Super Bowl LX: New England Patriots v Seattle Seahawks

Apple CEO Tim Cook has a different AI problem than everyone else (Kathryn Riley/Getty Images)

Apple doesn’t have an AI spending problem. It has an AI execution problem.

Apple isn’t falling far from the AI tree.

2/13/26 8:16AM

While all of the Magnificent 7 fell yesterday, one of them is decidedly not like the others.

Apple fell harder than the rest Thursday, down 5% and notching its worst day since last April. Yet it’s arguably the most insulated from fears about overspending on AI — the nominal reason for the overall market’s decline.

AI isn’t integral to Apple’s current success. The company just reported its best quarter ever without a fully functional AI product. And unlike many of its Big Tech peers, which are planning to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers and GPUs, Apple’s capex actually declined last quarter. As a result, Apple, whose larger hardware business keeps its services arm more insulated from pure software headwinds, has largely avoided AI-related sell-offs.

That’s what makes this drubbing notable.

Apple’s problem isn’t overspending on AI. It’s under-delivering on it.

Earlier this year, Apple announced it would leverage Google’s Gemini AI model to power its iPhones — a move that should have upped its AI prowess without emptying its coffers. But repeated delays to iPhone AI features, including reports this week that key upgrades are being pushed back again, suggest execution — not spending — is the issue. Investors aren’t worried Apple is burning cash; they’re worried it’s falling behind.

There are expectations that Apple will deliver material AI monetization, with Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives suggesting that this could add $75 to $100 to its share price in the “coming few years,” but its track record so far is not inspiring any confidence.

That anxiety may help explain why Apple is now the most sold stock among retail investors this year. JPMorgan estimates retail investors have pulled a net $539 million from Apple — more than double the next most sold name. Retail traders aren’t reacting to capex discipline or FTC warning letters about Apple News. They’re reacting to momentum, and right now, Apple’s AI story lacks it.

Chris Stokel-Walker

Bot bias

6/17/26

Companies are getting AI chatbots to smear their competitors

The race to influence AI chatbots is leading to some companies to adopt shady competitive tactics.

Tom Jones6/17/26

Prediction markets have, predictably, been given a boost by the summer of sports

Major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen huge upticks in users of late, thanks in no small part to what’s felt like a recent sporting smorgasbord, with major competitions across hockey, basketball, and soccer soaking up fans’ time (and spending, clearly) at the outset of summer.

While gaming industry groups may not like it, there’s been a huge change in the methods people are using to put money on the big games, with everyone from fortunate NYC bar owners, to a far less fortunate Spanish supporter, turning to prediction markets to try and turn their sports know-how into cold, hard cash.

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

2026 World Cup Reverses Seasonal Lull for Sports Betting Apps

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

Gold Tesla Cybercabs are piling up, but they’re not picking up passengers yet

Low-volume production started in April. Now people are noticing them more and more in the wild.

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TAKING ACCOUNTS

6/15/26

Britain announces social media ban for under-16s starting early 2027

The UK government plans to use the same model for the restrictions as Australia — but how successful has that case study been so far?

UK Prime Minister Announces Under-16s Social Media Ban

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Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5