Week of May 25, 2026

Anthropic is set to close a funding round exceeding $30 billion at a valuation above $900 billion as soon as this week, co-led by Sequoia Capital, Dragoneer, Altimeter Capital, and Greenoaks — each contributing roughly $2 billion — along with existing backers Founders Fund and General Catalyst. The raise would vault Anthropic past OpenAI's $852 billion March valuation, making it the world's most valuable private AI company. With annualized revenue reaching $14 billion (up from $380 billion post-money in February) and Claude Code's annualized revenue at $2.5 billion with enterprise users representing over half, this is a market declaring a winner in the enterprise AI platform fight — at least before a rumored October IPO.

A unanimous nine-member federal jury in Oakland ruled on May 18 that Elon Musk waited too long to sue OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, dismissing all claims on statute-of-limitations grounds after 11 days of testimony — with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers adopting the verdict on the spot. Musk had sought to force OpenAI to return more than $130 billion to its nonprofit arm and remove Altman and Greg Brockman from leadership, citing the company's shift from nonprofit to for-profit. The verdict clears a significant legal overhang on OpenAI's planned IPO and removes any structural threat to the $852 billion company's corporate governance just as it targets a blockbuster public listing.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned on May 12, ending a turbulent 13-month tenure marked by unexpected drug rejections, mass staff departures, and cross-cutting political pressure from both the MAHA movement and the traditional biopharma industry. Deputy Commissioner Kyle Diamantas — a lawyer without a medical degree — was named acting chief, leaving three of the FDA's top drug-review positions in 'acting' roles, each subject to a 210-day authority cap under federal law. The leadership void deepens regulatory uncertainty for biotech: Wall Street analysts warn the wide range of possible successors makes long-horizon drug development planning harder, even as sector indices sit near five-year highs.

The FDA approved Baxfendy (baxdrostat) on May 18 as the first-ever aldosterone synthase inhibitor cleared for adults with hypertension, adding a mechanistically novel option to a therapeutic area dominated by decades-old generics. AstraZeneca executives have called the drug a potential 'big product' targeting $5 billion or more in annual peak sales, positioning it as one of the year's most commercially significant approvals. The launch arrives as the FDA simultaneously navigates leadership turnover, raising questions about whether the approval pipeline will maintain momentum under acting commissioner Diamantas.

Startup-banking fintech Mercury closed a $200 million Series D led by TCV — with Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, and Sequoia participating — at a $5.2 billion valuation, up 49% from its March 2025 Series C in just 14 months. The raise comes weeks after Mercury received conditional OCC approval to establish Mercury Bank, N.A., which would let it retain more revenue, expand lending, and join the Zelle network rather than relying on partner banks. The company already serves more than 300,000 customers — including one in three U.S. startups — at $650 million in annualized revenue and four consecutive years of GAAP profitability, calling AI-driven entrepreneurship its biggest tailwind.

UCB agreed to acquire clinical-stage Candid Therapeutics for $2 billion upfront plus up to $200 million in milestones, adding a T-cell engager immunology platform to its pipeline in a deal expected to close by early Q3 2026 pending antitrust clearance. The acquisition underscores big pharma's continuing willingness to pay steep premiums for differentiated early-stage science — particularly in immunology, where competition from AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer remains fierce. Meanwhile, Amgen announced an additional $300 million investment in its Puerto Rico biologics manufacturing site, part of a broader U.S. reshoring push driven by tariff risk and supply-chain policy pressure.

The International Energy Agency's Global EV Outlook 2026 confirmed that electric car sales exceeded 20 million units in 2025 — roughly one-quarter of all new vehicles sold worldwide — with Europe posting the strongest regional growth at over 30%, driven by tightened EU CO2 standards. Germany alone hit a record 850,000 EV sales in 2025, up 50% year-over-year, while global sales are projected to reach roughly 23 million in 2026, representing about 28% of all new car sales. On the demand side, CNBC and Edmunds data showed the share of car buyers trading in gas vehicles for EVs jumped from 67.1% to 72.1% between January and April, fueled in part by surging fuel prices.