Inside the Iran War and the Pentagon's Feud with Anthropic with Under Secretary of War Emil Michael

ChamathCommentary

Chamath argues Anthropic's politicized terms-of-service and willingness to restrict enterprise customers based on internal philosophy is a structural business risk that could alienate both Republican and progressive constituencies, threatening its enterprise revenue base.

“I think that they have a massive instance of co-work running internally that helps them come up with business strategy. And I bet you there's some element of AI that says, "Yeah, you should do it. Do it. It just makes sense." Zig where they”▶ Listen · 1:08:59 ⚑

JasonCommentary

Jason believes Anthropic is undervalued relative to ChatGPT/OpenAI, suggesting its valuation should be higher, despite the Pentagon feud creating reputational risk.

“I, I, it's undervalued compared to ChatGPT.”▶ Listen · 1:04:13 ⚑

FriedbergCommentary

Friedberg argues Anthropic is worth significantly more than its $350B mark — potentially $1.5T — driven by explosive product adoption (Claude/Cowork), though notes the Pentagon feud and Google's coming competition are risks.

“I think Anthropic is the multiple bet. I think Anthropic is a trillion five market cap at the end of the day, unless this blows them up.”▶ Listen · 1:03:50 ⚑

Emil Michael states Grok/xAI has agreed to all lawful use cases across all classified and unclassified networks with no policy restrictions, making it the most cooperative AI partner for the Department of War.

“Grok's all in for all awful use cases across all classified and unclassified networks, as you'd expect, because, and you know, Elon's truth-seeking. We want truth in Department of War. We don't want ideology.”▶ Listen · 52:10 ⚑

FriedbergCommentarytracking with the call

Friedberg argues Google is the best net market value creation bet among AI platform companies due to its own cloud infrastructure (eliminating margin pass-through) and ability to integrate AI agents directly into G Suite at scale.

“I think Google is the bet. I think Google is the market value creator bet, but I think Anthropic is the multiple bet. I think Anthropic is a trillion five market cap at the end of the day, unless this blows them up.”▶ Listen · 1:03:45 ⚑

FriedbergCommentary

Friedberg discusses how the IRGC's shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz caused insurance premiums on oil tankers to spike 5x and markets to shut down, framing this as a massive risk to energy prices globally and US economic security.

“That's obviously a massive risk to energy prices globally, which drives inflation and puts US economic security at risk.”▶ Listen · 39:53 ⚑

Emil Michael highlights Anduril as a key beneficiary of the shift in defense procurement toward low-cost, attritable unmanned systems, explicitly naming it as a company he wants to win big contracts quickly to drive the defense tech flywheel.

“What I need to do, and what department needs to do, is have some of these companies win big contracts quick, like whether, you know, Androl, sure, um, uh, Saronic, sure, like a bunch of these companies, so that more money flows in, more ent”▶ Listen · 1:14:19 ⚑