A group of congressional Republicans is urging the U.S. International Trade Commission to enforce U.S. patent rights in a case involving Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., according to a letter exclusively obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: This escalates a fight over whether the world's largest chip manufacturer, TSMC, should receive special consideration because of its role in providing the U.S. the chips necessary to stay ahead in the global AI race.
A federal commission moved Wednesday to formalize rules allowing prediction markets to offer the equivalent of sports betting nationwide — with some specific types of trades disallowed.
Why it matters: Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have been surging in popularity, allowing users to risk money on sports, politics, news, financial markets and entertainment.
MONACO — Winning an F1™ race and running a giant company require the same thing: picking the best people, according to race-expert panelists at an Axios Live and The Race Media event.
Why it matters: Formula One™ used to just be about fast cars. Now it's become an ultimate training ground, as business leaders launch partnerships to learn how the elite racing teams handle pressure and build winning cultures.
"The pattern recognition of what it takes to be excellent is exactly the same," said Harvey Schwartz, CEO of the Carlyle Group.
Axios' Sara Fischer and The Race Media's Darren Cox moderated conversations with Schwartz, Oracle Red Bull Racing team principal Laurent Mekies, Ford Motor Company global head of racing Mark Rushbrook, and F1™ analyst and Oracle Red Bull Racing ambassador David Coulthard. The June 5 event was sponsored by the Carlyle Group.
Catch up quick: The Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest investment firms, and four-time world champion Oracle Red Bull Racing spoke publicly about their partnership for the first time.
What they're saying: Sports and businesses share a key characteristic, Mekies and Schwartz said — they rely on input from people within the organization to gain a competitive edge.
"Fundamentally, we are a data business with an incredibly crucial layer of human intelligence on top," Mekies said.
"It's a people business," Schwartz said. "Which is clearly why this partnership with Laurent works."
Coulthard said racing teaches you how to look closely at your mistakes so you can fix them and get better.
By the numbers: Mekies said it takes 2,000 people to build and race two Formula One™ cars. Schwartz said F1™ now has over 800 million fans worldwide.
Ford came back to F1™ after 22 years away because the sport "is very popular right now, and it appears it's going to be strong for a long time," Rushbrook said.
The bottom line: Schwartz predicted Red Bull will win the Drivers' and Constructors' championships for the next five years — and said that's why the Carlyle Group wanted in.
OpenAI has banned China-linked accounts that used ChatGPT to draft social media influence campaigns targeting U.S. debates over tariffs and AI data centers, the company said Wednesday.
Why it matters: The campaigns don't appear to have been effective, but they show how pro-China actors are testing AI tools to amplify existing political and economic divisions in the U.S.
"VCs behaving badly" has been the theme of tech Twitter over the past week, with founders sharing stories that ranged from amusing to ethically challenged.
Why it matters: This discourse reflects a deep shift in the startup ecosystem over the past couple decades — the move to "founder friendly" investing, even potentially at the expense of fiduciary duty to limited partners.
Apollo and Blackstone announced that they've partnered with Broadcom to launch an AI infrastructure platform backed by an initial $35 billion loan.
Why it matters: It's further commoditization of compute, which could challenge SpaceX's long-term growth prospects.
It's also one of the largest private credit deals ever.
Zoom in: The financing is expected to be syndicated, and will help Anthropic lease Google chips that Broadcom helped develop — all via Fluidstack data centers.
Overall, the platform is designed to enable more than 20 gigawatts of compute capacity through 2028.
Go deeper, via PitchBook: "Holding the hardware in the SPV keeps it off Anthropic's balance sheet — useful for a company preparing to list on a market where companies with high debt loads are often punished by investors. ... The use of off-balance-sheet financing has also set alarm bells ringing among regulators."
Inflation surged to its highest rate in over three years, catapulted by rising energy costs that are increasingly squeezing American households.
The silver lining: The pain is not bleeding through to inflation in other goods and services.
Why it matters: At least for now, this does not look like the broad-based inflation that defined the post-pandemic surge. Instead, consumers are absorbing the fallout from the Iran war mostly through higher gasoline and energy bills.
MONACO — Monaco may have the tightest streets on Formula One's calendar, but it still draws some of the sport's biggest business conversations, several speakers said at an Axios Live and The Race Media event.
Why it matters: F1 has transformed from a niche European motorsport to a global platform and the drivers at the center of that growth say it's because of its human element.
Axios' Sara Fischer and The Race Media's Darren Cox moderated conversations with Jessica Hawkins, head of F1 Academy and driver ambassador for Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™ Team, and former Formula One™ driver Jenson Button. The June 4 event was sponsored by Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™ Team.
Driving the news:F1's market has exploded well beyond its European roots with rising global interest, particularly in the United States.
"It's turned it from an amazing sport to a global platform that everybody wants a piece of," Hawkins said.
State of play: The sport is growing fast, but continues to face some challenges..
For instance, Monaco's streets are too narrow and dangerous by today's safety racing standards. Button said it wouldn't make the calendar if F1 started fresh today.
And, the sport still doesn't have many women represented, but Hawkins said she's hopeful to "see a woman in F1 in the future."
The bottom line: As automation and AI creep into the sport, Hawkins said the one thing no machine can replicate is "the personality of the squishy bit that sits in the middle."
Content from the sponsor's segment:
In a View From the Top conversation, Jeff Slack, managing director of commercial and marketing at Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™Team, said F1 teams remain "undervalued" but added that the U.S. market has unlocked the sport's commercial potential.
"Traditionally, F1 is really a European marketing play. Now it's completely open," Slack said.
He said Aston Martin's revenues have grown roughly 20 times since 2021.
Inflationhit the highest rate in over three years in May, as the economic fallout from the Iran conflict ripples through the U.S. economy.
Why it matters: Inflationary pressures tied to the war keep building, squeezing household budgets and raising the risk that interest rates stay higher for longer.
Over the last few months, stocks have gotten very touchy about rising Treasury yields, with relatively modest increases associated with large stock market moves.
Why it matters: If Wednesday's Consumer Price Index report shows higher-than-expected inflation — and Treasury yields rise sharply in response — look out below.
Skyler Shuford, a Hermeus co-founder, has a new startup, Reaxiomatic. He's keeping much of it out of the public eye.
The big picture: Reaxiomatic is dedicated to aerospace and defense, Shuford confirmed in an interview. It could easily be associated with the growing American reindustrialization and supply-chain-awareness crowds.
"At Hermeus, we built an organization that can design, build and fly brand-new jets from scratch in about a year, which is about eight times faster than any near-peers. A similar playbook can, and must, be applied to other critical defense systems," Shuford told Axios.
Miami has plenty of unofficial theme songs. "Welcome to Miami" and "Conga" always get the people going. Pitbull, Rick Ross and Trick Daddy collaborated with DJ Khaled on "Born 'N Raised" back in 2006, too.
Why it matters: A new music competition seeks to crown our first official anthem.
Investors have already handed the AI hyperscalers more than twice as much money in 2026 as through all of last year.
Why it matters: The astonishing scale is raising concerns over an AI bubble bursting, as well as worries over whether these investments will actually pay off in the end.
