Axios

Welcome back to our mini-series on how to clean up your social media diet.

Instagram, the highly visual platform that once revolved around your friends' espresso drinks and vacation photos, now feels packed with influencers you've never met and recommendations you didn't ask for.

Why it matters: Cleaning up your Instagram account redirects you to content from people and posts you actually care about. It's not about missing out; it's about reclaiming your attention.

The Commerce Department announced Monday that the Trump administration's effort to export "full-stack" U.S. AI packages will enter its next phase on April 1.

Why it matters: The American AI exports program is meant to bundle the infrastructure, tools and models into ready-to-deploy AI systems for allies and partners, and has been touted as a key part of the White House's AI policy goals.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Monday that he expects the company to reap "at least" $1 trillion in revenue from its newest AI chips through 2027.

Why it matters: The company is operating at the center of the AI universe, providing the critical processing infrastructure that powers models like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude.

The S&P 500 appears relatively calm on the surface this year, but dig a little deeper and you'll find some wild swings.

Why it matters: Investors have retreated from the Big Tech names that carried the market in recent years, putting downward pressure on stocks.

By the numbers: The S&P 500 has fallen just 3% for the year, but that masks some big-time volatility.

• 57 stocks are up by at least 20%, and 47 stocks are down by at least 20%, according to an analysis conducted Friday afternoon by Bespoke Investment Group.
• That's unusual, says Paul Hickey, the investment advisory firm's cofounder.

The big picture: AI and the war are pushing stocks around in new ways.

• Investors are pulling back from software in the wake of the SaaS-pocalypse and rotating toward defense and energy stocks.

Winners. Energy and defense industry stocks like Valero (+43%), Occidental Petroleum (+40%) and Lockheed Martin (+34%).

Losers. Workday, which makes HR software imperiled by the SaaS-pocalypse, has declined 39% this year. Oracle, an AI darling stock, is down 20%, and Salesforce, the SaaS king, off 27%.

Yes, but: Software might be out, but hardware is very much in: Companies benefiting from the RAM and memory chip shortage are slaying.

• SanDisk is up 168% for the year; Micron (+48%).

Between the lines: The biggest stocks that weigh most heavily on the market haven't seen such wild ups or downs — but things are meh.

• The Magnificent 7 was down about 8% for the year, as of Friday afternoon, when Bespoke pulled the numbers.

How it works: The S&P 500 is weighted by company size — bigger firms have outsize impact on the index.

• The top 10 stocks on the S&P 500 — that includes the Mag 7 —  make up about 40% of the index, as Apollo Global's chief economist Torsten Slok recently pointed out.
• "If they do nothing, the other 60% has to go up to move the needle," says Hickey from Bespoke.

Reality check: You could also argue that the relatively mild fall for the Mag 7 stocks is keeping the market from looking even worse.

The intrigue: If Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX are added to the S&P 500 this year, market concentration could approach 50%, Slok noted. That would mean the index "basically doesn't offer much diversification anymore."

What to watch: Some of this trend is actually starting to reverse, says Abby Yoder, U.S. equity strategist at JPMorgan Private Bank.

• Software started performing better in the first week of the war, she tells Axios. Tech is recovering a bit now that it's out of the spotlight.
• "AI is taking a backstep to geopolitics," she says.

The bottom line: "For years we basically heard about how the market was top heavy. Now those mega-cap stocks haven't performed as well," Bespoke's Hickey says. "So they act as a weight on the market."

The AI boom is pushing one of America's most venerable environmental groups to cautiously support nuclear power after decades of resistance.

Why it matters: The Natural Resources Defense Council's position is both a sign of the urgent power demands that AI is creating and a larger shift underway among environmentalists to embrace an energy source many once rallied against.

Teneo, the CEO advisory firm, and Thoughtworks, the software engineering consultancy, are launching an AI-focused joint venture.

Why it matters: AI is advancing faster than many companies can adopt it. This partnership aims to help large corporations turn AI ambition into working tools.

Eleven major technology and retail companies — including Google, Amazon and OpenAI — have signed a new pledge promising to share threat intelligence about how scammers are abusing their services, the companies first shared with Axios.

Why it matters: AI and online forums are helping scammers organize to inflict more damage, forcing companies to rethink their strategies for protecting their users.

Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey backs the Pentagon's decision to blacklist Anthropic — and says if it were up to him, he would have reacted even more forcefully.

• He made the comments in an interview with Colin Demarest on "The Axios Show," our series featuring top Axios reporters interviewing newsmakers shaping politics, business, tech, and culture.

Why it matters: The Pentagon's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk is a move historically reserved for foreign adversaries. It means that other companies who do business with the Pentagon may have to cut ties with the AI giant.

President Trump, already at odds with many MAGA leaders over Iran, is getting pressured hard by MAGA activists not to endorse Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) for reelection.

Why it matters: This is the most unified, intense, in-his-face MAGA campaign yet to push Trump into picking sides in a pivotal fight — the GOP establishment or his base. Trump was leaning toward backing Cornyn before MAGA went ballistic, officials tell Axios.

The U.S. government is treating strikes on Iran like a video game, inviting the country to watch as memes and montages subsume the human cost of war.

Why it matters: The Trump administration didn't invent the gamification of war, nor did it invent wartime propaganda — a tool of statecraft as old as armed conflict itself.