Good Morning! GameStop made a $56 billion takeover offer for eBay, with CEO Ryan Cohen pitching a vision to turn the platform into an Amazon competitor, but the company’s inability to explain how it would actually pay for the deal spooked investors. Michael Burry agreed, dumping all his GameStop stock shortly after.

Palantir topped estimates with 85% revenue growth, its fastest since its 2020 debut. Peter Thiel is backing Panthalassa, a $1B startup building wave-powered ocean data centers.

Carlyle seeded a buyout fund with $5B in a novel credit deal. Blackstone's data center REIT is targeting a $1.75B IPO, with its CEO predicting a boom in blue-collar jobs.

Plus: Hair loss is booming as a GLP-1 side effect, a former Chick-fil-A employee was charged in an $80,000 mac-and-cheese scheme, and Silicon Valley is bracing for a permanent underclass.

With the help of Endex, LLMs are reaching scale in finance. Consider them for your firm today. 

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Anthropic Hires Private Equity

Anthropic is no longer just selling AI tools; it is building a Wall Street-backed distribution machine.

The company is launching a new $1.5 billion joint venture with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, General Atlantic, Leonard Green, GIC, and Sequoia to help companies adopt Anthropic’s AI tools. Anthropic, Blackstone, and H&F are each expected to invest roughly $300 million, while Goldman is putting in around $150 million. 

The pitch is simple: create a consulting arm for Claude, then use private equity’s portfolio-company universe as the customer base.

That is the genius of the deal. Private equity firms already own thousands of companies obsessed with margin improvement, cost reduction, and operational efficiency. And Anthropic now gets direct access to that ecosystem through the firms that control the boardrooms.

Instead of selling Claude one enterprise procurement cycle at a time, Anthropic is plugging into Blackstone, H&F, Apollo, General Atlantic, and Leonard Green’s corporate networks. It is AI distribution by cap table.

And while OpenAI has reportedly been exploring a rival JV with private equity firms, Anthropic has gained ground in enterprise and coding thanks to Claude Code. Both companies know the next phase of the AI war is not just consumer chatbots or benchmark flexing. It is embedding AI into the daily workflows of actual businesses: customer service, coding, finance, legal, HR, procurement, operations, and every other department with a spreadsheet and too many people doing manual work.

For Wall Street, this is also a new kind of AI trade. Blackstone and H&F are not just buying shares and waiting for an IPO; they are helping build the sales channel. Goldman is not just advising on the transaction. It is investing in the infrastructure around enterprise AI adoption. PE firms get a playbook to push AI across portfolio companies. Anthropic gets revenue growth, strategic credibility, and a stronger IPO story. 

Takeaway: Anthropic just turned private equity into its enterprise sales force. The company gets access to thousands of portfolio companies that are already under pressure to cut costs, raise margins, and show AI adoption. Wall Street gets a front-row seat in the enterprise AI land grab. And corporate America gets a very clear message: Claude is coming for your workflows, probably through a board presentation from Blackstone.

PRESENTED BY ENDEX

Frontier LLMs Reach a Context Inflection Point for Finance

Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.7 and OpenAI's GPT-5.5 both now process a million tokens of context in a single prompt. A private equity team can evaluate an entire VDR in one window.

Expanding context lets AI agents complete end-to-end work for finance teams. Top Wall Street firms use Endex for complex modeling in Excel. Their custom deployments compress hours of analyst work into minutes, deploying agents in each firm's workflows and with their formatting standards.

Get access to Endex.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• GameStop stock sinks after surprise eBay takeover bid, Cohen’s combative CNBC interview (CNBC)

• Michael Burry says he’s sold all his GameStop stock (WSJ)

• Peter Thiel is backing a $1 billion startup that will build ocean data centers powered by waves (FT)

• Palantir Q1 earnings: revenue surges 85%, guidance raised (CNBC)

• Carlyle seeds buyout fund with $5 billion in novel credit deal (BB)

• Blackstone data center REIT seeks to raise $1.75 billion in IPO (BB)

• Blackstone’s Jon Gray sees AI creating ‘huge boom’ in blue-collar jobs (BB)

• Weight loss and hair loss: The growing hair treatment market from GLP-1s (CNBC)

• Former Chick-fil-A employee charged in $80,000 mac-and-cheese scheme (BB)

• Silicon Valley is bracing for a permanent underclass (NYT)

• How private credit funds keep debt off their balance sheet (WSJ)

• Palantir looks to prove it doesn’t belong in software selloff (BB)

• Hubbell to buy NSI Industries for $3 billion (WSJ)

• Citi hires Raj Rathi from Dream Sports as head of M&A in India (BB)

• She blew the whistle on Deutsche Bank to the SEC. Her award: $0. (WSJ)

• Spirit Airlines seeks to start orderly wind-down to sell assets (BB)

• PJT CEO Paul Taubman says retail will stop fueling private credit growth (BB)

• Spirit Airlines CEO on carrier’s collapse: ‘We just kind of ran out of runway’ (CNBC)

• Weight loss drug fueled growth is putting the pharma sector at bubble risk (CNBC)

• Musk sought settlement with OpenAI before Oakland trial, filing shows (Yahoo Finance)

