Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, will head to the Pentagon on Tuesday to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about how the military uses the companys artificial intelligence models. And its likely to be a tense meeting, as sources first told Axios.
Contract talks between the AI startup and the Department of Defense have gone off course in recent weeks as Anthropic has insisted on some safeguards for how its technology will be used. While the San Francisco-based company is willing to loosen some of its usage restrictions for the Department of Defense, it doesnt want its models used for at least two specific purposes: spying on Americans or developing autonomous weapons.
Heading into Tuesdays meeting, the two factions seem to have differing views on how those contract talks have been proceeding. While a spokesperson for Anthropic said in a statement Monday that the company is having productive conversations, in good faith with the Pentagon, a Defense Department spokesman said last week that Anthropics relationship with the Pentagon is under review.
Anthropic knows this is not a get-to-know-you meeting,” a senior Defense official told Axios. “This is not a friendly meeting.”
ANTHROPICS ROLE IN NATIONAL SECURITY
Anthropic is currently the only AI company available in the militarys classified networks and was among several companies awarded a $200 million contract with the Defense Department to in July advance U.S. national security.
The company has repeatedly reiterated its commitment to supporting national security, including again on Monday. In June, it announced Claude Gov, a suite of models it built exclusively for U.S. national security customers.
And yet, Amodei has become vocal about balancing the opportunities that AI presents with the concerns that it poses. In a lengthy piece published last month, the Anthropic co-founder warned: Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it.
At the India AI Impact Summit last week, Amodei that hes concerned about the autonomous behavior of AI systems and the potential for misuse of AI by individuals and governments.
THE MADURO FACTOR
Another factor thats strained the relationship between Anthropic and the Pentagon came to light last week: Claude was used in the U.S. militarys operation at the start of the year to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as The Wall Street Journal reported. That mission would seem to violate Anthropics usage guidelines that prohibit, among other things, that Claude not be used to incite violence or for criminal justice and surveillance.
The companys usage policy, most-recently updated in September, is intended to strike an optimal balance between enabling beneficial uses and mitigating potential harms.
But Anthropic also notes that the company may enter into contracts with certain governmental customers that tailor use restrictions to that customers public mission and legal authorities if, in Anthropics judgment, the contractual use restrictions and applicable safeguards are adequate to mitigate the potential harms.
POKING THE BEAR
Anthropic has tried to set itself apart from the rest of the universe of AI developers with a safety-first approach thats even seen it take a swipe, via a Super Bowl ad, at OpenAIs recent decision to incorporate ads into the ChatGPT platform.
While Amodei has emerged as a contrarian of sorts, at times, by pushing back on unrestricted use of its Claude AI model for the U.S. military, Amodei is effectively poking the bear that is Hegseth.
As Axios reported last week, Hegseth has threatened that the Pentagon could declare Anthropic to be a supply chain risk, which would void its contracts and force other companies that work with the Pentagon to certify they arent using Claude in any related workflows.
Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told media outlets last week. Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people.
Fridays news of a major shake-up at Microsofts Xbox division caught the gaming world by surprise. Phil Spencer, who has run Xbox for almost 12 years, announced his retirement, effective immediatelyjust months after Microsoft insisted he was not retiring anytime soon.
Asha Sharma, the president of Microsofts CoreAI product, was tapped to run the division. Once a powerhouse earner, Xbox has seen its profitability and influence shrink in recent years. (Xbox president Sarah Bond, long seen as Spencers heir apparent, was passed over and also left the company.)
Sharma may face an uphill battle.
Microsoft has not reported updated Xbox console sales or Game Pass subscription numbers in years. The available figures havent been encouraging. Xbox hardware revenue fell 32% year over year in the recent holiday quarter. Overall gaming revenue dropped 9%, and Xbox content and services, which includes Game Pass, declined 5%.
Sharma has already taken some knocks online for lacking a deep history in video games. Some of that online blowback reflects the sexism that often runs rampant in gaming. (Sharma will be the first woman to run a major console manufacturer.) But criticism of her gaming pedigree also reflects a kind of gatekeeping.
Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive Software, has said he was not a gamer when he took chargeand still isnt. Yet Take-Two has delivered a string of hits under his leadership, most notably the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and its share price has increased fifteenfold since he took the job. I don’t think anyone wants or needs my specific creative expertise, such as it is, Zelnick once said. It’s my job to attract, retain, and provide the resources to the best creative talent in the business.
Dwindling sales and a divided focus
Time will tell if Sharma follows that same path. But if she does, instead of focusing on big individual launches, shell have to persuade gamers to buy both the hardware and a subscription service that increasingly makes that hardware feel optional.
The Xbox Series X and Series S have faced inventory issues in recent months and remain expensive when available. With memory shortages affecting a wide range of consumer technology products, a price cut anytime soon appears unlikely.
At the same time, Microsoft has been pivoting away from consoles, expanding Game Pass across multiple platforms, including as an app on Samsung TVs. (An Xbox mobile store was planned but never launched.)
Despite that shift, Microsoft has also been working on a next-generation Xbox, once expected to debut next year, though that timeline could slip due to component shortages.
Starting over?
Sharmas promotion could mark a reset, shifting focus back to consoles and exclusive titles rather than the Xbox anywhere strategy of recent years. Even then, some hurdles remain.
Microsofts hands are tied with its biggest franchise, Call of Duty, which it acquired through the Activision-Blizzard takeover three years ago. Under its agreement with regulators, Microsoft must continue offering those games and features to Sony through 2033. Still, the company has deep development resources, even after steep layoffs.
The Halo franchise has struggled but could rebound with a strong release. Bethesda Softworks, acquired in 2021, is developing a new Elder Scrolls title and also controls proven franchises such as Fallout and Doom. Microsoft also has Gears of War, Fable, and Forza, and enjoys strong relationships with independent developers.
Refocusing on consoles could require changes to Game Pass. The services appeal lies in offering new titles on day one without requiring individual purchases. But with AAA games now costing $200 million or more to develop, Game Pass will need either a surge in subscribers or structural changes to remain viable. (A price increase could be challenging, as the top tier already costs $30 per month.)
Whatever direction Sharma chooses, she faces a steep climb. Spencer may have been beloved by gamers, but Microsofts biggest bets of the past six years have largely fallen short. And as headwinds gather across the gaming industry, Microsoft is no longer the dominant force it was in the Xbox 360 era.
Regaining that ground will require steady leadership.
It’s a good day to be the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.
This morning, the company unveiled its latest innovation in the weight-loss drug wars: the KwikPen. Per a press release , the KwikPen contains a months-worth of Zepbound, Eli Lillys GLP-1 designed to combat obesity, and it’s designed to make taking the medicine more convenient. Alongside the announcement of this new innovation, Eli Lilly’s main competitor, Novo Nordisk, dropped the news that its experimental drug, CagriSema, perfomed worse for patient weight loss in a head-to-head trial against Eli Lilly’s proprietary drug, tirzepatide.
A November study from the health policy non-profit KFF found that about one in eight American adults were using a GLP-1 for weight loss or to treat a chronic condition. And as the weight-loss drug market soars, its two most dominant playersEli Lilly and competitor Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempicare battling it out to offer the most convenient, most effective, and least expensive iterations of their respective drugs.
Right now, Eli Lilly appears to be the leader in the GLP-1 race amidst multiple difficult headwinds for Novo Nordisk. As of this writing, Novo Nordisk stock is down nearly 16% since market open, while Eli Lilly is up by nearly 5%.
Weight-loss drugs take new, more convenient forms
Over the past several months, both Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have invested in novel drug formats to retain customers and reach new audiences.
Back in December, Novo Nordisk received FDA approval for a first-of-its-kind, once-daily pill for weight loss. The pill, which is an oral form of Novo Nordisks GLP-1 Wegovy, offers a less invasive way for users to administer weight-loss drugs, which are typically delivered via an injector. Eli Lilly is currently in the testing phases of its own oral GLP-1, but it does not yet offer anything similar to the Wegovy pill.
In the meantime, the KwikPen will presumably make taking Zepbound a bit easier for Eli Lillys customer base. Currently, patients use a separate autoinjector for each of their weekly doses of the drug. Each KwikPen, by contrast, comes pre-loaded with four doses, meaning one pen lasts for a full month. Its available in six strengths, ranging from 2.5 mg to 15 mg. For cash-paying patients, the KwikPen will be available via Eli Lillys direct-to-consumer website, LillyDirect.
