Anthropic filed yesterday for what could be the biggest IPO ever, capping a massive day of AI dealmaking that nearly equals 1% of U.S. GDP, Axios' Dan Primack writes.

• Why it matters: Few industries have ever become so central to the American economy so quickly — and we're watching Wall Street finance the buildout in real time.

Anthropic's long-awaited IPO may seek to raise a record $100 billion.

• Also yesterday, SpaceX secured $40 billion in debt financing to lease GPUs — the chips that power modern AI — and Meta said it would seek up to $95 billion in financing for its AI buildout.
• Together, that's roughly $235 billion in a single day — more than the entire U.S. airline industry adds to the economy in a year.

🖼️ The big picture: AI's appetite for capital has outgrown what any one part of the financial system can supply.

• Anthropic alone has committed roughly $750 billion to computing power in the coming years — about seven times what its record-setting IPO may raise.
• Even private investors are struggling to keep up: OpenAI's record $120 billion funding round took months to close.

Zoom in: Most Americans will be financially exposed to these deals, even if they never buy a share.

• SpaceX and Meta are already major holdings in the top stock indices that fill pensions, 401(k)s and other retirement plans. Anthropic will soon join them.

Between the lines: Anthropic's filing spells out how big the stakes are, devoting more than a quarter of the document to risks.

• The company warns that AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity" and that models may try to manipulate the people using them.

🔭 Zoom out: Each of these three deals is a bet that AI use keeps compounding fast enough to justify the industry's trillions in spending.

• The flip side: Declining use could crack the foundation of America's entire economy.

The bottom line: Everyone is on the AI train, whether we want to be or not.

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Axios' Barak Ravid writes from Tel Aviv:

Israeli polls opened at 1 a.m. ET for one of the most consequential elections in the country's history — with rival camps warning that victory for the other would put Israel's future in jeopardy.

• Why it matters: The election is yet another referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership and the path he's taken the country down over the past four years.

It's Israeli voters' first chance to hold Netanyahu accountable for the security failures that led to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks — or to reward him for what he claims were unprecedented military successes in the three years of war since.

• If Netanyahu and his far-right coalition win, they're likely to renew the war with Iran in an effort to topple its regime, intensify their crackdown on Israel's democratic institutions and move to end Netanyahu's corruption trial.

👀 Behind the scenes: Netanyahu spent weeks trying to persuade President Trump to give him a green light to strike Iran ahead of the elections. Trump did not go along.

• In the 72 hours before the elections, Netanyahu tried to order the Israel Defense Forces to take steps to lay the ground for a potential new military strike or take actions short of an overt attack, Israeli officials say.
• IDF chief of staff General Eyal Zamir refused to comply. He warned that such a strike could lead to a miscalculation that quickly escalated hostilities and potentially forced the elections to be called off, the officials said.

The other side: Netanyahu's main opponent, former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, ran on holding Netanyahu accountable for the Oct. 7 failure, forming a national commission of inquiry and drafting ultra-Orthodox men to strengthen the IDF after three years of war.

• Share this story ... How Israel's elections work.

President Trump will campaign with three football stars in Texas on Tuesday, leaning into America's favorite sport as Republicans scramble to turn out voters in the final week before the midterms, Axios' Alex Isenstadt has learned.

• Former college football stars Johnny Manziel and Colt McCoy, along with two-time Super Bowl champion Danny Amendola, will join Trump for campaign appearances in Lubbock and Corpus Christi.
• Amendola starred at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Manziel won the Heisman Trophy at Texas A&M, and McCoy was a standout quarterback at the University of Texas.

🎨 The big picture: Trump has made football a recurring feature of his campaign stops in recent weeks.

• Trump attended the Texas-Tennessee game in September and planned to attend the Georgia-Alabama showdown earlier this month before canceling because of a hurricane.
• Former NFL coach Jon Gruden joined Trump at an Ohio rally this month, while former Georgia and NFL star Todd Gurley accompanied the president on a stop in Georgia.

Share this story ... Marc Caputo contributed reporting.

A day after Venezuela's exiled opposition leader returned to Caracas with great fanfare, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a veiled warning against interfering with the country's fragile democratic transition pushed by the Trump administration, Axios' Marc Caputo writes.

• "You're not going to street-protest your way into a democracy," Rubio told reporters without explicitly mentioning Maria Corina Machado.

Why it matters: Machado's demands for elections next year — and her criticism of a massive U.S. oil deal struck with the current Caracas regime — have put administration officials on edge after her surprise return.

• "Rubio is on a political edge," said a White House source familiar with his thinking. "Venezuela is the top foreign policy achievement of this administration, and if the progress we made gets undone and Machado is a spoiler, nobody wins."

Keep reading.

A fight over Israel is fracturing the socialist movement just as it stands within reach of capturing the Los Angeles mayor's office, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• Why it matters: The same socialist movement celebrating its ascendancy through New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is now debating whether to disown Nithya Raman before Los Angeles voters can even weigh in.

Leaders of the national Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) face demands to overturn the local chapter's endorsement of Raman over her position on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

• But the L.A. chapter of DSA still enthusiastically endorses Raman, arguing Angelenos deserve a functioning city government.
• The mayoral race has been defined by homelessness, affordability and public safety.

🧮 By the numbers: Raman leads incumbent Mayor Karen Bass ahead of the Nov. 3 election. A September Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll put her ahead 39%-28%, and a more recent Manhattan Institute poll had her up 38%-32%.

• Keep reading.

The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey for the third time in 13 months, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes.

• Court documents unsealed yesterday allege that Comey — long a subject of President Trump's ire — directed the disclosure of national defense information to a reporter in October 2016.

Comey's attorney said in a statement that the former FBI director "steadfastly maintains his innocence" and will fight the latest charges.

• He said the case concerns an Oct. 5, 2016, New York Times article that two separate teams of prosecutors investigated during Trump's first administration. Both teams decided not to bring charges.
• The Justice Department filed the charges through what's known as a "criminal information" — a charging document that doesn't require a grand jury — ahead of the statute of limitations.

⚖️ Flashback: Last year, Comey was indicted on charges of lying to Congress and obstruction. The case was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who brought the charges was illegally appointed.

• In April, a grand jury in North Carolina indicted him on two counts over a 2025 Instagram post of seashells spelling "86 47," which prosecutors called a threat against Trump.

Go deeper.

70% of young voters identified as Democrats or leaned that way — a 15-point jump from just two years ago, a New York Times/Siena poll found.

• 53% said they fear the U.S. is in danger of failing as a nation, up from 38% two years ago.

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Jay-Z — one of the music industry's most powerful performers — will headline the Super Bowl halftime show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles next February.

• The rapper's entertainment company, Roc Nation, helps produce the halftime show — meaning he effectively picked himself to perform.
• NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he had one request when the league first reached an agreement with Roc Nation in 2019: "That Jay-Z take the stage himself one day, whenever the moment felt right to him."

Go deeper ... Watch the announcement video.