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A federal judge ruled late Thursday that the Trump administration's blacklisting of AI firm Anthropic was unconstitutional, finding it violated the company's First Amendment rights. That ruling carries real weight in the AI sector, where regulatory risk has been a quiet but persistent overhang on valuations across the board.
That Anthropic headline connects directly to Salesforce, which surged after reporting earnings that looked strong on the surface but told a more complicated story underneath. Nearly half of the company's adjusted earnings per share came not from operations but from gains on strategic investments, with Anthropic being a key holding. Strip that out and the core business looks considerably thinner.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is pushing into advertising, rolling out ads for free users and those on its lower-tier plan in India. It is a significant strategic pivot for a company built on subscription revenue, and it signals that the race to scale user bases in emerging markets is forcing even the most premium AI players to explore more traditional monetization models. The India market, at roughly four dollars a month for a paid tier, simply cannot carry the infrastructure costs alone.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
