The Kobeissi Letter

This is the biggest AI headline in a very long time: Nvidia's plan to invest $100 billion in OpenAI has completely "stalled" seemingly overnight. Why? Jensen Huang specifically cited concerns over competition from Google and Anthropic and a "lack of discipline" in OpenAI’s business approach. This also sheds light on the *random* headline that emerged just 48 hours ago, stating that OpenAI was "racing" to go public ASAP. OpenAI is reportedly rushing to IPO specifically to "beat Anthropic" as the first major generative AI startup to go public. OpenAI has been the central figure in hundreds of billions of recent AI deals, and everyone is watching this Nvidia-OpenAI saga. Altman and OpenAI are certainly panicking right now. AI competition is hitting new extremes.

BREAKING: Elon Musk's xAI announces it has raised $20 billion in a Series E round, exceeding expectations of $15 billion. Nvidia is listed as "strategic investor" to support "buildout of the largest GPU clusters in the world." We are still early.

BREAKING: Anthropic is preparing to go public by as soon as 2026 in what is expected to be one of the biggest IPOs in history, per FT. Anthropic is currently in talks for a funding round valuing the company at over $300 billion.

US tech workers are automating themselves: The technology sector now reflects ~2.3% of total US employment, the lowest since early 2021. This percentage peaked around the ChatGPT launch in November 2022 and has fallen over the last 3 years. Over this period, employment in Computing Infrastructure, Data Processing, Web Hosting, Web Search, and Computer Systems Design Services has shed -91,000 jobs. This reverses a 20-year uptrend in tech employment. Meanwhile, software development job postings on Indeed have dropped -71% since the February 2022 peak. Postings are now -33% below pre-pandemic levels. Employment in tech is rapidly declining.

BREAKING: Elon Musk’s net worth surges to a record $749 billion after Delaware’s Supreme Court reinstates his 2018 pay package. He is now worth 3 TIMES the second richest person in the world.

BREAKING: Nvidia announces a $2 billion investment in CoreWeave. CoreWeave stock, $CRWV, is up over +10% on the news.

US hiring is slowing at an alarming rate: US-based employers have announced plans to add 497,151 jobs year-to-date, the weakest total since 2010 when 392,033 hires were planned in the first 11 months of the year. This also marks a -35% decline from the 761,954 announced during the same period in 2024. Hiring is now on track for its 5th consecutive annual decline. In November, companies announced just 9,074 hiring plans, the 2nd-lowest for this month since at least 2016. Meanwhile, seasonal hiring intentions fell to 372,520, the lowest on record since data collection began in 2012, with no new announcements in November. US hiring demand is at crisis levels.