Eli Lilly pulls ahead
Eli Lilly may be lagging behind Novo Nordisk in GLP-1 pill design, but its notched several more significant wins against its top competitor in recent months.
Novo Nordisk has been fighting an uphill battle as the weight-loss drug market becomes more crowded, including by the proliferation of compounded (aka copycat) versions of Ozempic and Mounjaro made by smaller manufacturers.
In its fourth quarter report, released in early February, Novo Nordisk announced strong revenue of $12.34 billion, but warned that its sales and profit growth would decline by between 5% and 13% in 2026 amidst growing competition and lower U.S. prices. These same struggles have caused the companys stock price to plummet by more than 55% year-over-year.
Meanwhile, Eli Lilly has been buoyed by the major success of Zepbound since its 2023 debut, as customers opt for the medicine given its greater effectiveness for weight loss than Ozempic. In its February fourth quarter report, Eli Lilly boasted revenue of $19.3 billion and guided for its sales to grow by a whopping 25% in 2026. The companys stock has risen by more than 25% year-over-year.
Now, Novo Nordisk is taking yet another blow, as a Feburary 23 report showed that its new experimental drug CagriSema could not demonstrate non-inferiority against Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide. Based on Novo Nordisk’s report, “if all people adhered to treatment, people treated with CagriSema 2.4 mg/2.4 mg achieved a weight loss of 23.0% after 84 weeks compared to 25.5% with tirzepatide 15 mg.”
As GLP-1 usage continues to become more mainstream, pharmaceutical giants will be fighting an increasingly competitive battle for market share.
Boom Supersonic wants to build the worlds first commercial supersonic airliner. Founded in 2014, the company set out to make air travel dramatically fasterup to twice the speed of todays passenger jetswhile also aiming for a smaller environmental footprint. For years, Boom has focused on developing the high-performance engine technology needed to sustain supersonic flight.
Though the company has not yet debuted its revolutionary jet, last year it identified a new and potentially lucrative application for its novel technology: generating electricity for the data centers powering the artificial intelligence boom.
Many of these data centers want the kind of flexible, around-the-clock energy associated with combined-cycle natural gas turbines. These heavy-duty machines burn gas to spin turbines and generate electricity, then capture the associated heat and use it to spin the turbines some more. As far as fossil fuel generation goes, they are among the most efficient options for dispatchable baseload power. But with demand for these turbines surging and supply increasingly tight, developers are turning to creative alternatives.
The upshot of all this creativity is clear: Much of the data center build-out is poised to be powered by natural gasand the climate consequences that come with it.
Boom Supersonic inked a $1.25 billion agreement with a developer called Crusoe, which is building a suite of data centers for the artificial intelligence startup OpenAI. The turbine company agreed to provide Crusoe with 29 jet-engine gas turbines that the developer could position at data centers across the U.S.
The deal is just one example of developers and tech companies straining to find power sources for the data centers sprouting up nationwide. Metas data center in El Paso, Texas, will draw fuel from more than 800 different mobile mini-turbines. Meanwhile, the construction equipment company Caterpillar has supplied gas engines to a data center in West Virginia. And the developer Crusoe used aeroderivative turbines based on airplane models for its massive Stargate data-center campus in Abilene, Texas, where power demand is a whopping 1.2 gigawatts.
Its not just the U.S. New proposed natural gas capacity has surged worldwide over the past year. The energy analysis firm Global Energy Monitor reports that projects totaling more than 1,000 gigawatts of gas-fired power are now in development worldwidea roughly 31 percent jump in just the last year. The United States leads the pack, accounting for about a quarter of that pipeline. More than a third of the new U.S. capacity will power data centers. The analysis also notes that two-thirds of gas project developers in the U.S. have yet to identify who will manufacture their natural gas turbines.
This rush to build out natural gas generation will have serious consequences for the climate. Early boosters of the data center boom suggested that new AI facilities would draw power from renewable sources such as solar and wind farms. While that has happened in some cases, developers are also rapidly locking in years of additional fossil fuel usage. An analysis from researchers at Cornell University found that the build-out could add as much as 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2030, equivalent to the annual emissions of around 10 million passenger cars.