• JPMorgan hires Morgan Stanley’s Boyle to lead PE secondaries (BB)

• GameStop’s Ryan Cohen sidesteps questions on how company will pay for eBay deal (Yahoo Finance)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Stocks fell as Middle East tensions flared and oil prices moved higher

• The Dow declined more than 1%, while relative strength in tech helped cushion losses in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq

• WTI crude rose to about $105, reflecting renewed concern around energy supply disruptions

• Bonds sold off sharply, with the 2-year Treasury yield rising near 3.95%

• Markets are now pricing little chance of Fed rate cuts this year, as oil-driven inflation risks return

Geopolitics Back in Control

• The U.S. and Iran exchanged fire as the U.S. attempted to establish passage through the Strait of Hormuz

• Separate Iranian missile strikes on the U.A.E. added to concerns around broader regional escalation

• Iran’s latest peace proposal was quickly rejected, highlighting how far apart both sides remain

• While today’s action was described as defensive, it raises doubts about whether the ceasefire can hold

• Markets are refocusing on the risk of a longer and more disruptive energy shock

Fundamentals Still Provide Support

• Despite renewed volatility, the broader economic backdrop remains resilient so far

• Recent GDP data showed solid underlying growth, supported by consumer spending and business investment

• The labor market remains stable, with this week’s jobs report expected to show continued moderate hiring

• Earnings trends also remain constructive as the final wave of Q1 reports comes through

• The key risk is whether elevated oil prices begin to weigh more heavily on inflation, margins, and consumer demand

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Circle ($CRCL) +20% after the Senate’s GENIUS Act stablecoin bill cleared a key procedural vote, removing a major regulatory overhang for USDC issuers.

• (–) GameStop ($GME) -10% because CEO Ryan Cohen publicly proposed a $55.5B cash-and-stock bid to acquire eBay, a deal five times GameStop’s own market cap.

• (–) UPS ($UPS) -10% after Amazon launched “Amazon Supply Chain Services,” opening its logistics network to third-party businesses.

Prediction Markets

• This lawsuit has huge implications for the future of AI.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Standard Intelligence, a model that trains on video rather than text, raised $75 million

• CMBlu Energy, a German maker of long-duration batteries, raised around $54 million

• Vivacta Bio, a Chinese developer of CAR-T cell therapies, raised $50 million​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

• Critical Loop, an on-site power provider for industry, raised $26 million​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

• Neato, a second-party e-commerce accelerator, raised $25 million

• Sonire Therapeutics, a developer of ultrasound devices for treating pancreatic cancer, raised $18 million​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

HEARD ON THE STREET

Which Bulge Bracket has the Best Mental Health?

Now you can find out. We just rolled out mental & physical health league tables on Wall Street 360, the first time the Street has ranked firms head-to-head on culture, not just comp.

Filter by:

• Bulge Brackets

• Elite Boutiques

• Middle Market

• Private Equity

• Country, city, or industry

The results are eye-opening. Some firms with the loudest reputations rank middle of the pack. Others you wouldn't expect are quietly outperforming. And a few elite boutiques are putting some bulge brackets to shame.

See where your firm stacks up.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Elon Take The Wheel

Description:
A critical and investigative look from Edward Niedermeyer at the promises and realities behind Tesla’s self-driving ambitions. The book examines the gap between marketing and technology, highlighting safety concerns, regulatory challenges, and the broader implications of deploying autonomous systems at scale. It offers a skeptical lens on innovation, emphasizing the importance of accountability, transparency, and rigorous testing in high-stakes technologies.

Book Length: 320 pages
Release Date: December 1, 2026

Ideal For:
Readers interested in technology, autonomous vehicles, and the risks and realities behind cutting-edge innovation.

Innovation without accountability can create as much risk as it does progress.

DAILY VISUAL

MAMA, I just spent $700 billion

PRESENTED BY ACRETRADER

The Asset Class You Can Walk On

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US farmland is worth $3.82 trillion. While past performance is not a guarantee of future results*, it’s generated positive returns every year for the past 30 years, while assets like gold and stocks have fluctuated. And, supply and demand are fundamental drivers for the farmland market: US acreage is shrinking while the global population grows.

AcreTrader gives exposure to this real, tangible asset and provides a way to round out your portfolio with an effective inflation hedge.

Explore farmland investing with AcreTrader and see their new fund here.

DAILY ACUMEN

Carry Trade

Every job in finance has a carry. Not the financial kind. The personal one. The thing the role gives you on top of the comp, paid in optionality, network, signal, or skill. Most people focus obsessively on the cash component and ignore the carry, which is usually where the real long-term value lives.

A two-year stint at the right firm can compound into opportunities that the salary alone could never buy. A higher-paying job at the wrong firm can quietly cost you ten years of optionality you did not know you were trading away. The math on these trades is almost never run honestly because the immediate number is so much easier to see than the trajectory.

Comp is what they pay you. Carry is what the seat is actually worth. Confusing the two is one of the most expensive mistakes a young person on the Street can make.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Why are you so tired all the time

• Why don’t we remember being babies?

• The high cost of living with the ultra-rich

• Advice on building a rewarding work life

• Are you exercising at the right time of day?

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

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🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.