amodei said, the language used in the Pentagon’s Wednesday letter to Anthropic only applied to its customers’ use of Anthropic AI directly on military contracts. That’s a narrower interpretation than Hegseth, who said Friday Anthropic would be barred from “any commercial activity” with any company that did business with the U.S. military, which could cut Anthropic off from its cloud providers Amazon and Google.

Amodei said Anthropic “had been having productive conversations with the Department of War over the last several days, both about ways we could serve the Department that adhere to our two narrow exceptions, and ways for us to ensure a smooth transition if that is not possible.”

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

2.	Consumer Tech Shares Rise Following OpenAI Shopping Shift By Ann Gehan Source: The Information

Shares of companies including Booking.com and Expedia rose nearly 8.5% and 13%, respectively, on Thursday, following a report from The Information that OpenAI would abandon plans to sell goods directly in ChatGPT in favor of putting checkouts inside apps that plug in to ChatGPT. The change reduces the possibility that apps such as Expedia and Booking.com could be undercut by ChatGPT letting consumers book travel or make purchases in the chatbot without going to their sites.

The change is a sharp reversal from late September, when OpenAI said that it would soon have products available for purchase inside ChatGPT from millions of online shops. Now, ChatGPT will link shoppers to merchants’ own apps, ensuring merchants retain control over the checkout experience.

OpenAI first launched its apps effort last fall, and early commerce firms that have launched apps for ChatGPT include Instacart, Target, Expedia and Booking.com. Instacart in December added a way for ChatGPT users to pay by linking their existing accounts with the grocery delivery service to their ChatGPT accounts.

3.	Oracle Plans Jobs Cuts as Data Center Spending Rises By Anissa Gardizy Source: Bloomberg

Oracle is planning to cut thousands of employees as soon as this month, according to a Bloomberg report, which said the cuts will be “wider-reaching” than the firm’s typical rolling reductions.

Some of the job cuts will impact people who work in roles the firm expects it will no longer need due to advances in AI, the report said. Oracle also told employees this week that it plans to reconsider whether it needs to fill some open positions in its cloud unit.

Last year there were widespread reports of layoffs within Oracle as the 160,000-person firm bet big on spending for AI data centers, eating into its cash holdings. Last year, The Information reported that executives were discussing eliminating cash raises and cash bonuses for employees.

A spokesperson for Oracle declined to comment on the report.

4.	Pentagon Officially Tells Anthropic It Is a Supply Chain Risk By Julia Hornstein Source: The Information

The Defense Department has officially told Anthropic that the artificial intelligence company and its products “are deemed a supply chain risk, effective immediately,” according to a senior defense official.

The declaration follows an announcement on social media last Friday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that he was directing the government to deem Anthropic a “supply chain risk” following a spat with the company over how the military could use Anthropic’s AI.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has said he will fight the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk in court. The designation, usually applied to foreign adversaries of the U.S., would at a minimum prevent companies from using Anthropic for military purposes.

Hegseth last Friday said the restriction would extend to any defense contractor that works with Anthropic, a broad definition that in theory would limit Amazon and Google—Anthropic’s major cloud providers—from serving the company.

5.	Commerce Department Shoots Down U.S. Draft Rules For Reviewing Nvidia AI Chip Exports By Amir Efrati Source: The Information

The U.S. Commerce Department said in a statement Thursday that it wouldn’t enact new restrictions on exports of American AI technologies that would resemble Biden administration policies.

The statement came after Bloomberg reported some U.S. officials were drafting proposed rules requiring companies and other governments to seek Commerce Department approval to buy AI chips that end up outside the U.S. The proposed rules implied Commerce would decide whether to allow certain companies and governments access to coveted chips from Nvidia and other designers on a case by case basis. The report prompted a minor selloff in some chip-related stocks.

“Today there was reporting that we were returning to the AI diffusion rule [enacted by Biden]. We will not. It was burdensome, overreaching, and disastrous,” the Commerce statement said. It added that it would seek to formalize the recent approa