This is a huge proposed build-out, said Cara Fogler, deputy director of research, strategy, and analysis at the nonprofit Sierra Club, which has been tracking gas plant expansions by utilities. Existing coal thats not coming offline and planned gas thats trying to come online are potentially boxing out clean energy.
As Silicon Valleys AI boom drives demand for ever more computing power, data center developers have struggled to keep up, largely because securing the massive amounts of electricity needed to run these facilities has become so difficult. The rush has led to long wait times to secure power from traditional utilities. As a result, developers and tech companies are increasingly taking matters into their own hands by generating power on-site. According to an analysis by Cleanview, a data firm tracking the energy transition, at least 46 data centers with a combined capacity of 56 gigawattsequivalent to that of roughly 27 Hoover Damsare using this behind-the-meter approach, as its known in industry parlance.
The chief executive of Bloom Energy, a startup that builds behind-the-meter fuel cells for data centers, said in a recent call with investors that the startups order backlog has more than doubled over the past year.
On-site power has moved from being a decision of last resort to a vital business necessity, said company executive K.R. Sridhar. He noted that while most of the companys previous business was in states like California with high electricity costs, now states where we are growing fastest have robust natural gas infrastructure and favorable regulatory and policy frameworks for on-site power generation.
One of those states is Texas, which is the epicenter of the build-out so far. Unconventional gas power will anchor campuses like that of Titus Low Carbon Ventures, which is building half a dozen data center parks across the Lone Star State. In September, the company signed a deal with power developer Gruppo AB to source Jennbacher gas generating engines, each of which provides just a few megawatts of power. The company will plug in hundreds of these boxy generators to provide baseload power alongside solar and wind.
We couldve elected to go with gas turbines, said Jeff Ferguson, the president of Titus, in an interview with Grist. Instead of sourcing traditional gas turbines, he opted to buy reciprocating engines, which are smaller gas-powered generators that are similar to passenger car engines.
We think that reciprocating engines are a better solution for data centers, he said, adding that the difference is in the ability to manage transient loads, or rapid fluctuations in power demand that are very common at the facilities.
Not only is it unlikely that 200 generators will ever go offline all at once, but the engines are also much faster to start up and stop than turbinesthey can come online in around a minute, as opposed to an hour for a traditional power plant. Ferguson likened it to the difference between accelerating in a Corvette and a jet plane.
But experts say these substitute gas sources are even worse for the climate than traditional power plants, which use more efficient combined-cycle turbines that employ both gas and steam. The worst offenders are not turbines at all but rather internal-combustion engines like the ones in most automobiles.
Internal combustion [engines] have better ramp up/down time[s] but are less efficient when compared to a gas turbine, said Jenny Martos, a researcher who runs the gas plant tracker for Global Energy Monitor. All gas-power technologies produce emissions, but generally engines produce more emissions than the others.
Texas has almost 58 gigawatts of natural gas power in various stages of planning and construction, according to the latest estimates from Global Energy Monitor. Thats more than the next four states combined, and more than every country on Earth except for China. Nearly half of the power plants under construction in Texas will provide power exclusively to data centers, without connecting to regional energy grids. hese projects span the state, from OpenAIs Stargate campus in central Abilene to Metas data center in El Paso, where the company has contracted with a Houston-based microgrid developer to set up 813 modular generators.
The projects are also popping up in rural areas of the country with few other economic development prospects. A developer called BorderPlex is proposing a $165 billion data center campus called Project Jupiter in southern New Mexico, powered by two microgrids that operate on simple-cycle gas turbines, which just burn gas to generate energy without capturing and deploying their waste heat. The projects 2,880 megawatts of generation are more than the entire generation capacity of central New Mexicos main utility.
Ive never seen something quite this big before, dollar-wise, scale-wise, said Colin Cox, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which is opposing the project. To call this a microgrid defies common sense. Remaining behind the meter allows the project to avoid seeking approval from regulators who would enforce compliance with the states climate lawseven though Project Jupiters carbon emissions alone could outweigh the actions that New Mexico has taken to lower emissions over the past several years.
