Good morning, you're tuned in to Markets Desk, let's get you caught up on what's moving.
Anthropic is tightening the gates on Claude, moving to close loopholes that have allowed Chinese engineers and researchers to access its AI model despite existing export restrictions. The company's challenge is a familiar one in the technology sector — technical controls are only as strong as the workarounds people haven't yet found, and talented engineers keep finding them.
Shifting to energy, Exxon chief executive Darren Woods is drawing serious attention from the Financial Times, which profiles him as the most powerful oil industry executive in a generation. Woods has built that position by aggressively testing the boundaries of corporate authority — through litigation, acquisitions, and a willingness to confront both activists and rivals in ways his predecessors rarely attempted.
And in AI policy, Anthropic's Fable model has returned, but the broader picture in Washington remains unsettled. OpenAI is separately pushing for the federal government to take a five percent ownership stake in the company, a proposal that would mark an extraordinary entanglement between Silicon Valley and the state, and one that raises obvious questions about regulatory independence going forward.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