The projects developer has promised jobs and tax revenue to rural Doa Ana County, but the future is murky. It remains unclear whether demand for artificial intelligence products will keep up with the historic capital expenditures being made by companies like OpenAI. If the bubble were to pop, the state would be left with a gas turbine that didnt serve any usersan asset that the state would not need and that, under its climate laws, it would not be allowed to use.
Theyll just be stranded assets, said Cox. You cant do anything with a gas turbine besides run gas through it to make it spin.
If Domino’s earnings on Monday prove anything, it’s that people are still eating pizzaeven if fast food sales, in general, are slumping.
“There seems to be a narrative out there that pizza is a challenged and declining category,” Domino’s CEO Russell Weiner said in an earnings call on Monday. “That is just not true, looking back to 2019, you’ll find a category that has generally grown approximately 1-2% each year, including last year 2025.” Weiner did, however, acknowledge the market was “mature.”
The pizza giant reported strong fourth-quarter earnings results, with revenue coming in at 1.54 billion, beating estimates of $1.52 billion. It also reported a 15% quarterly dividend hike, but missed earnings estimates, posting adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $5.35 for the fourth quarter, compared to estimates of $5.39.
The Ann-Arbor based company also said its New York Style Pizza and Parmesan Stuffed Crust were massive hits in 2025.
Shares of the Domino’s Pizza Inc. (DPZ) rose 6.4% in morning trading on the news, and were up 2.2% by early midday trading at the time of this writing.
“In 2025 we demonstrated that when we execute our Hungry for MORE strategy it delivers MORE sales, MORE stores, and MORE profits,” Weiner also said in an earnings release. Domino’s same-store sales in the U.S. grew 3.7% for the fourth quartera 3% growth for fiscal 2025.
In the earnings call, Domino’s chief financial officer Sandeep Reddy also mentioned how the company plans to capitalize on its competitor’s recent store closings.
“We opened 25 [stores] with a massive gap against all of our competitors including the bigger national competitors,” Reddy said. “Guess what’s happened since that time? One of our national competitors has announced that they’ve had a negative same store sales in the mid single digits. And they also talked about closing a number of stores up to 250 stores in the first half of the year.” (As Fast Company previously reported, Pizza Hut has said it is closing 250 restaurants this year.)
“All this plays into our strategy to continue to gain market share because we will go into that one to 2% growth in the industry with less doors outside, which we can actually take share from effectively and grab those sales,” Reddy added.
Meanwhile, good news for fast food lovers: Domino’s is also expanding quite a bit. The chain reported it opened over 700 stores globally and in the U.S. last year.
Founded in 1960, Dominos Pizza is the largest pizza company in the world, with more than 22,100 stores in over 90 markets across the globe. It posted global retail sales of over $20.1 billion in 2025. The company had a market capitalization of $13.36 billion at the time of this writing.
The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear from oil and gas companies trying to block lawsuits seeking to hold the industry liable for billions of dollars in damage linked to climate change.
The conservative-majority court agreed to take up a case from Boulder, Colorado, one of multiple lawsuits alleging the companies deceived the public about how fossil fuels contribute to climate change.
Governments around the country have sought damages totaling billions of dollars, arguing it’s necessary to help pay for rebuilding after wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms worsened by climate change. The lawsuits come amid a wave of legal actions in states including California, Hawaii and New Jersey and worldwide seeking to leverage action through the courts.
The case out of Boulder County will likely have implications for those other lawsuits.
Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil appealed to the Supreme Court after Colorados highest court let the Boulder case proceed. The companies argue emissions are a national issue that should be heard in federal court, where similar suits have been tossed out.
The use of state law to address global climate change represents a serious threat to one of our Nations most critical sectors, attorneys wrote.
President Donald Trump‘s administration weighed in to support the companies and urge the justices to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court decision, saying it would mean every locality in the country could sue essentially anyone in the world for contributing to global climate change.
Trump, a Republican, criticized the lawsuits in an executive order, and the Justice Department has sought to head some off in court.
Attorneys for Boulder had agued that the litigation is still in early stages and should stay in state court. There is no constitutional bar to states addressing in-state harms caused by out-of-state conduct, be it the negligent design of an automobile or sale of asbestos, they wrote.
City officials said the case was about dealing with problems people are facing in Colorado. Our case is, fundamentally, about fairness. Boulder is already experiencing the effects of a rapidly warming climate, and the financial burden of adaptation should not fall solely on local taxpayers,” said Jonathan Koehn, its climate initiatives director.
The Supreme Court also asked the two sides to present arguments on whether the case is truly ready to be heard by the justices. Arguments are expected in the fall.
Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press
Author and alternative medicine guru Deepak Chopra is the latest celebrity to come under scrutiny after the Department of Justice (DOJ) released more than three million pages of files on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
A slew of famous names pop up in the DOJ’s files, released on January 30, including business leaders like Casey Wasserman and powerful politicians like former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Chopra was among them, and a new investigation from CNN reveals the extent of his ties with Epstein.
On February 4, Chopra posted on X defending his appearance in the files and distancing himself from Epsteins crimes, which include operating a sex-trafficking ring and sexually abusing underage girls.
I want to be clear: I was never involved in, nor did I participate in, any criminal or exploitative conduct. Any contact I had was limited and unrelated to abusive activity, he wrote. Some past email exchanges have surfaced that reflect poor judgment in tone. I regret that and understand how they read today, given what was publicly known at the time.
Fast Company has reached out to Deepak Chopra for further comment.
I am deeply saddened by the suffering of the victims in this case, and I unequivocally condemn abuse and exploitation in all forms.I want to be clear: I was never involved in, nor did I participate in, any criminal or exploitative conduct. Any contact I had was limited and— Deepak Chopra (@DeepakChopra) February 4, 2026
Now, those email exchanges are under scrutiny, particularly Chopras frequent references to Epsteins girls.
Chopra and Epstein maintained frequent contact over text and email from 2016 to 2019, the year that Epstein was arrested. Their messages, which number in the hundreds, according to reports, also indicate several in-person meetings at Epsteins properties in New York City, Paris, and South Florida.
In at least two exchanges, Chopra encouraged Epstein to bring his girls on trips. In 2017, he wrote, If you want use a fake name. Bring your girls, while inviting Epstein to Israel, later adding, Your girls would love it as would you. Later that year, Chopra invited Epstein to Switzerland, again inviting him to come with your girls. It is unconfirmed if Epstein accepted these invitations, nor is it clear the age of the girls Chopra referenced.
Girls frequently came up in Epstein and Chopras conversations. In 2017, while discussing philosophy, Chopra wrote to Epstein, God is a construct Cute girls are real. In 2016, after sending Epstein a video of himself with actress Kat Foster, Chopra described her as innocent and smart at the same time, to which Epstein replied, secondary to cute. Over text, the two once discussed Chopras apparent seduction of a woman whose name was redacted. Epstein wrote, I liked watching you zero in on your prey. Made me smile. Chopra responded: I not a predator Just a lover.
Chopra also expressed support for Epstein in early 2019 ahead of his arrest in July. In a text exchange, Chopra said he was sending love to Epstein from India. Epstein replied, Can you send it in female form.
In a later exchange, Epstein complained about another round of very bad press. Chopak advised him to Stay silent and Meditate. When Epstein reached out again noting the toxicity of my press, Chopak replied, I am not concerned about that.
Being named in the Epstein files is not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing. Chopra maintains his innocence: A recent video circulating on X shows Chopra being approached at an airport and asked about his appearance in the Epstein files. Chopra replied: No misconduct. Zero.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
Back on January 7, President Donald Trump announced: I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. On January 20, Trump went further, outlining elements of the proposed ban.
The order directed multiple federal agenciesincluding HUD, the Department of Agriculture, the VA, the GSA, and the Federal Housing Finance Agencyto issue guidance within 60 days limiting the federal governments role in facilitating institutional purchases of single-family homes that could otherwise be bought by owner-occupants.
Specifically, within 60 days, the government-sponsored enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) would no longer be permitted to approve, insure, guarantee, or securitize single-family home purchases by large institutional investors. The order also stated that, within 30 days, the administration would define large institutional investors and that build-to-rent transactions would be exempt.
On Thursday (February 19), the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House has settled on a key detail of its proposed banone it plans to send to Congressprohibiting large investors, defined as entities owning 100 or more homes, from purchasing additional single-family houses.
Because the threshold is set at 100 homes, the policy would affect not just major institutional landlords, but also some larger individual investors. The plan still includes the build-to-rent exemption and adds another carveout: large investors can continue to purchase homes in need of significant repair.
Those two proposed exemptions are notable given that most institutional activity right now is in build-to-rent, and when purchasing scattered-site homes, institutional investorsat least when they are actively buyingtend to target properties that require sizable renovation spending.
Notably, this proposal would not mandate large investors to liquidate existing holdings.
The measure announced on Thursday would need congressional approval, and its prospects are uncertain. According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, passage is still far from guaranteed.
At the height of the Pandemic Housing Boom, large investorsthose owning at least 100 single-family homesmade up an all-time high of 3.1% of home purchases in Q2 2022, according to John Burns Research and Consulting.
That period, at the tail end of the boom, was when yields were particularly attractive as borrowing costs were ultra-low, home prices were soaring, and rents were climbing rapidly. However, since mortgage rates spiked and capital markets shifted, their share has fallen to around 1.0% of transactions over the past three years. The math isnt as favorable right now.
ResiClub members (paid tiers) can find an interactive version of the map below here
On a national level, large investorsthose owning at least 100 single-family homesonly own around 1% of total single-family housing stock.
That said, in a handful of regional housing markets, institutional and large single-family landlords have a much larger presence. Markets like Phoenix and Atlanta became major hubs for institutional single-family rental investment following the 2008 housing crash as the asset class started to institutionalize.
Firms such as Invitation Homes, Progress Residential, and AMH built sizable portfolios in these metros by acquiring distressed homes. That early activity helped establish a reliable local SFR ecosystemincluding property management firms, leasing infrastructure, and contractor networksthat makes it easier to scale and expand single-family rental and build-to-rent operations today.
A turf war has broken out between the fandoms of Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones over the highest-rated episode spot on IMDb.
Released last month, the Game of Thrones spin-off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, set a century before the events of the HBO drama, has garnered much praise. A Guardian reviewer said it has “saved the Game of Thrones universe.”
Fans appear to agree, as the fifth episode, In the Name of the Mother, which aired February 15, briefly secured a rare 10/10 rating on IMDb. Unfortunately for fans, it didnt last long.
For over a decade, Ozymandiasthe 14th episode of the fifth and final season of Breaking Bad, and the climax of the serieshad been the only television episode to secure a perfect 10 rating on IMDb. Its an accolade fans werent prepared to give up lightly.
Taking matters into their own hands, according to reports across Reddit and X, fans of the crime drama started review-bombing the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode with one-star ratings to tank its score.
The Ozymandias episode of BREAKING BAD has dropped to a 9.9 on IMDb.It held a 10/10 rating on the platform for almost 13 years. pic.twitter.com/9zLtW00a01— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 20, 2026
One IMDb reviewer admitted as much, writing, I like this episode. I like this show overall. Hell, I love this episode. But… its not 1% as good as the episode mentioned in the title of this review is. I therefore decide the leave this one star review in order to defend the number one episode.
What followed was an all-out review-bombing war between the two fandoms. On the IMDb review page for Ozymandias, a slew of reviews titled “The Lannisters Send Their Regards or Winter came for Breaking Bad! The North remembers started appearing.
Meanwhile, of the hundreds of one-star reviews A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has accumulated on IMDb so far, many hit back “in the name of walter white” or “For Heisenberg.”
For the first time in 13 years, the Breaking Bad episode lost its perfect score on the site. At the time of writing, neither episode is in the top 10 list on the platformor even the top 100.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, now with an average score of 9.5, sits at number 519 on the best TV episode ranking. Ozymandias, now with an average score of 9.6, has dropped to number 461.
The only winner here? Six Feet Under, which has now slipped into the top spot.
AI is reshaping how work gets done in institutions, both public and private. However, the impact is unevenconsumer AI chat interfaces like ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, and Gemini are fundamentally mismatched to the realities of government work.
That doesnt mean government agencies arent turning to AI. They cannot hire their way to capacity, so theyre looking to technology to lighten the load. More than half of local governments report difficulty filling positions, a problem especially potent in larger metros. San Franciscos local government, for example, has more than 4,700 open positions. Since 2020, state government employment has increased, but much of that is a bounce-back from the pandemic, not true growth needed to deliver services with the efficacy governments want.
But drop-in chatbots cant make a significant impact on operations because data within government agenciesand even within individual departments in agenciesis exceedingly siloed. State and local governments are managing budget constraints. IT teams are stretched thin. Its no surprise, then, that consumer AI tools dont meet their promise in government institutions. They fundamentally lack all the information they need to be effective in a public service context.
THE TOOL GAP
Commercial software tools, including AI chatbots, are built for private companies with hierarchies, contracts, and linear processes. Government work is inherently different. Public institutions are cross-organizational, the work is omnidirectional, and success necessitates constant collaboration across agencies, nonprofits, and community partners.
Emergency management departments, for example, must identify points of contact within local police departments, fire departments, sheriffs offices, emergency medical services, utility companies, FEMA regional offices, and community emergency response teams to effectively deliver their servicecoordinating disaster response and recovery operations.
The sum of these problemsfrom data siloes to budget constraints to technological roadblocksis that consumer AI struggles in government institutions because these tools lack the necessary context. Try asking ChatGPT Provide our current reimbursement process or Create a survey to gather feedback on the latest heat season coordination. These are tasks that require explicit, non-public knowledge. To execute such tasks, AI needs not only access to data that lives across disparate systems, but also governance and rules specifying which definition is best suited for each purpose. And even if you get a good answer, traditional AI is not built to help users know what to do next.
THE PATH FORWARD
Embedding AI is the path forward to deploy AI in government, effectively overcoming data silos to tackle inter-organizational work. Embeddedness refers to AI that lives directly within the platforms where work happens, within coordination, memory, and decision-making systemsnot inside a chatbot.
Government is uniquely suited to benefit from AI thats truly embedded because it has the perfect raw material to make AI maximally useful: conversations, decisions, workflows, institutional memory, and loads of information. In other words, government has context. Unfortunately, most AI chatbots today assume their users work inside of a single organization, and therefore only need context from one organizations systems.
For government, thats not the reality.
A homelessness coordinator in Essex County or an election administrator in New York isn’t just working at one organization: they’re juggling relationships, meetings, decisions, and shared knowledge across constantly shifting agencies, nonprofits, contractors, and community partners. The hardest parts are aligning, coordinating, remembering, onboarding, and maintaining shared understanding across people who come and go.
Because government work is inherently lateral, true embedded AI has information not only across one organizations systems but also across its partners systems, too. Taking the idea of embeddedness one step further, its vital for AI to seemingly disappear into public servants workflows. If AI is one more tool, one more thing government employees must be trained on, then AI is notembedded in the way it needs to be.
Public servants dont want or need another new widget. They need technology that helps them do what they do faster, better, and more accurately. That is embedded AI.
Consider this example: Its common for certain AI tools to send a summary and action items after a meeting. But embedded AI goes further. It would ask the user if they wanted a follow up email to socialize action items. It could draft the follow-up email, too. Then, after a couple of days, the embedded AI would surface engagement data, showing that someone assigned an action item hasnt read the follow-up email, and the AI would ask the user if they want a follow-up email, and then draft the note.
When a public servant is searching for information, the next step is usually to read it to send something to somebody or take an action. AI that supports that next step without explicit prompting or forcing the user to switch tools is the kind of technology that can help public servants better deliver services more quickly. This is the shift that accelerates action.
THE END GOAL
Its vital we do not lose sight of the goal. State and local governments are where the rubber meets the road, turning rules into real servicesfrom handling daily operations to helping low-income people get nutrition assistance, providing veterans services, supporting people experiencing homelessness, and everything in between.
Yes, chatbots and similar tools can help one person be more effective. But when AI is embedded, benefits are magnified; people and entire programs are faster and more effective. That means the people who rely upon municipal government services are better served.
And that is the ultimate promise of technology, like embedded AI efficiently deployed in governmentbetter communities for all.
Madeleine Smith is the CEO and cofounder of Civic Roundtable.
